Volunteers fill Hamilton pothole as part of province-wide initiative

Hamilton’s pothole problem got some unexpected attention on Tuesday.

A group of volunteers turned up on Barton Street saying they’re on a mission to fix the problem across Ontario, just one pothole at a time.

With Barton listed as the worst pothole street in the province, these three are volunteers who say they got calls from thousands of people asking them to come here and fill in potholes.

So they put Hamilton on the list after already fixing potholes in cities like London, Ont. and several areas of Toronto.

But they say they’re only filling one pothole at each stop.

“I want to help people. I started this mission as a volunteer because I started to see people paying thousands of dollars at the mechanics, especially with whatever is going on with the economy. People are actually struggling these days. These potholes are costing us hundreds of dollars,” says one of the volunteers, Sanchez Afarra.

The City of Hamilton says fixing potholes is the city’s business and unauthorized work on the road can create safety risks and may not meet required standards.

Hamilton Police say this is not a police matter, while lawyer David Shellnutt, who represents many cyclists who face potholes on the roads, says any do-it-yourself pothole warrior should be careful they’re not making a hazard worse.

“If they contributed to the hazard being more difficult to see or less solid in any way, you can imagine some soft filling and someone instead of going around the hazard may say ‘hey it looks like its filled I’ll go over it,’ but you haven’t filled it properly and then you’ve gone down as a result, that would be really concerning to me,” says David Shellnutt, The Bicycle Lawyer.

But the pothole fighters say they have thousands more volunteers ready to tackle potholes, while they’re racking up millions of viewers on their social media sites.

Meanwhile the City of Hamilton says it makes up to 90,000 road repairs a year.

READ MORE: Hamilton crews launch massive weekend blitz to repair thousands of potholes