If pothole season is rocking your world – and your car – lately, you’ll have to wait to see if the city’s working on fixing potholes near you. The city’s pothole viewer has been down with an IT issue since Friday, and a spokesperson for the Department of Public Works isn’t sure when it will be back online.
The tracker maps out all the potholes that have been reported to the city. You can still use Request Indy to ask the city to fill a pothole, but you won’t be able to see how many requests were made to fill potholes or where they are.
Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28, DPW has filled 53,000 potholes and closed 3,200 pothole requests from citizens. It has 6,100 pothole requests left to fill. By this time last year, DPW had filled 84,760 potholes ahead of NBA All-Star Weekend, when 125,000 visitors came to town.
To fill the remaining potholes, conditions have to be right. The longest-lasting solution is patching them with hot mix asphalt, which plants produce. But those plants close during the colder months and usually wait until the temperatures stay above 40 degrees to get up and running for the spring season.
When DPW can’t use hot mix, crews use cold mix asphalt, which doesn’t bond to the surface as well and doesn’t last as long. This year, DPW said its crews lost 20 of the days they could have used to fill potholes because of rain, snow and extreme temperatures.
The crew members who fill potholes are the same people who plow Indy’s streets after it snows. DPW says they’ve been on 12-hour shifts nine days in a row to monitor and treat roads. The priority after snow is to fill potholes on an emergency basis.
Note: I filed a request Feb. 28 to fill a pothole I’ve been swerving around for months, off of Georgetown Road. I’ll keep this story updated with how long it takes DPW to fill that request.
How to ask the city to fill a pothole
- Gather information about the pothole.
You’ll need to share your contact information, the date you noticed the pothole, how big it is, the closest street address to it and whether it caused any property damage. You can also upload a picture. - Fill out the request online or in the Request Indy app.
Go to Request Indy’s web portal, in the “Streets and Alley Repair” section, and fill out the information you gathered in step 1. DPW says if they send a crew out to fill one pothole, they’ll fill other ones around it, too. The process is the same using the Request Indy mobile app. - Call the Mayor’s Action Center.
Call the Mayor’s Action Center at 317-327-4622 and speak to a customer service representative. (Information is available in English and Spanish.) This service is available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and on Friday. The Mayor’s Action Center is closed from 2-3 p.m. on Thursdays.
If a pothole damages your car, you can also file a claim with the city to get it reimbursed.
A correction was made on March 3, 2025: A previous version of this story did not list the right hours for the Mayor’s Action Center. The MAC is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, except it is closed 2-3 p.m. Thursday.
Mirror Indy reporter Sophie Young covers services and resources. Contact her at sophie.young@mirrorindy.org.
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