Every time Mary Stewart leaves her driveway, she’s reminded of a problem she says hasn’t been fixed for years.
“They sound awful, like ‘Ooop!’” she recently told the I-Team, trying to mimic the sound her car makes as she navigates potholes on the street outside her home in Capitol Heights.
Stewart said she and neighbors have complained about the street for years.
“They won’t fix it,” Stewart said.
A neighbor showed the I-Team a December 2022 letter from the Office of the County Executive telling them, “Staff is investigating your street to identify the potholes you describe," adding they will “address immediate pothole issues.”
Nearly two years later, any fixes made in the interim have not held up. The street remains in rough condition.
Via 311, the county has received 22 service call requests for Carmody Hill Drive since mid-February 2022. These include calls related to potholes and issues such as illegal dumping and roadway emergencies. Eighteen calls were closed or resolved and four open tickets remain, the county said.
Prince George's County
Prince George's County, Maryland, news updates, events and information
Theodore Flythe, who lives just doors away from Stewart, told the I-Team the street has never looked any better “since I lived here.” He moved onto Carmody Hills Drive 33 years ago, in 1991.
It's likely not the worst road in Maryland, and maybe not the worst road you drive on, but it's their road, and after years of complaining, they want it fixed.
“As soon as possible would be fine with me," Flythe said.
But that won’t happen anytime soon.
What Prince George’s County says about road repairs
"You know, it's going to take a couple of fiscal years, two or three fiscal years, for us to be able to get our own to some of the streets," Prince George’s County Director of Public Works Michael Johnson told us.
Every road in the county gets a score through Prince George's Pavement Assessment & Management System. The residents’ stretch of Carmody Hills Drive got 17.56 points. A perfectly paved road would get 100 points.
The scores are initially determined by a scan of the roads using a camera and a laser-equipped van every five to 10 years. They are updated by an algorithm in the interim.
The I-Team checked all 2,000 miles of Prince George’s County's roads. We found at least 47 roads rated worse than Carmody Hills Drive. When we shared that list with Johnson and his team, he told us just one of those 47 roads are currently planned for repair.
"The listing that you looked at was really just a very small micro-sample of the total roads. It's like 6.3 miles of the more than 2,000 miles that we're operating,” Johnson told us. The I-Team examined every road in the county, but asked Public Works about those that scored lower than Carmody Hills Drive on the county’s assessment program.
Budget figures show the Prince George’s County Paving and Pothole Repair Program has roughly the same amount of money it did in 2019, with just a 3.7% increase. In the interim, the budget had increased, but the county was not able to sustain the higher level.
Johnson said the county has enough money to pave 48 miles of road a year. It costs $750,000 to pave every mile of road. Johnson said the new system is about equity across the county, which means they don't necessarily tackle the worst roads first.
"Worst first will actually produce – be very expensive to do and will give us a lower overall performance."
Prince George’s County’s county-wide average road condition has improved since Johnson took over. That’s his stated goal. It’s not up by much, but according to department statistics, the trend is going the right way. Under their system, however, if you live on one of those bad roads, you may have to wait for improvements.
Johnson said any underground utility repairs must be completed before a road can be repaved. And that, Johnson said, is the case on Carmody Hills Drive.
When picking other roads, Johnson said the county spends money fixing a mix of streets already in bad condition and preventing OK roads form getting worse.
The county lists all of its planned repairs for this year here.
‘I don’t think it’s working’
That's not fast enough for Councilmember Kristal Oriadha, who represents the Capitol Heights neighborhood we visited.
“There is no excuse that I've heard in any committee hearing that makes sense to me, because even if you can't repave the entire road, we should have a better system to actually repair it," Oriadha told the I-Team.
Council members used to have more input on paving decisions. They don't under a new system. It may make sense in an algorithm or a budget book, but it is a tough sell on the street.
“I don't think it's working. I don't see that showing up in my community," Oriadha said.
Flythe, one of the residents, said, “I think we deserve to get to it, for it to be fixed, actually."
And as she surveyed the divots, Stewart, another resident, shook her head.
“I deserve a nice street,” she told the I-Team.
