City maintenance crews routinely check older and busy streets for pothole problems and patch them immediately.

Potholes can be reported:

• Pothole Report Line at 626-307-2585. Listen to the recording and be prepared to provide basic information including location, nearest cross street, your name and telephone number.
• GoMPK customer service app.

Pavement Management Study

Every few years, the Engineering Division conducts a Pavement Management Study (PMS) to determine which streets need rehabilitation, based on the amount and severity of pavement distresses. Because the number of streets needing rehabilitation exceeds budget money available, only a few selected streets throughout Monterey Park are rehabilitated each year. Depending on the funding sources available, some streets may not be eligible for immediate paving.

Street Maintenance and Repairs

In order to prolong the life of its streets, each year the city applies a seal coating to a portion of its streets. Please view more information on the City's upcoming street rehabilitation projects by visiting the Construction webpage.

Pavement Management Program

What is the city's plan to maintain the roads?

The City of Monterey Park Public Works Department is responsible for managing and maintaining approximately 126 centerline miles of paved roads. 

The Department is able to determine the condition category of each street and the appropriate treatment strategy through the use of our systematic approach and use of a robust Pavement Management System (PMS).

How does the city rate their streets?

Our first step is to obtain a network level assessment of the condition of all the City roads. To accomplish this goal, the City hires a consultant to drive each road; carefully identifies the type, severity, and extent of the cracks or distresses on the road; and then documents the conditions. 

This information is then entered into a software, StreetSaver, which converts the data into a pavement condition index (PCI) on a scale from 0 to 100, with 100 being best.

How do we fix the road?

Once we know what condition the road is in and when we should fix it, the next question is, “How do we fix the road?” There are many factors that go into selecting a pavement treatment. This table provides an example of the general treatment strategy based upon the range of pavement conditions.

The factors considered when selecting a treatment include:

• Pavement condition
• Structural adequacy
• Urban vs. rural setting
• Traffic conditions
• Climatic conditions
• Availability of materials or contractors
• Past performance

How Potholes are Prevented and Repaired

A variety of techniques are used to prevent asphalt paving from deteriorating and to repair roads when they do fail.

Sealing

Crack sealing and slurry sealing keep water from penetrating the surface by sealing small cracks. These treatments don’t add structural strength to the pavement, but they protect the underlying roadbed from moisture and over saturation.

Overlays

Overlays are a more intensive treatment in which a layer of compacted asphalt is constructed to seal the surface and add some structural strength. Engineered overlays typically cover curb to curb after the top layer of deteriorated asphalt is ground milled off. Maintenance overlays often are applied directly to the existing surface, usually as an efficient way to address a number of potholes or large cracks in a specific area on a street. This type of overlay may not cover this entire width or length of street.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction and dig-outs include digging up and rebuilding the damaged roadbed. Relative to other pavement treatments, this work is costly and may include extended lane or street closures.

Patching

Pothole patching is a very localized treatment in which a patching material is placed into a hole and compacted either by hand tamping or mechanical compactor. This is a very common form to pavement repair, but because patching typically doesn’t include addressing underlying or surrounding problems the patches tend to break loose and have a limited useful life span and must be re-patched, sometimes frequently.

Pothole repair

A pothole is fixed by removing the loose pavement and cleaning the hole, then spraying it with a tack coat of liquid asphalt. Next, hot asphalt is compacted into the hole and the surfaced leveled and rolled to create a smooth surface. In some cases, the deteriorated area will require a larger area to be removed by saw-cutting additional pavement around the pothole, removing additional amounts of pavement, aggregate base and the underlying soil, and then filling the area with new hot asphalt to be compacted and smoothed.