Schenectady

The city has a powerful new tool to use in its crusade against the potholes that have made driving a tricky proposition in parts of Schenectady.

While a municipal crew, armed with a blow torch, tamper, shovel, and dump truck with cold patch (blacktop for winter use), filled in craters along the outer northbound lane of Erie Boulevard, the highly vaunted black Crafco Patcher II sat in a back corner of the municipal garage on Foster Avenue.

It's only hit the streets twice since November because of all the precipitation from winter storms, but city officials seem to be impressed by the results and are hoping to put it to work again early next week when the forecasted conditions are more dry.

"Anything that's deep, we're putting in the cold patch," said street manager Art Clay, of the work the crew performed Thursday. "We've got a lot of areas we want to attack."

The Patcher II, which costs about $50,000 and is being leased by the city, will be an integral part of that attack on potholes. It can also be used for cement work and bridge decking, Clay added.

Clay drove a reporter to Verona Avenue and Salina Street, and Foster Avenue between Seneca and Peek streets on the Northside where patches of rubberized asphalt laid down in November by the machine appeared to be holding up.

"The durability of the material used gives you an extended life of about 10 years and it's going to help on some of those streets that we're not going to immediately pave," Clay said.

The Patcher II is plugged into a heavy duty outlet at night so when workers arrive the next day it only takes about 45 minutes for it to reach the desired temperature of between 375 and 410 degrees that's needed to break down the cubes of patching material deposited into a hopper. The hopper, Clay said, holds about 2 1/2 tons of the melted material.

He said they plan to further test out the machine on busy and less traveled roads instead of the usual "patching with hot materials."

Clay, who has 29 years in with the city, blamed the brutal cold for the poor condition of some roads around the Electric City, especially those that haven't been recently repaved.

"This arctic freeze that we've experienced throughout the month of February has taken its toll on the bad roads and created more potholes than we were already experiencing," Clay said.

One pothole trouble spot, Altamont Avenue, is among those streets slated for repaving.

pnelson@timesunion.com • 518-454-5347 • @apaulnelson