Kathik Patel was driving his friend’s car a few weeks ago when they hit something — hard.
They aren’t the only Ottawa driver to sustain damage to their vehicles because of potholes on roads in poor condition.
“Me and my friends were going to eat something at 1 a.m.,” says Patel. “The next morning my friend went over there just to check what happened. What did we hit? That’s when we figured out that it was a pothole.”
Patel says that the front axle and other parts of his friend’s car were mangled.
“I fixed the car because I was the one driving it and it cost me around $1,700.”
Patel and his friends did not report the pothole to the city. He says they are new to Ottawa and had no idea that it was an option.
Like Patel, Tomer Gluzman and Talor Suji were driving through the city on April 29, when suddenly they hit a pothole and they “flew.”
Gluzman says the car was lowered, which made the pothole impact more intense.
“We flew, then I heard things leaking. It was his gas and oil pan that exploded. It leaked everywhere,” he says.
According to Gluzman, they waited five hours for a tow truck to arrive and the car repairs were expensive.
Pothole complaints in Ottawa have been as common as the changing seasons, according to data collected by the city’s 311 phone system.
And one ward, Alta Vista, has regularly had the most complaints in the city for years. But, even though it still tops the list, according to data obtained by Capital Current, complaints have fallen by around 90 per cent in the first 11 months of 2024.
Alta Vista
“I’m pleased to see the reduction,” says Marty Carr, the Alta Vista Ward councillor. “There’s always a mixed opinion on whether we should be funding roads, but roads are for everyone.”
“[Alta Vista Drive is] one of the worst roads in the city, but that entire road is due for renewal and it’s been on a waiting list … for many, many years,” she said.
Carr says that she focused in on potholes during 2023, dedicating a section on her website to proactively identifying potholes and other road maintenance issues and getting them patched. She is especially concerned with sidewalks along Alta Vista Drive. Her site reads: “she and her staff are working to have this work actioned by the City of Ottawa.
“I’m always jealous of my colleagues who get, like, you know, Ariel Troster’s got these brand new state-of-the-art washrooms coming. My colleague, Riley Brockington, is getting a community centre redeveloped. And here I am celebrating the fact that we’re getting road and sewer renewals, but that’s what we need in this ward because of the age of the infrastructure,” Carr told Capital Current.
According to the city's draft budget for 2025, $12.3 million will be issued to filling potholes. The draft also says that the city's average number of potholes filled yearly, over the last five years, is a whopping 216,550.
About $98.7 million will be spent on road renewal in 2024 according to a report released in September by the Auditor General's office.
Lucas Calvin worked as a lube technician at Myers Barrhaven Toyota for more than a year before studying at Carleton University.
"Most of the time hitting a pothole, everything is going to be fine because cars are fundamentally designed to do that," he says. "Often what you're looking at is an accumulation of damage."
Calvin says that higher speeds or deeper potholes, however, will cause damage beyond normal wear and tear, with a car's wheels and suspension being hit the hardest.
And with winter fast approaching, snowy roads create rust which can make damage worse.
"The best possible situation for a car is your buttery-smooth highway. The further you get from that, the worse things are," he says. "You put snow and ice on top of that, that's a little bit worse. You fill it with potholes, that's a little bit worse."
In 2024, potholes have been the 11th most common complaint to the city, according to a Capital Current analysis of 311 data, one below solid waste collection and five spots above complaints for loud music.
