BajaNews
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Tijuana addresses problems of potholes with new machine
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20060719-9...
Device patches less-invasive gaps
By Anna Cearley
July 19, 2006
TIJUANA ? Anyone who drives in this border city knows the potholes here are a whole different breed than in San Diego County. They are larger, meaner
and unavoidable. They prey on tourists and residents alike.
?They affect our families because instead of paying for food we end up having to pay for a tire that got a tear from a pothole,? said Tijuana taxi
driver Jes?s Reynoso Rodriguez. ?They are dangerous because many accidents take place when people try to avoid them and swerve into traffic.?
So when the city acquired a pothole-fighting machine called the Jetpatcher, made by a New Zealand company, the news was greeted with fanfare typically
reserved for soccer stars. ?No more potholes!? screamed one Mexican newspaper headline last month.
City officials caution that the system only works for less-invasive potholes. But the Jetpatcher has come to symbolize a tangible solution to one of
the most common problems in a part of Mexico where attempts to tackle some serious problems ? drug, kidnapping and smuggling rings ? have been notably
ineffective.
The Jetpatcher is part of a long-term plan to overhaul the city's streets, city officials said. Halfway into the term of Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon, the
city has rebuilt 1.4 million square meters of roads and is embarking on an ambitious slurry seal program to extend the life of street surfaces,
according to Alfonso Padres Pesqueira, who oversees the city's department of urban infrastructure.
The machine, which cost $242,000, is filling about 200 potholes a day, and that's good news to taxi driver Reynoso. He said the city's roads have too
often been politicized, with improvements typically taking place at the end of election years to encourage residents to vote for the ruling party.
Tijuana officials don't have an exact number of how many potholes exist in the city, but in San Diego the Streets Division repairs about 30,000 a
year. Tijuana civil engineer Alfonso Vazquez said Tijuana's potholes could number about 800,000.
Potholes in any city can be symptomatic of deeper problems, some sociologists say.
?It's a barometer of a city's health and its pride,? said Phillip Gay, a sociology professor at San Diego State University.
Joe Castillo, roadway superintendent with San Diego's Streets Division who assisted Tijuana with street repair efforts after floods in the late 1990s,
said Tijuana faces a ?tough battle? but tools such as the Jetpatcher, which he wasn't familiar with, can make a difference.
Vazquez said the Jetpatcher system, which is being aggressively marketed in Mexico, cleans out potholes and then applies a special mix of asphalt to
seal the gap ? all in a few minutes.
It doesn't fix larger potholes or those aggravated by water seepage, he said.
Tijuana has a big pothole problem because its budget can't meet the infrastructure needs of a burgeoning population, city authorities say, and because
the city also has a number of flood-prone areas where water wreaks havoc on streets.
Before the city obtained the Jetpatcher, fixing potholes was a time-consuming process of picking up materials needed to patch the holes from local
factories, Padres said. The ready-to-go machine has simplified things, though the traditional method will still be used to fix larger and more
problematic holes.
Padres said the city learned about the machine last year when an employee attended a street works convention. No bid process took place, he said,
because Tijuana officials weren't familiar with other options.
Twenty-four of the machines are operating in Mexico, including another in the border city of Mexicali, said Saul Arauzo Elizondo, director of the
Latin America division of New Zealand's Jetpatcher Corporation Ltd.
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BornFisher
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Posts: 2107
Registered: 1-11-2005
Location: K-38 Santa Martha/Encinitas
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Wish they would work on the trash. And I`m not talking about litter here, I mean the border area has huge piles of garbage stacked like the town
dump!!!
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