Baltimore lagging on pothole repairs in 2026, but ‘blitz’ is underway

Facing a mounting number of road craters opening on city streets after this month’s snowstorm, the Baltimore City Department of Transportation has launched a “pothole blitz.”

Dump trucks are patrolling Charm City’s pockmarked roads to pack asphalt into potholes big and small.

But they have their work cut out for them. Extreme cold and winter weather have stymied their operations, and crews have filled only half as many potholes as last year at this time.

As the city plays from behind, residents likely hope this blitz is better than that of the Ravens, whose pass rush in 2025 could generously be called mid.

Baltimoreans like Leslie Kopchinski would certainly thank the city for it.

Kopchinski knew the dicey section of Moravia Road as it approaches Interstate 95 was a shape-shifter — the concrete surface had been rough for years, she said, patched with asphalt so often it might redefine the time frame of a temporary fix. She thought she knew where her tires should go, though.

But last week: a loud clunk. A sudden jolt.

“You hear the huge crash of your shocks [and] you kind of cross your fingers, is this going to be just a sound?” said Kopchinski, 47, of Northeast Baltimore. “You can almost hear the tire deflating.”

As temperatures have risen recently, the winter weather that sneaked into the cracks in pavement has loosened things. Like a crisp apple to a baby tooth, the rubber-tired boxes of steel that we use to get around have dislodged asphalt and concrete by the chunk, leaving roads looking increasingly like minefields.

Transportation department spokesperson Kathy Dominick encouraged residents to report pothole locations to 311 and said crews are working daily to address them as quickly as they can. Crews are also performing “pickup repairs,” meaning they’ll stop and fill a pothole they encounter even if it hasn’t been reported.

She did not answer some questions, including how many crews are out across Baltimore’s roughly 2,000 miles of roads and hundreds of bridges.

Residents have filed more than 2,800 pothole requests this year, according to data from 311. Though the data is incomplete (it shows only what residents have reported and cannot serve as a realistic account of all potholes), it shows a spike in requests since the recent winter storm.

It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole. By this time in 2025, the transportation department had filled roughly 16,800 potholes, Dominick wrote in an email. This year, it has repaired about half that number.

Inclement weather forced workers to pause operations, she said. Wet roads and frigid temps in January and February were not conducive to patching. Asphalt can be finicky, and it needs the right conditions (i.e. not extreme cold) to properly cure.

Even under the right conditions, quickly done fixes can quickly become undone. On Wednesday, a “watch for pedestrians” sign had been discarded inside a particularly deep crater at the intersection of Patterson Park Avenue and Gough Street. By Thursday, the hole had been filled but some of the edges already had caved in.

Some might look to the smooth roads of other U.S. cities that aim to fill a pothole in a day or two and ask why Baltimore can’t have nice things. Many have internalized a defeated yet compassionate acceptance that potholes are simply so Baltimore that they could name that future soccer team after them.

As in football, so in road maintenance: Defense wins championships. Experts say the best way to keep roads in good shape is proper, timely maintenance.

However, the amount of money flowing to Baltimore for road resurfacing has dropped over time after state lawmakers changed the road funding formulas for local governments. The city struggles to repave its road network as a result. And a lack of coordination with companies like BGE and the Department of Public Works has chewed up many roads after utility work with no sense of when they will get repaved.

Drivers can even seek compensation for damages if they believe the city didn’t address the road condition when it should have. Claims must be filed with the city law department within one year, and they require at least one estimate from an auto shop.

Investigators look into whether city government “had notice of an alleged defect which caused the loss and a reasonable opportunity to correct the defect,” City Solicitor Ebony Thompson wrote in an email. If the city did not receive prior notice (i.e. a 311 request) or made repairs in a timely manner once noticed, a claim could be denied, she added.

From 2020-24, the city paid out an average of about $46,000 per year for such claims. It received about 130 per year across that period, a quarter of which were paid out.

Claimants have to fill out this form, which includes a section for a detailed description of what happened and even a rudimentary drawing, and either hand-deliver it to 100 N. Holliday Street or send it by certified mail. The form cannot be submitted through regular mail, according to the city’s website.

Kopchinski said she plans to file one. Several other drivers had pulled over after hitting the same spot on Moravia Road that she did, she said, meaning other claims may be coming.

“There was a flurry of AAA vans and cars, and everyone was trying to stop and figure out which car to respond to,” she said.