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Potholes in the Windy City are as predictable as perennial flowers, writes civil engineer Yunus Emre Tozal in a recent opinion piece for The Chicago Tribune. To shed light on why the city spends money each year patching up the same potholes it fixed the year before, Tozal consulted University of Maryland Professor Ahmet Aydilek, an expert on sustainable geotechnics.
Roads are only as strong as the soil underneath, Aydilek said, and failures often have more to do with what’s beneath them than with the pavement per se. That’s why a city can allocate the same money to different locations and get vastly different results when it comes to pothole recurrence.
 Aydilek recommends that cities pay more attention to soil stabilization and require use of recycled industrial materials, including municipal construction waste. These materials improve the ground’s resistance to water damage and can help ensure that Chicago drivers spend less time dodging potholes in the spring. Learn more.
September 15, 2026
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