Potholes are springing up on a road that was repaved less than three years ago, leaving drivers annoyed and county officials concerned.
In 2015, Johnson County repaved Fairview Road between Morgantown and Peterman roads. But about a week ago, potholes began appearing on a 30-foot section just east of Leaning Tree Road. A road that has been repaved that recently shouldn’t have potholes forming, Johnson County Highway Director Luke Mastin said.
Now, officials will investigate this spring to try and figure out why the potholes have been forming, and if there are any other steps they can take to prevent them.
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For now, all the county can do is temporarily fill the potholes on Fairview Road. County workers went out to Fairview Road early this week to fill the potholes, and will likely have to go out one or two more times again this winter, Mastin said.
The county plans to begin filling other potholes as soon as they are through with snow cleanup, he said.
Prior to being repaved in 2015, that section of Fairview Road had been experiencing potholes for several years. The previous time the road had been repaved was in 2005, Mastin said.
The inch-and-a-half-deep potholes formed in the south lane of Fairview Road. While this is the time of year potholes typically form, the locations where the county expects potholes to appear are typically where pavement is old or the road foundations have structural issues, he said.
The county has not received any reports of vehicle damage, but one safety concern was that sludge and snow would fall off vehicles as they hit the bumps, creating dangerous slick spots on the road, Mastin said.
Nick Johnson, who lives in the Silver Springs neighborhood off Morgantown Road, drives along that section of Fairview Road every day, and was surprised when he first saw the potholes forming because he remembered the road recently being paved.
Johnson was concerned that driving on Fairview Road could damage his vehicle, he said. He’s happy with the amount of road repairs the county has done in the Center Grove area in recent years, and hopes they can find a better solution for Fairview Road, other than constant patching and re-patching, he said.
Once spring comes, workers will examine the road to try and determine what is causing the potholes, Mastin said.
“We’re not sure if we have subsurface drainage problems, more than just the normal pothole problem,” he said. “That is something we are going to look into and see if we can ID.”
