Frustrated Waterford man patches neighborhood potholes himself

Frustrated Waterford man patches potholes in his subdivision on his own

Larry Campbell is literally taking matters into his own hands.

WATERFORD TWP., MI (FOX 2) - There are potholes like this all over Oakland County… some are very bad. The Road Commission says part of the reason residential roads with less traffic and lower speeds are furthest down on the priority list, is because of safety.

Officials say they’re working on it - but for some Waterford residents, clearly, that’s not fast enough.

"It’s really sticky, really difficult," said Larry Campell, resident.

As he just said it’s difficult patching a road when you’re not a road crew.

But Larry Campbell is literally taking matters into his own hands.

He tells FOX 2, he’s complained multiple times about potholes on his street in Waterford - some he says, are over a foot deep.

"It’s tearing up my cars, I’ve got a couple of motorcycles - just unacceptable," he said. "So I took it into my own hands to buy some coal patch.

"(I'm) very disappointed, I’m not sure if they’re having trouble getting people or what it is."

So, FOX 2 asked the road commission for Oakland County about it.

FOX 2: "Obviously Mr. Campbell is really fed up by this, why can’t he get Oakland County to come out and patch the roads instead?"

"Right, we do patch subdivision streets and we did it this week, every day," said Craig Bryson. "The challenge is, we have about 2,200 miles of paved roads in the county - many of them needing pothole patching. We have to prioritize pothole patching just like we do snow plowing. We patch the busiest streets with the most traffic first - because that’s a safety issue."

Bryson with the road commission said the county has 1,300 miles of subdivision roads - in addition to major roads. Patching is time intensive and the commission says it does not have nearly enough state funding to maintain roads as well as they would like.

Bryson said the commission can help residents set up what’s called a Special Assessment District Paving Project It requires neighbors working together if 51 percent of them agree they’ll pave the road for the residents and assess them for the cost of paving over 10 years.

He said that’s often a better bet than patching.

In the meantime, Waterford residents in this neighborhood remain frustrated.

"It’s horrible, you can’t go around the corner to try to avoid the potholes," said Robert Kinney.

"My mom was driving down the road the other day, we had to spend $2,000 on her car alone, just for one pothole," said Pete Atkinson.