Harsh winter riddles LI roads with potholes

Brookhaven Councilman Neil Manzella and an aide recently went on a pothole-counting expedition on Middle Country Road in Centereach to explore constituents’ complaints about poor conditions.

Using video cameras fitted on their vehicle, they counted 117 potholes along a 5-mile stretch of the highway — also known as State Route 25 — between County Road 83 in Selden and the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove, Manzella said.

"It’s just potholes, but it’s a slew of them," said Manzella, adding that he shared the findings from the Feb. 6 trip in a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul and state highway officials.

Winter is always tough on roads. Plowing by heavy trucks damages asphalt; repeated freezing and thawing of water and ice can cause a minor crack to blossom into a full-blown pothole come spring. At the same time, continued cold and wet weather make it difficult to conduct repairs before pothole-filling season starts in earnest in March and April, experts said.

Those conditions — and a particularly snowy winter so far — have contributed to the common complaints resurfacing this year.

New York State Department of Transportation spokesman Stephen Canzoneri said crews are "working aggressively" to address potholes caused by the harsh winter across Long Island. He said the agency plans to completely resurface Route 25 in Brookhaven, though he did not provide details on the timeline, adding that it "is engaged in the most aggressive road revitalization project in the Department’s history."

In 2024, 61% of state-owned lane-miles were in good or excellent condition across New York, an improvement from 54% five years earlier, according to official reports, which do not break out data by region.

Long Island's local roads, however, are in worse condition than those of most state regions, according to the most recently available database of federal aid-eligible roads from 2021. A Newsday investigation found local governments on the Island spend less on roads, per capita and per car, than those in other regions of the state. At the same time, Long Island's towns and counties receive less road aid through formulas determined by the state, relative to population and road mileage.

Pothole complaints may be more common on state-owned thoroughfares than town or village roads because they get the most traffic, requiring more upkeep, according Daniel Loscalzo, a civil engineer with LiRo Group, which consults on roads for a dozen villages on Long Island.

While road salt can contribute minor damage, Loscalzo said, snowplows and freeze-thaw cycles are worse on asphalt.

"Plowing is very destructive to pavement, because you're essentially providing an impact force on the roadway surface, and these trucks are heavy — they are loaded with material so that they can clear the snow," he said.

Long Island has seen above-average snowfall so far this season. Islip has recorded about 29 inches of snow — higher than the 30-year "normal" of 19 inches, but still far less than the 55 inches recorded at this time in 1978, according to National Weather Service data. But Loscalzo said this winter hasn't necessarily had more freeze-thaw cycles than normal, with temperatures staying well below freezing in recent weeks.

Dan Losquadro, the highway superintendent for Brookhaven Town — which maintains the third-largest road system in New York after the state and New York City — said his crews are responding to pothole complaints as they arise and use "cold patches" of black stone for emergency repairs. But he noted the mixture is unstable and doesn’t last as long as repairs that are made once the weather warms up.

Long-lasting pothole repairs generally require dry conditions and temperatures above 40 degrees, allowing asphalt to better stick to the road, said Loscalzo, the engineer.

The timing of pothole repairs is also "a little controlled by the private sector," he added, since all highway departments on Long Island depend on private asphalt plants that don’t generally open up before March. But departments do generally have leftover materials from last season to conduct emergency repairs, he said.

In the long term, pothole repair is just a "Band-Aid," Loscalzo added; after 20 years, most asphalt roads need complete repaving.