St. Paul filling potholes with "hot mix," a semi-permanent solution, before asphalt plant opens

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- We're sick of seeing them, but after months of dodging potholes on Twin Cities streets, a more sustainable solution starts this week.

St. Paul Public Works partnered with an independent contract vendor to provide them with a "hot mixture" to fill the potholes. On Tuesday, they had four crews out filling potholes with "hot mix" on arterial streets throughout the city.

This comes as a relief for drivers who have already fallen victim to potholes.

"I was coming east on Pennsylvania Avenue, and all these potholes right here, my truck was bouncing...bouncing," said Jerry Thomas. "I heard a loud bang and then my truck was running funny, I was hearing all these noises."

He ended up with a broken axle.

"It costs me a lot of money to get it out of the shop, and an inconvenience," said Thomas.

Starting this week, St. Paul Public works is able to address these divots with a better solution than what they've been using all winter.

They're now using a hot mix. It has an adhesive that keeps the filling intact a lot better than the cold mix, which washes away with every rain, snow and re-freeze.

Crews also tackled the large potholes on Shepard Road, along the river. There are so many to fill, two of the crews on Tuesday ran out of material in the middle of the day and had to delay repairs to get more. But a slow fix is better than no fix.

"It's a long time coming. Hopefully, this will work out, it just remains to be seen," said Thomas.

St. Paul Public Works says they can't open their asphalt plant until they have several days in a row where the temperature doesn't dip below 35 degrees, that includes at nighttime. They hope they'll be able to open the asphalt plant by April 3, weather permitting.