The thaw after this 12 months’s unusually icy winter has brought about havoc on the roads — and has lead New Yorkers to make a record-setting variety of pothole complaints to the town.
A jaw-dropping 22,887 pothole stories have been made within the Huge Apple by means of March 21 — marking a 119% enhance over the ten,408 complaints made in the identical interval final 12 months, based on a Submit evaluation.
That deluge of discontent marks the biggest year-over-year enhance in pothole complaints to the 311 system ever.
New Yorkers additionally displayed their anger over the highway floor circumstances on social media, showcasing tire-busting tracks – together with one gap so deep {that a} visitors cone sunk into it.
“That’s not even a pothole, that’s a manhole,” quipped uptown resident Alejandro Rolon in an Instagram video exhibiting off a formidable pothole on West 131st Road.
This season’s monster snow storms – and ensuing freezing and thawing cycles – yielded so many potholes that the town has been addressing the onslaught of calls with “blitz” restore days, fixing practically a weeks’ value of holes in a single day, the town Division of Transportation stated.
Saturday’s blitz alone resulted in 8,000 potholes repaired by 80 crews, with greater than 70,000 craters in complete stuffed this 12 months to date, DOT reps stated.
“The high-moisture and thawing circumstances proceed,” NYC DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn stated Friday, “and which means our work just isn’t carried out.”
This 12 months has been among the many worst for potholes on document, based on the town’s public grievance information that dates again to 2004.
The skyrocketing pothole grievance numbers are solely behind calls made in 2011 (24,043), 2014 (28,960) and 2015 (27,645) from Jan. 1 to March 21.
Of 2026’s 22,887 pothole complaints, Queens reps greater than half — with 10,259 stories.
Brooklyn trails behind with 3,964 calls thus far this 12 months, adopted by Manhattan (3,042), Staten Island (2,820) and The Bronx (2,681).
Streets with greater than 100 pothole stories filed this 12 months embody Union Turnpike, Roosevelt Avenue and Northern, Springfield, Queens, Astoria and Rockaway boulevards.
The town’s pothole disaster has already turned lethal. A 46-year-old man was killed earlier this month after his stand-up scooter struck a pothole in Ozone Park, Queens.
Whereas potholes are usually stuffed by metropolis employees inside two days on common, greater than 4,000 calls to 311 courting again to Jan. 1 are nonetheless marked as “open,” based on metropolis information.
“To place it bluntly, it’s been a winter from hell. Particularly for our roads,” NYC Council leaders wrote in a letter to Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the DOT, demanding one other $46 million to repair the town’s pothole downside.
The request would develop the town’s annual road-resurfacing goal by one other 200 lane miles – bringing it to 1,350 for the fiscal 12 months starting in July.
On the identical time, some union members have admitted the Huge Apple doesn’t have sufficient employees to satisfy the demand.
“We simply don’t have the manpower to do the job in a well timed method,” stated Joe Puleo, president of Native 983 of District Council 37, which represents assistant freeway repairers.
Puleo advised The Submit he doesn’t anticipate all of the potholes to be stuffed till June.
“NYC DOT continues to satisfy or exceed its annual paving purpose of 1,100 lane miles—sufficient to stretch from New York Metropolis to Miami,” stated DOT spokesperson Mona Bruno.
“We are going to proceed to work with the Metropolis Council to align priorities and sources to ship for all New Yorkers.”
