Nassau County is vigorously promoting its new smart phone app that allows citizens to report potholes, but when we got the announcement last week our reaction was “Seriously? You need an app for that?” After all, it’s not as if the potholes are hiding. Many of them reappear, year after year, in predictable spots, well-traveled stretches where major roads intersect. HempsteadTurnpike, near the fork for Conklin and Fulton streets, offers a stupendous moonscape. You can see it has been repeatedly patched. Merrits Road through the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway is a bone-jangling mess.
Plus, old technologies—a phone call—do the job just as well. But the app announcement came with a pledge to fix potholes within 24 hours of notification. That made us pay attention, though we were skeptical. Thus, we were pleasantly surprised when some obvious potholes (like that moonscape at Jericho) got fixed quickly. We never see the repair crews at work, but they are getting the job done—and there’s no app for that. Let’s give thanks for the road crews that are so unobtrusively smoothing our winter-savaged roads. We’ll be keeping you busy until Spring!
