JEDDAH: The Jeddah municipality has implemented Global Positioning System (GPS) in its branches to locate potholes around the city before commencing three new projects worth SR40 million to fix these axle-breaking holes in the Bride of the Red Sea.
This was revealed by Ibrahim Kutubkhanah, deputy mayor for construction and projects. He said the three-year projects would be handed to different contractors within 60 days.
“Two of the contracted projects would concern potholes and one would concentrate on the holes caused by the collapse of loose ground beneath asphalt,” he explained.
He said that the main cause of potholes in Jeddah is related to the lack of a drainage network around the city. Rain-related floods in Jeddah weaken the asphalt, he said, adding that the floods get absorbed with the underground water that continues to weaken the ground.
He noted that the municipality has initiated a SR81 million project to reduce the level of underground water in order to solve the problem.
He said the problem with emerging potholes would still remain until the completion of the drainage network system, which is expected to be fully operational in the next three to five years.
He said through previous projects, the municipality has covered more than 65,000 potholes around the city. “This has never helped in eliminating the phenomenon,” he said.
All municipality branches are using GPS to locate and categorize potholes around the city in order to provide a full databank of damaged roads to the working contractors who would start fixing the streets soon. He said that the new projects would also implement a new monitoring system that ensures a quality job and the amount of public satisfaction toward the completed work.
“New contractors would be working following international standards to ensure that potholes — once fixed — do not pop up again,” he said. Potholes are present in almost every district in Jeddah. Residents often resort to placing improvised warning signs on potholes and open manholes.
