More Than 6,000 Repairs Made During Potholepalooza

Media Contact: John Lisle at (202) 671-2004

(Washington, DC) Potholepalooza, the District Department of Transportation’s (DDOT) month-long campaign to expedite pothole repairs, officially came to a close Saturday, April 11. In all, crews from DDOT’s Street and Bridge Maintenance Branch filled a grand total of 6,084 potholes during Potholepalooza, which began on Wednesday, March 11.

“We had a lot of fun interacting with the public on this campaign,” said DDOT Director Gabe Klein, “and we also got a lot of serious work done. I tip my hat to the hard working men and women of this department who really did a fantastic job.”

Potholepalooza was a first-of-its-kind effort to enlist members of the public as partners by encouraging them to report potholes by any and all means available. More than 500 residents and motorists did just that, submitting service requests by telephone, email, text message and on the internet.

In turn, crews worked to repair the identified potholes within 48 hours (normal response time is within 72 hours). They also proactively scouted city streets and located hundreds of additional potholes to repair, and daily updates on their progress were posted on DDOT’s website.

Now, Potholepalooza is over but people are encouraged to continue to contact DDOT to report potholes or make other service requests. There are a variety of ways to do that: 1) call the Mayor’s Call Center at 311, 2) use the On-line Service Request Center at dc.gov, 3) text message/Tweet to twitter.com/DDOTDC.