Star Tribune
Minneapolis sets record for potholes following snowy 2023
Minneapolis had a historically bad year for potholes in 2023, with more complaints than in any other year on record, according to a new report from the city.
In total, Minneapolis had nearly 9,400 calls to the city’s 311 line regarding potholes, up from roughly 2,900 in 2022.
The main factor was the icy weather: The Twin Cities had the third-snowiest winter on record from 2022 to 2023. That extra snow melt ravaged city roads, seeping through cracks in the asphalt before refreezing and expanding, causing the pavement to swell up before vehicles drive over the swells and break them open.
A city spokesperson said the data on potholes does not go back for the entire history of Minneapolis, but she noted that 2023 is believed to have had the most in one season.
The city’s report included pothole data from 2017 to 2023. It showed that pothole reports previously spiked in 2018 and 2019. In those years, there were roughly 5,000 and 5,300 reports, respectively, of potholes in the city.
Minneapolis car-repair shop owners said last winter was the worst for potholes and frustrating, too, for the length of time it took for the city to patch the holes.
“We were seeing the potholes everywhere, and everyone had to keep avoiding them because the city wasn’t patching them fast enough,” said Stanley Pryor, owner of the Autopia repair shop in south Minneapolis. “We were getting customers trying to get paid by the city, because it was causing a lot of damage to their vehicles.”
It took 19.4 days on average to fill a pothole in 2023, compared with 7.7 days in 2022 and 5.4 in 2021.
One difficulty with repairing potholes is the city cannot fix them with a more permanent solution until the weather warms enough each spring to fill in with a hot asphalt mix. Until then, cities are limited to using a temporary “cold mix” of asphalt that lasts only a few weeks. The city’s report showed that the average time it takes to fill a pothole increases in years with a larger number of potholes.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey directed the city’s Public Works team in May to use additional overtime and weekend hours “to make sure we are filling as many of the potholes as we can while we wait for a permanent fix.”
The city was ranked as having some of the worst potholes in the country in studies this past year. The insurance comparison website QuoteWizard analyzed search statistics related to potholes and determined that Minneapolis ranked second in searches for pothole remedies and complaints related to potholes in 2023. In first place? Los Angeles, where excessive rain last year soaked into cracks and weakened the roads, before the city’s notorious traffic caused further damage.
Statewide, Minnesota ranked first among states for pothole searches online. USA Today conducted a similar study about search results and ranked Minneapolis as the third-worst city in terms of potholes in 2023, behind New York and Los Angeles.
Pryor and Bill Miller, owner of Bill The Tire Guy shop in north Minneapolis, both said they sustained significant vehicle damage because of potholes. Pryor said he crashed into a car ahead of him that abruptly stopped because it hit a large pothole. Miller, meanwhile, said his car was totaled after it hit a pothole.
“It knocked the front end out of line, and I had to junk it,” Miller said.
Transforming the heart of both downtowns, which have much larger buildings than old warehouses, is going to take a lot more money, creativity and time. Josh Talberg, managing director at downtown Minneapolis brokerage JLL, said with no major apartment buildings on the drawing board in either downtown, the fleet of empty office buildings present a golden opportunity to create more housing and lead both cities in a new direction.
“You can can certainly see the fundamentals improving, and you can feel that vibrancy, and that’s ultimately the foundation that’s needed to get investors to reinvest in the city,” he said. “But it’s not as if these 18-wheelers can turn on a dime.”
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
