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Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) grabbed a shovel and took matters into his own hands Tuesday, filling a massive pothole that had been haunting his neighborhood in Los Angeles. The former Mr. Olympia and Hollywood megastar posted a video of him and several helpers using Quickrete Blacktop Repair to fill the hole and smooth it over. "Today, after the whole neighborhood has been upset about this giant pothole that's been screwing up cars and bicycles for weeks, I went out with my team and fixed it. I always say, let's not complain, let's do something about it. Here you go,"...

t was not one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most prominent roles, but is proving to be disproportionately controversial. The Hollywood star and former California governor filmed himself filling in a troublesome pothole near his Los Angeles home, proffering it as an act of civic responsibility by an exasperated resident. But he was then told by the authorities it wasn’t officially a pothole at all. According to city officials, the “giant pothole” Schwarzenegger and a friend packed with quick-drying cement and topped with sand was actually an essential service trench for work being performed by a utility company in the Brentwood neighborhood....

This feels like something from a William Gibson cyberpunk dystopia novel, where the government has become so weak and useless, private corporations have been taking over the basic upkeep of the nation. But it’s not a William Gibson novel, there’s no plucky protagonist with some sort of cybernetic implant, it’s just America in 2018, with crumbling roads that Domino’s has decided to fix. For the sake of the pizzas. Domino’s is tired of their innocent pizzas, who only wish to serve humankind, being beaten all to hell by poorly-maintained roads. They even have a website that shows, in graphic, pizza-box-cam...

California officials are hoping their latest attempt to stem the rising tides of climate change leads to a more socially conscious -- and cooler -- summer. Officials in Los Angeles have been painting streets white to reduce the effect of urban "heat islands" and combat the effects of climate change. The LA Street Services began rolling out the project last May, which preliminary testing shows has reduced the temperature of roadways by up to 10 degrees. The project involves applying a light gray coating of the product CoolSeal, made by the company GuardTop. "CoolSeal is applied like conventional sealcoats to...

For miles and miles Omaha stretches on, one tidy, suburban-style neighborhood after another filled with modern low-slung houses set on spacious lawns with towering oaks and elms. It's a model of comfortable mid-American living, with one unusual exception: thanks to a quirk in how Omaha developed, about 300 miles of streets in these nice neighborhoods are pitted with potholes almost big enough to swallow an SUV. The bad roads have been both an anomaly and a source of complaints for years. But recently, they've become the center of a mini-crisis after local officials began dispatching crews to tear up the...

Oklahoma drivers know a thing or two about potholes, but one Mississippi man got so fed up with the nuisance that he decided to get the city’s attention in a unique way. “After 14 calls to 311, I thought it was time to do something different,” said Eddie Prosser. Prosser says a huge pothole in the middle of his residential street has been a nightmare for drivers. Prosser told WJTV that the pothole appeared about 16 months ago, which caused two smaller potholes to form about a year ago. When his calls for help went unanswered, Prosser decided to throw...

St. Paul employees targeted for discipline following allegations they were loafing on the job instead of filling potholes are getting less-harsh penalties than the city had initially announced, records show. Of the 59 days of suspension the city announced against 17 workers in May, a mere five days of suspension-without-pay have actually been served, according to city records, which are not being released for all 17 workers because the process isn't over. In May, Mayor Chris Coleman made the announcement, billed as the largest disciplinary action in the city's history, following a flap when TV cameras in March filmed pothole-patching...

'Recovery Summer' Ends With Economic Potholeby Scott Horsley September 3, 2010 Whatever happened to recovery summer? This was supposed to be the season the economy heated up, thanks to a wave of public works projects, funded by the government's stimulus program. But summer is coming to an end, and the recovery has not taken root. (The Labor Department on Friday reported a slight rise in the unemployment rate to 9.6 percent in August as more people were looking for work.) And before long, stimulus dollars will be fading like autumn leaves. None of that is encouraging for President Obama, who...

Pittsburgh Pothole Patching To Cost Big BucksPublic Works Expects Winter Weather Will Use Up Budget UPDATED: 6:55 pm EST February 19, 2010 PITTSBURGH -- The harsh winter weather is causing potholes to pop up all over the Pittsburgh area -- and the problem is expected to continue as large amounts of snow melt and the temperature changes over the next few months. "This winter is wreaking havoc on our road surfaces," PennDOT spokesman Jim Struzzi said Friday. "All the moisture you see that came down with the snow now has seeped into the road surfaces, and as temperatures are warming...

In the days of yore, if you were a city official and wanted to fix a pothole, you’d just send out a road crew to do it. A typical squad of four men could repair five of them in the course of an average day, including breaks for lunch, coffee, and scratching their butts. Now things have changed. There is a futuristic new machine called the pothole killer that allows one person–who never has to get out of the truck cab–to “hot patch” 100 potholes in a day. (Watch the video for details.) In other words, the machine makes human...

Do you have gaping potholes on your street and feel the city is not fixing them quickly enough? How about patching them yourself? That's what a group of residents on Chicago's West Side did Wednesday. Members of the South Austin Coalition bought eight bags of a pavement mix for about $100 and used shovels, rakes and a 250-pound push roller to fill 15 holes on the 4800 block of West Van Buren Street. "The city's not doing it, so residents need to take the matter into their own hands," said Elce Redmond, an organizer with the coalition. The group's members...

A mixed bag this week. Leading off with a view of the lava pond in Pu'u O'o, churning away: click for full-size Number two; it's Mars geology, new images from the ultra high-resolution HiRise camera on the new Mars orbiter. Web site: HiRise Transition Phase Imaging (watch out for big image sizes if you want to download any) This is full-resolution; the smallest features are 5 cm. This image is entitled "Terra Sirenum Gullied Crater". And finally, the world's largest pothole (hole in bedrock formed by rock gouging in a glacial stream). I didn't know there was a winner in...

SACRAMENTO – The Legislature may ask taxpayers to accept $2.3 billion in new borrowing to fund a backlog of transportation projects sidelined when lawmakers repeatedly siphoned the state's roads budget. Also, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have offered competing measures that would give voters a chance to tighten the clamp on future transportation raids. Voters have already spoken. In 2002, they approved Proposition 42 by a 7-1 ratio. The measure explicitly dedicated the state sales tax on gasoline to roads and public transit. But an escape clause in the proposition has allowed lawmakers to suspend the requirement and borrow $3.6...

Dummy Placed In Pothole On Local Road Onlookers Amused By Pothole Filler Potholes typically cause headaches for motorists in metro Detroit, but some drivers were getting a laugh out of the filler used on a Grosse Pointe road on Monday, Local 4 reported. Someone apparently placed a dummy upside-down in a large pothole on Grosse Pointe Boulevard, north of Fisher Road.

Quote from Gov. Pothole Warner: In general, however, Warner said, "D.C. should have the right to raise taxes on their own citizens as much as they want. That's a God-given right.