Bringing accountability to New York's roads through data.

This is a live, interactive map of pothole reports sourced from Waze, the community-driven navigation app used by millions of drivers daily. Every marker on the map represents a real report from a real driver who hit a road hazard.

The map covers all of New York State, from the streets of Manhattan to the highways of the Adirondacks. Reports are filterable by time range, so you can see what's happening right now or review the past week.

Right now, the only way to report a pothole on a New York State highway is to call 1-800-POTHOLE, a phone line that routes to voicemail. That's it. No website, no app, no digital form. In 2026, the state's pothole reporting infrastructure is a phone number.

The legislature knows this is a problem. Bills to require NYSDOT to create an electronic reporting system have been introduced repeatedly since at least 2017, and one even passed the Senate. None have become law.

Potholes damage vehicles, cause accidents, and disproportionately affect communities whose roads receive less maintenance. Yet without accessible data, it's easy to downplay the scope of the problem and ignore the areas that need attention most.

This project exists to fill that gap. By collecting and visualizing real driver reports in one place, we make it possible to see which roads are neglected, how conditions change over time, and where resources are needed most.

Politicians will tell you that potholes are just part of living in the Northeast. And yes, freeze-thaw cycles are hard on roads. Water seeps into cracks, freezes and expands, then melts and contracts, grinding pavement apart over time. That part is real.

But the freeze-thaw cycle is not the whole story. The reason New York's roads fall apart every spring is decades of deferred maintenance. According to a 2025 TRIP report, nearly half of major roads in New York are in poor or mediocre condition, costing drivers $7.2 billion per year in extra vehicle operating costs. From 2022 to 2023 alone, NYSDOT capital investment in road and highway pavements dropped 29 percent.

Every spring, state crews patch the same stretches of road. But patches on deteriorated pavement are a temporary fix. The surrounding surface keeps cracking, water keeps getting in, and new potholes open up right next to the old ones. It is a cycle of reactive repair that never addresses the underlying problem: the road surface itself is past its useful life. A full resurfacing, by contrast, lasts 15 years or more and prevents the cracks that let water in to begin with.

Resurfacing costs more upfront than patching, but it breaks the cycle. Patching a road that needs resurfacing is like putting tape on a crumbling wall. The state knows this. NYSDOT's own Highway Design Manual distinguishes between maintenance patching and capital resurfacing for exactly this reason. Yet year after year, the worst roads get patches instead of the investment they actually need.

This is not an unsolvable problem. It is a choice. And until the data is visible and the neglect is undeniable, it will keep being the easy choice.