Pothole Nomenclature

Time for another bumper crop of potholes, and instead of thinking there is one with my name on it, I've decided to name them first. Here's my categories for potholes:

Asphalt Acne: rough, rumbly surface, not too deep, just damn annoying
rip in the space-time continuum (long broken seam)

The Post-Hole: about 10 inches a round, but about 10 feet deep.

Crater Lake: a puddle with a nasty surprise, it may begin with Acne but degrade into Post-Holes or worse.

Humpback Whales: Those odd lumps at bus stops, the wheels create a big swale of pavement.

Broke Bike Mountain: Anytime Streets and San fills a pothole to create a mound.

The Rip in the Space-Time Continuum: long narrow trenches along the seams in the road.

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Permalink Reply by Liz on February 18, 2011 at 3:51am

Back in college I interned in a public works department.  Part of the job of the interns was to drive around the village streets rating pavement and then using a special GIS linked program with some formulas for overall pavement quality.  The results would be color coded and presented at village meetings to determine which streets would get repaved.   In the hours spent rating pavement we came up with the following nicknames:

 

Cookie - for raveling (losing the top layer of asphalt) since cookies crumble

Pirate - for large patched sections

Squirrel - small patched sections

Zebra-lateral cracking (perpendicular to the direction of road)

Giraffe-longitudinal cracking (along the length of the road)

Momma, pappa, and baby gaitor cracks

Canyon - sink holes (deep holes around sewer lines indicating poor backfill)

Rollercoaster - rutting

 

These seemed much more cleaver in college.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on February 18, 2011 at 4:21am

I see a lot of the shallow moon-craters lately.  These are where the topmost repaving layer delaminates from the lower layers and a roundish section crumbles away leaving a large but shallow crater with a secondary smooth road-surface a couple of inches below the level of where the rest of the road is.

 

When it rains and they start to fill there is no way to know if they are only a couple inches deep or go all the way down to Hades.  Since they are very shallow it doesn't take much rain at all to totally fill them to the point where they almost disappear -while deeper potholes that go all the way down to the substrata usually don't get filled to the top unless it is really raining hard. 

 

I hate these ninja potholes.  They aren't bad for cars as they are not very deep but on a bike any pothole can be an issue especially for the thin-wheelers. 

Permalink Reply by Jane Healy on February 18, 2011 at 6:20am

 

Ha, Ninja potholes!  I like that.

I hate, hate, *HATE* the innocent puddle that turns out to be a bike eater.  ARrggghgghh!

 

Thank goodness the plowed snow "curbs" are melting.  All too often they forced me to have to ride full on in traffic to avoid the mystery puddles.  I'm fully confident to ride in traffic (and do it every day), but I am tired of people honking at me to get out of the road. :::sigh:::

 

I've been seeing a lot of "time tunnels" in Blue Island lately.  There are some particularly impressive stretches on Greenwood, just S. of 123rd Street.  Of course, all of Blue Island is pretty much road acne or Swiss cheese.  :-(       LIke an earlier poster, I had to replace a good tire two weeks ago due to a beginning sidewall tear, no doubt created as a result of having to ride cr*ptastic roads every day.

 

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on February 18, 2011 at 6:43am
Time tunnels - yikes!  I'm just starting to get out and ride again post-surgery.  I'm glad to see that so much of the snow has melted and puddles evaporated so the crater lakes are less mysterious and we can really see where the holes are.  Wood St. is still relatively crater-free for much of its run through Beverly.  :)  Leavitt between 103rd and 99th is at the other end of the scale - nearly continuous acne with occasional bike eaters.
Permalink Reply by in it to win it 8.0 mi on February 18, 2011 at 8:22am

Saw something the other day that I'd probably get run over trying to get a photo of.  Crossing the Wells St bridge just North of Wacker I avoided the bike lane on the right due to very slippery snow.  While on the grating I just noticed rusted out areas of the grating that had sharp edges and maybe could grab a bike tire hitting it just right.  Kinda scared sh**less for a moment.

What would you call that? 

Permalink Reply by Holly on February 18, 2011 at 8:24am
I decided to change my route after landing on my top tube while riding through a Crater Lake. YEOUCH!
Permalink Reply by Barry Niel Stuart on February 18, 2011 at 11:06am
Last summer, on Oakland and north in Milwaukee's East Side, we had the Mother of All Sinkholes.  It was so big that it swallowed up a traffic signal and a Cadillac Escalade SUV.  This hole took a couple of months to fill in, but before that could happen, the traffic signal and the SUV had to be fished out.  Problem was, the Escalade had a practically full tank of gas when it fell into the sinkhole.It took about a week of constant running before the Escalade finally ran out of gas.  I saw the extraction of both traffic signal and Escalade.   Its owner has since gotten a new one.
Permalink Reply by Joe Watrach on February 18, 2011 at 6:18pm
A lot of the roads by my school are covered in Asphalt Acne mixed with Post Holes where the street has caved in and you can't see anything but blackness.  I'm terrified I'm gonna Pac Man my wheels.
Permalink Reply by Tank-Ridin' Ryan on February 19, 2011 at 6:04am
Are there pictures?  SUV-eating sinkholes definitely need to be documented.

Barry Niel Stuart said:
Last summer, on Oakland and north in Milwaukee's East Side, we had the Mother of All Sinkholes.  It was so big that it swallowed up a traffic signal and a Cadillac Escalade SUV.  This hole took a couple of months to fill in, but before that could happen, the traffic signal and the SUV had to be fished out.  Problem was, the Escalade had a practically full tank of gas when it fell into the sinkhole.It took about a week of constant running before the Escalade finally ran out of gas.  I saw the extraction of both traffic signal and Escalade.   Its owner has since gotten a new one.
Permalink Reply by Tank-Ridin' Ryan on February 19, 2011 at 6:06am

Black Holes?

Joe Watrach said:

where the street has caved in and you can't see anything but blackness
Permalink Reply by Michael A on February 19, 2011 at 9:17am
A buddy of mine donated a fairly new set of zipp 404's to a huge pot hole on Sheridan..... About 1/4 mile north of plaza del lago
Permalink Reply by S on February 19, 2011 at 10:44am
Ask and you shall receive

Tank-Ridin' Ryan said:
Are there pictures?  SUV-eating sinkholes definitely need to be documented.

Barry Niel Stuart said:
Last summer, on Oakland and north in Milwaukee's East Side, we had the Mother of All Sinkholes.  It was so big that it swallowed up a traffic signal and a Cadillac Escalade SUV.  This hole took a couple of months to fill in, but before that could happen, the traffic signal and the SUV had to be fished out.  Problem was, the Escalade had a practically full tank of gas when it fell into the sinkhole.It took about a week of constant running before the Escalade finally ran out of gas.  I saw the extraction of both traffic signal and Escalade.   Its owner has since gotten a new one.

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