Audit Report on the Department of Transportation’s Tracking of Pothole Repairs

Executive Summary

The objective of the audit was to determine whether the New York City (the City) Department of Transportation (DOT) adequately tracks its pothole repair efforts.  The audit scope was Fiscal Year 2015, July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2015.

DOT is responsible for the operation and condition of approximately 6,000 miles of streets, highways and public plazas; 789 bridge structures; and the nine boats in the Staten Island Ferry program.  Its mission is to provide for the safe, efficient and environmentally responsible movement of people and goods in the City and to maintain and enhance the transportation infrastructure, including the rehabilitation and maintenance of the City’s streets, highways and bridges.  DOT’s Roadway Repair and Maintenance (RRM) Division is responsible for the maintenance of City streets and highways (arterials).  DOT’s Division of Bridges maintains roads on or near bridges
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Road defects are generally identified through complaints received from the public through 311 calls or the DOT website.  Defects are also identified by DOT work crews, generally when they are doing other repair work.  The Mayor’s Management Report (MMR) stated that DOT repaired 460,493 potholes Citywide during Fiscal Year 2015.  These potholes included 370,204 located on local streets and 90,289 located on the arterial highway system.

DOT’s stated goal is to repair each reported pothole within 30 days.  However, the New York City Administrative Code §7-201(c)(2) states that the City is shielded from civil actions brought against it for pothole-related damages as long as potholes are repaired within 15 days of any complaints about them having been filed.  The MMR reported that it took an average of 5.6 days in both Fiscal Years 2014 and 2015 to repair a reported pothole located on a local street.

Audit Findings and Conclusion

DOT’s tracking of pothole repairs needs improvement.  In particular, the Arterial Maintenance Unit and the Division of Bridges do not track the timeliness of their highway and bridge pothole repairs.  Potholes on arterial highways and bridges accounted for about 20 percent of all pothole repairs  performed by DOT in Fiscal Year 2015.¹  In addition, while the Street Maintenance Unit does track the timeliness of its street pothole repairs, almost 10 percent of the street potholes reported in Fiscal Year 2015 were repaired more than 15 days after the date of the report, thereby increasing the risk of an accident during that period for which the City could be held liable for any resulting damages.  The audit found that 9.5 percent of reported potholes were repaired in 16 to 30 days, and 0.2 percent took more than 30 days to repair, ranging from 31 to 186 days.

Further, we found that the Fiscal Year 2015 Field Information Tracking System (FITS) list of repaired potholes provided by DOT contained numerous duplicates, and even some triplicates, which inflated the number of potholes actually repaired during that year.  We also found additional inaccuracies in the pothole repair data that DOT uses for the MMR.  Finally, we found that DOT did not have adequate written policies and procedures to guide its pothole repair efforts.

Audit Recommendations

To address these issues, the audit recommends, among other things, that DOT:

• Require that its Arterial Maintenance Unit and Division of Bridges record the date and source of each pothole referral they receive in order to monitor the timeliness of their pothole repair efforts.
• Revise its timeliness goal for pothole repairs from 30 to 15 days and enhance its efforts to complete all pothole repairs within 15 days to limit the City’s legal liability and to improve the safety of the City’s roadways.
• Ensure that it does not double or triple count the potholes it has repaired in relation to individual street defect numbers in its FITS tracking of the agency’s pothole repair efforts.
• Ensure that the daily borough summary reports of repaired potholes, upon which the monthly reports for the MMR are based, are consistent with the numbers of repaired potholes reflected on the crew sheets.
• Prepare specific written policies and procedures that explain how reports of potholes should be handled, how work orders should be generated, and how information about repaired potholes should be collected and recorded by the Street Maintenance Unit, Arterial Maintenance Unit and Division of Bridges.

Agency Response

In its response, DOT agreed with three of our recommendations and disagreed with five.  DOT also disagreed with several findings upon which these recommendations were based.  Unfortunately, DOT’s response is predicated upon a number of inaccurate statements about the audit findings and methodology and the applicable audit standards.  These inaccuracies reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues discussed in this report.  Rather than effectively rebutting the findings or explaining the agency’s rejection of the audit’s recommendations, they reflect a defensive posture that appears aimed primarily at protecting the status quo and a reluctance to consider the observations and analysis provided by independent auditors.  A detailed discussion of the DOT response is contained in the body of this report.  After carefully reviewing DOT’s arguments, we found them to be without merit.