Covington smoothing its roads, tackling nearly 500 pothole projects in 2024

The ride through Covington is a bit smoother after Public Works staff tackled more than double the amount of pothole work orders from 2023 during the 2024 fiscal year, which ended on June 30.

Data from the city's Thriving Neighborhood site reported 490 completed projects in FY 2024, compared to 156 in FY 2023. The data reported 206 completed projects in FY 2021 and 217 in FY 2022.

City of Covington

Leads in the department attributed the increase in the workload to higher staffing.

"I think primarily it can be attributed to us being fully staffed in the division," Public Works director Keith Bales said. "They are proactive, more so than they’ve been. We do get plenty of support as far as commission funding for staffing, for equipment."

The second reason Public Works gave us involved an agreement made between the city and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet allowing Covington staff to repair potholes reported on streets managed and operated by the state, not the city.

"That’s helped us be proactive with our citizens who drive those state routes," said Bill Matteoli, assistant director for Public Works.

Some of those state routes include 4th and 5th Street, Madison Avenue and Howard Litzler Drive, among others across the city limits.

Even with the growth in successful projects, Public Works said it's been business as usual for its staff.

"I don’t know if they’ve verbalized if they’re busier than usual, they’re always busy," Bales said.

Covington said that it finds potholes in need of repair from crews out on the ground and from residents who can make requests. The first option is to call the Public Works office directly at 859-292-2292.

The second option is to head to Covington's website and click the "How Do I" button, located in the top, right-hand corner.

Then, it will prompt you to click "report" and then hit potholes. Once that is selected, the form will ask for a name, phone number or email address, an address and an explanation of the services being requested. Images of the pothole can be attached to the online form.

City of Covington

A spokesperson for the city said that they no longer use an app for reporting potholes, due to an old contract.

Covington's Public Work department stated they work hard to quickly respond to a service request made in their city. Their assistant director said they respond to requests anywhere from the day of the alert to about three days later, depending on the situation.

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