Predictive Analysis Coming for Potholes in San Diego

San Diego’s push for better city services in low-income neighborhoods will soon extend to pothole repair, where officials say they plan to start using predictive analysis to find pothole hotspots that don’t get reported.

While San Diego has made significant progress in recent years speeding up pothole repairs and handling them more efficiently, officials said this week that their complaint-based approach raises social equity concerns. Significantly fewer potholes get reported in San Diego’s low-income areas than in high-income areas, a problem city officials suggest may be related to language barriers, lack of technology and less trust in government.

“Quite frankly, I think there are certain expectations that are different in different communities — the bar has been set very low over the years,” City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera said of the city’s low-income areas.

“Sadly, potholes aren’t the worst thing they are dealing with on a day-to-day basis, nor are they things that are expected to be filled quickly,” said Elo-Rivera, who represents mid-city District 9. “When those expectations are low, the reporting of potholes doesn’t necessarily come forward in the same way as it might from other parts of the city.”

In response to a recent audit that raised concerns about equity, officials in the city’s Streets Division are working with the Office of Race and Equity and the Performance and Analytics Department on a complex formula. The goal is to find areas where there is likely to be a high concentration of unreported potholes, said Patrick Hadley, a deputy director in the Transportation Department who leads the Streets Division.

The analysis will be based partly on the overall condition of a street segment in a comprehensive survey completed last year, Hadley said. Another key factor will be how recently the segment was paved or slurried, he said.

Evidence of equity problems includes much lower numbers of potholes being reported in the city’s three poorest council districts. Each of the city’s nine districts would account for just over 11% of pothole reports if reports were distributed equally across the city. But South Bay District 8 accounts for just 6% of reports, southeastern District 4 is the source of 8% and mid-city District 9 makes up 11%. Meanwhile, higher-income Districts 2, 3 and 6 each account for 14% or more of pothole reports.

City officials said, however, that the analysis will need to be more complex than just using those disparities.

A key factor in predicting potholes is whether a street has heavy traffic, and the city’s high-income areas tend to have more heavily trafficked streets. Officials also note that Districts 4, 8 and 9 have fewer total miles of roadway.

Councilmember Vivian Moreno, who represents District 8 , said she’s certain underreporting is a key factor in the pothole reporting disparities.

“There’s a whole lot of potholes that need to be addressed in District 8 , so there’s clearly an issue related to reporting,” said Moreno, suggesting key factors are language barriers and lack of access to the city’s online complaint app, Get It Done.

“If there is a barrier to someone to report something, they are less likely to report it,” she said.

Councilmember Joe LaCava, who represents high-income north coastal District 1 , said he supports the new equity approach on potholes.

“People don’t have the Get It Done app, they don’t trust government or they don’t want to call attention to their particular neighborhood,” he said, explaining why people in low-income areas may be less likely to report potholes.

But LaCava stressed that San Diego has come a long way on potholes in recent years.

“I know I’ve seen a remarkable sea change,” said LaCava, adding that potholes are no longer the No. 1 complaint his office gets.

City officials said potholes now get repaired within three days, on average, except during rainy season. And they said the backlog last March, the highest backlog of the year, was 393 — far less than previous years when the backlog often climbed over 2,000.

Things are likely to get even better in about a year when the city gets a new patching truck it just bought for $174,000.

The recent audit, which was released last spring, also recommended the city add mapping software to increase efficiency by reducing the distances between pothole jobs.

City officials have agreed to explore such software, but Hadley said it’s unlikely to matter outside of the rainy winter months.

“Ten months out of the year, we’re responding to potholes within three days,” said Hadley, contending that mapping software would only help with higher volumes of pothole repairs. “But there is a portion of the year when the numbers go up, so that sort of software could become beneficial for us.”

The audit said mapping software would let crews repair 27% more potholes at no extra cost. It said it would also reduce their driving distances by 40%.

San Diego spends about $4 million a year on pothole repair.

Recent innovations include having crews work four 10-hour shifts instead of five eight-hour shifts. That is more efficient because each shift must start with a trip to get asphalt in Miramar. Another innovation was the “hot roads” initiative, where crews mill and pave streets more frequently if those streets historically get lots of potholes.

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