A cold and snowy winter has produced large numbers of potholes in Arlington, though perhaps not as many as some might expect.
About 190 pothole fill requests have been filed in Arlington since Feb. 1, Peter Golkin, a spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Services, told ARLnow. About 50 were pending as of Wednesday.
Golkin said that’s about on par with last year’s numbers — which were also higher than normal.
“With this week’s rain and then a warming in the forecast, plus early spring activities generating more cars on the road, we could see a rise in requests in the next few weeks compared to recent years,” he said.
Last winter, between Nov. 1, 2024 and March 1, 2025, the county’s Water, Sewer and Streets team recorded 499 potholes. This was the highest number since the winter of 2022.
Regardless of how many potholes crop up this year, DES asks residents to report non-emergencies by filing a repair request online.
Could be a bumper-rattling crop of potholes this year. Report them even faster with the direct link: https://t.co/0zbXvZ4HgH pic.twitter.com/frFWKa8lzs
— Arlington Department of Environmental Services (@ArlingtonDES) February 16, 2026
Potholes typically form when rain or snowmelt seeps through cracks in pavement and saturates the material underneath.
Repeated cycles of freezing and thawing further damage the pavement and begin to create a void that collects even more water. This becomes a pothole when vehicles finally crack the pavement and cause it to collapse into the hole.
This winter saw the D.C. area’s longest uninterrupted stretch of freezing weather in more than 35 years, according to The Washington Post. Temperatures didn’t get above 32 degrees for a nine-day stretch that ended Feb. 2.
