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Our Hole Patrol reached the end of its labors last week, identifying Portland’s gnarliest pothole on Southeast Tibbetts Street, two blocks from Fubonn (“Portland’s Biggest Pothole,” WW, April 24). But readers who closely followed the contest remembered we made a promise: a splendid prize for whoever submitted a photo of the worst asphalt. Indeed, we will be mailing beanies reading “Hole Patrol” to the eight contestants whose holes were featured in our bracket. Wear them with pride. Meanwhile, several readers sent correspondence regarding the sorry state of Portland streets.
CLIMATE CHANGE ISN’T CAUSING POTHOLES
We are Portland-based climate scientists with expertise on extreme temperatures and climate change. We both enjoyed reading your excellent reporting on the origins of Portland’s pothole/paving problems in this week’s edition of Willamette Week. However, we noticed a statement in the article about cold snaps and climate change that we felt was worth addressing.
While it is commonly cited outside of the scientific community that global warming is leading to more extreme cold, the observational evidence in fact points to the opposite. Extreme cold is becoming LESS frequent and LESS cold due to global warming, and this trend is expected to continue. To illustrate this locally, the last time we had a cold outbreak like the one we experienced last January was in 1990, and before that, such outbreaks were much more common. While January showed that severe cold waves can still occur, they are happening less often because the climate has warmed. And when they happen, they are not as cold as they were in the past, although they tend to garner a lot of attention which may affect public perception. How the polar vortex is affected by global warming is still the subject of active scientific research. However, regardless of what happens to the polar vortex, the Arctic is rapidly warming with less cold air available compared to the past. We feel it is important to bring this up in hopes of helping to improve how climate change impacts are communicated to best serve the public.
Paul Loikith, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Weather and Climate Science Portland State University
Dmitri Kalashnikov, Ph.D. Washington State University, Vancouver
BAN STUDDED TIRES
Great article but not one mention of studded tires. Something needs to give on the BS studded tire thing: People that purchase them have extra money, but the cost of road damage caused by them is not recouped. Tax the hell out of them; include higher rates the heavier the vehicle is. I have lived in areas that have real ice and snow issues, and no one has them in those areas. Outlawing studded tires would be a great start.
Robert Smith
Portland
GET TOUGH WITH UTILITIES
I appreciated your analysis of the current road conditions in Portland, but wondered if anyone has thought to require that utility companies return the road quality to baseline after cutting into it. It seems that many of the damaged areas are on roads with multiple utility cuts, with substandard repairs after the cuts are made. This is only getting worse with the increase in residential lot splitting, where there is always a new utility road cut in front of each new building.
I’ve also thought that the Portland Bureau of Transportation could follow the routes of TriMet’s high-frequency bus routes for pothole repairs. These routes got so much worse after the ice storm when the buses were chained for a week—I’m talking about Holgate, Foster/Hawthorne and 82nd Avenue as some of the routes with the worst roads in this category.
Please keep up the pressure on this issue.
Betty
Daschel Portland
Letters to the editor must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: P.O. Box 10770, Portland, OR 97296 Email: mzusman@wweek.com