The heavy rains in January helped to damage the streets even more. This is just the beginning of a three month, pothole-filling blitz throughout the city of Oakland. In a zone, downtown on Jackson Street, the work will begin to fill some of those hundreds of holes frustrating communities citywide.
This pothole filling effort first started as a pilot program two years ago. After the heavy winter storms of 2006, the Oakland Public Works Department repaired streets damaged from all the rain and from wear-and-tear.
This year, crews will focus on a different geographical service area for one week each -- during February, March and April. This week alone, they expect to fill an estimated 850 potholes.
The city admits the damaged streets have become a 'quality of life issue' for Oakland's residents and visitors -- it fields upwards of 250 pothole complaints a month.
The pothole project will bring some relief for now, but public works says it is a strategy that basically uses limited resources to alleviate a larger problem. Potholes and cracks will continue to resurface, until the city gets capital funding to resurface the streets.
