A large pothole on the city’s north side.
It’s that time of the year again. Pothole season. Drive anywhere in the city and you are likely to quickly run into these nuisances for drivers, which can pose a safety concern for just about anyone driving or walking near a road. Beyond tire damage, potholes can also damage your car’s rims, suspension and alignment.
Last year alone, the Department of Public Works reported that by May, more than 5,000 requests for pothole repairs had been reported across the city. A study from the AAA auto club also found that U.S. drivers spend $3 billion on repairs from pothole damage to their cars every year.
So we decided to do something about this. Or at least try.
Driving around the city’s north side, we picked three larger than usual potholes and reported them to the city for service all within five minutes of each other Friday morning. These potholes are all on less busy side streets, but still posed an obvious problem for drivers, as all three are near the center of the road.
The city has three main ways to report these potholes—online, by phone or through their new Milwaukee service app. However, after numerous failed attempts at finding and downloading the city’s service app, we instead used the city’s website and called the city’s service line phone number (both of these options will be listed below).
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The city’s service website took about one minute to request the service. The city’s phone number took about five minutes, as we were on hold for a few minutes. After reaching an operator, the request took less than a minute. Each request did produce a service confirmation number which allows you to check the service of the status. “Some action should occur within 1-10 business days,” the website said after the request was made.
The three requests were made from 11:10-11:20 a.m. on Friday, March 15, 2019.
Now, we wait. We will update this story daily to track the progress of the requests. You can check the status of the requests yourself here.
The Locations
1304 W. Ring St.
Confirmation Number: 3215666
902 W. Nash St.
Confirmation Number: 3215673
4915 N. 24th Pl.
The confirmation number 101002665446, which was provided to us by the operator, did not yield any results on the service request website. We will call back daily to check on the status of this repair.
Report Them
To report potholes online, visit the city’s website.
To report potholes by phone, call the Infrastructure Services Division - Field Operations at (414) 286-CITY (2489).
Updated: 2:15 p.m. Monday
After visiting each of the three sites on Monday morning, we found that all three of the potholes we reported have been filled.
Each of the three potholes looked as if they were recently filled, however, only one of the service requests said the issue was officially “resolved” when we checked the city’s website Monday afternoon.
The city’s website said the 902 W. Nash St. pothole was repaired at 12:57 p.m. on Friday, however, we could not confirm that.
We have reached out to the Department of Public Works regarding the current average time it takes to repair potholes across the city, as well as how many potholes crews are currently in the process of repairing.
1304 W. Ring St.
