City takes a bow on pothole repairs

Chicago is boasting about potholes — not about having them, but about filling them.

The city’s Department of Transportation says new strategies for fixing them have helped whittle down a backlog of unrepaired holes.

Last May, there were more than 9,000 outstanding calls for pothole crews. Now, there are a mere 300.

New methods include a technology that lets supervisors efficiently map routes so crews can fill the most holes in the shortest time.

And trucks no longer have to drive all the way out to asphalt plants. Now, they pick up the material from four neighborhood field offices.

The city concedes the mild winter has lowered the number of potholes. But it insists the new approaches deserve a lot of credit.

City crews filled nearly 600,000 potholes in 2011.