Driving tomorrow could be nasty for motorists in the capital though it really couldn’t get much worse. Our roads are so riddled with nasty potholes; it's like driving on an obstacle course.  There's a mini crater on Colonel By that could swallow up the front end of your car. And Main Street is pocked with potholes that jiggle your innards and pop your tires.

"I just had abdominal surgery,” says Ottawa driver Trish Massart, “so hitting every pothole is agony and by far worse this year than any other I can remember in the city

Driver Sean Berrigan adds, “There's a lot of potholes this year and with cold asphalt (they’re using to fill) it's fine, but after it rains or snows, it's gone.”

The city is still using cold asphalt patches to fill potholes but a few years ago, it added hot patches as well. 

The asphalt comes from the Tomlinson Asphalt plant in southeast Ottawa.  Every day, there's a steady stream of Ottawa trucks coming to fill their hotboxes then head back to Ottawa city streets to fill potholes.

“It’s busy,” says city of Ottawa employee Garry Soucie, as he waits his turn to fill his hotbox, “Lots of potholes, lots of craters so pretty busy,”

The asphalt plant is busier than usual this year, pumping out a couple thousand tons of hot asphalt mix.

Eddie Lawlor is the plant foreman, “It's a winter mix. It's a 160 degrees Celsius and it's a permanent solution to the potholes out there.”

It may not seem permanent, though. The constant change in temperature keeps popping the asphalt back out.  But the city says this winter is really no different than any other.

"Everybody thinks the same thing every year, “says Kevin Wylie, the Manager of Traffic Manager and Operational Support, “that it's a bad year but when we look over the statistics, it's pretty much even from year to year.”

The city of Ottawa has filled more than 30-thousand potholes so far this year.  In a typical year, including summer months, it will attend to between 170 and 190-thousand potholes on a budget of $6-million dollars.

By the way, that crater on Colonel By?  Three hours later, it was filled; at least until next freeze and thaw pops it back out.