Motorists crossing over the Kansas Turnpike on S.W. Auburn Road on Monday morning had an unusual view of the traffic below — straight down.
Crews from several agencies responded quickly to reports of a two-by-three-foot hole in the bridge where only the steel reinforcing bars remained between people on the bridge and the turnpike below.
Anthony S. Bush / The Capital-Journal A maintenance crew from the Kansas Turnpike Authority patches a hole Monday in the bridge on S.W. Auburn Road that crosses over the turnpike. Steel reinforcing bars were exposed on the bridge when some concrete fell to the interstate below.
HOW TO REPORT A POTHOLE Officials with several road and street maintenance agencies are urging citizens to call and report potholes that need to be filled.  Kansas Department of Transportation: (785) 296-2291 (Topeka district)  Kansas Turnpike Authority: (785) 266-9414  Shawnee County: (785) 233-7702  Topeka: (785) 368-3111
Kansas Turnpike Authority crews arrived on the scene quickly and placed steel plates over the hole within two hours. That allowed traffic to resume using both lanes of the bridge until a more permanent repair can be made.
Bill Balusek, bridge supervisor for the Shawnee County Public Works Department, said that as of 9:30 a.m. Monday he had talked with two people who had driven over the bridge two hours earlier and didn't notice the hole. He is guessing that the hole appeared during that two-hour period.
Lisa Callahan, public information officer for the KTA, said the "freeze-thaw cycle" of the past month is the likely cause of the hole. Water seeps into cracks and crevices in the roadway. When the water freezes, it expands. That makes the crack even wider, allowing it to collect more water from the next storm and expand even farther during the following freeze.
Callahan said the Auburn Road Bridge was original with the initial construction of the turnpike in 1956. KTA records show the bridge received an asphalt overlay 10 years ago.
Randy May, structures foreman of the seven-man KTA crew at the site Monday morning, said he had seen worse in his 25 years of experience.
The crew jackhammered more pavement around the perimeter of the hole to make sure they had removed all the damaged concrete and asphalt. New rebar was put in place, and eventually new concrete will be poured.
"That's the first one we've had this season," Callahan said.
Tom Vlach, Shawnee County public works director, said he is stepping up his pothole program beginning today because of the failure on the KTA bridge. He is assigning workers to patrol county roads and bridges more frequently, looking for possible problems so they can be repaired quickly.
He said the problem doesn't appear to be any worse this year than last year. The worst he had seen before Monday's incident was a pothole on the S.E. 29th Street bridge over the turnpike, he said. That pothole, while large enough to be of concern, didn't break through the bottom of the bridge as happened near Auburn.
Vlach and Kim Qualls, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Transportation, agreed that no one's life is in danger from a failure like the one on the KTA bridge Monday.
Vlach said the rebar is strong enough to support a wheel if one should fall into the hole. However, if not repaired quickly, repeated incidents would weaken the rebar to the point of being unsafe.
Qualls said KDOT crews are out on the highways filling potholes, which has been a frustrating experience this year with "back-to-back storms."
For one thing, pothole patching works best when pavement is dry, she said.
David Bevens, spokesman for the city of Topeka, said the city is experiencing pothole problems earlier than normal this winter, but is having fewer repeat problems than in past years.
He said the city is using something called cold mix asphalt that stays in the pothole better than the old style asphalt. He said in past years, a city crew would fill a pothole with asphalt and it would pop back out the next day.
He said the city has three crews on the streets filling potholes. They have used 50 tons of the new cold mix asphalt so far. Another 50 tons is on order.
Mike Hall can be reached at (785) 295-1209 or mike.hall@cjonline.com.
A pothole in Montréal, Canada last year.
Major city roads across North America are suffering from an early surge in potholes due to the dramatic freezes and thaws this month, some several feet across and inches deep. The potholes are caused by water seeping into cracks during warm weather, and pushing concrete apart when it freezes. Traffic erodes chunks of concrete from the cracks to form holes that continuously grow larger.

While car repair shops are experiencing a boom in business, city budgets are being hit with the costs of patching potholes. Thierry Larivée, an infrastructure spokesman in Montréal, Canada, says about 20 pothole patrols are working throughout the city. They are expected to continue work until at least Friday.

Craig Bryson, spokesman for the Road Commission for Oakland County in Michigan, United States, reports problems on unpaved roads as well. "The warmer weather is also playing havoc with gravel roads; the top layer of dirt thaws, but remains frozen about 10 inches below the surface. Surface water has no place to go. This creates a rutted, soupy road, especially in low-lying areas."

Environment Canada meteorologist René Héroux attributes the unseasonable thaw to warm winds from the southwest. Environment Canada predicts a new cold front on Thursday.