Driving in Pittsfield last fall, I hit a pothole. Hard.
I was headed south on North Street when, just south of the intersection of Springside Avenue, the car’s left front wheel encountered what I’ve since come to think of as a “guerilla” pothole. These are tough to avoid because they’re hard to see, especially in certain light; it was midafternoon of a sunny day and the road surface appeared to be unblemished. Too late did I realize that the “pothole” was more like a bump, apparently caused by an abrupt change in the thickness of asphalt applied as a presumably temporary repair. It was especially sneaky because it didn’t extend the entire width of the travel lane, which might have increased its visibility. Thus, the “guerilla” appellation.
After exhausting the torrent of invective that the incident inspired, I recalled a conversation I had many years ago with the late Edward M. Reilly, who was then mayor of Pittsfield and a former city solicitor.
The subject was potholes. Reilly was expounding his belief, which I came to share, that most repairs of potholes at the frigid heights of their season were likely to be a waste of time and money.
The fixes never seemed to last more than a week at most, and often worsened the problem by adding chunks of debris to potholes and the area around them.
My talk with Reilly occurred midway through a winter that was alleged at the time to have been the “worst for potholes” in decades. Citizens demanded action, and some of their elected representatives responded with salvos of news releases. The kerfuffle brightened an otherwise dull winter, and this newspaper joined in the fun by introducing a pothole hotline. I had some experience with these, having served a term as editor of my former paper’s biweekly phone-in agony column, “What’s Your Beef?” Once again, albeit temporarily, I found myself in charge of monitoring the hotline and chronicling the results.
Like many pothole repairs, the columns turned out to be relatively short-lived: The same cast of characters turned up time after time, and it became increasingly clear that complaints were being “planted” for political effect. The progression from “hoot” to “yawn” is faster than what might be expected, and the columns eventually “made like MacArthur,” as a former boss liked to say, and faded away.
I remember asking Reilly if the city could be held liable for damage inflicted by a pothole strike. He replied that it could, but only under limited circumstances, virtually all of which may prevail only if the city is given proper notice of the existence of the hazard. He recalled that during his term as city solicitor, Pittsfield paid only one claim: $100 for a new tire to replace one that had been destroyed by a pothole struck days after a letter demanding repairs and money damages was received at City Hall.
On the day I hit the pothole on North Street, I spent much of the remainder of the afternoon composing in my head a letter ratting out the pothole and requesting reimbursement for my repair expenses. (The campaign fizzled after my mechanic declared the car to be unharmed and fit for duty.)
The incident came to mind recently when I read The Eagle’s report on details of the state Highway Department’s estimated $9 million plan to build what one of my late aunts liked to call a “rotisserie” in the general area of my pothole strike. Road and sidewalk improvements are also envisioned.
I like to think that the psychic voltage generated by the outrage suffered by me and countless other pothole-thumped motorists impelled fate to do its stuff and inspire sensible, permanent improvements to this badly tangled knot in Pittsfield’s infrastructure.
Nine million dollars’ worth of work? That’ll teach those potholes to mess with me. As that great stooge Moe Howard said: “I’ll fix you.”
