Though it has come up in conversation frequently in recent years, there’s still no word on whether the city’s gamble in purchasing a Python 5000 pothole filling machine will pay off.
So far so bad, with a 2023 municipal report finding its costs outweighed its benefits, coming in at more than twice the cost per pothole as a manual patching crew.
Findings in 2024 were comparable, city Linear Infrastructure Technical Support Services manager Dan Thibeault said, adding that it’s too early to make any decisive conclusions.
City staff are expected to table a report for city council consideration later this year, which will summarize the results of two more seasons of Python 5000 output.
When Sudbury.com connected with Thibeault earlier this week, the Python 5000 was out of service to receive maintenance.
The machine was down for half of its weather-dependent operational days in 2023.
Since the latest report in late 2023, the city has hired a dedicated operator to run the machine, which Thibeault said should get more productivity out of it.
“It’s a more specialized piece of equipment, so they become more proficient with that,” he said of the dedicated operator, adding that the end result should “lend itself to a better product.”
Meanwhile, this has been a particularly busy time for municipal pothole patching crews, with upwards of 10 crews spanning throughout the municipality during peak pothole patching season to lay down asphalt patches.
There were “slightly above average” potholes this season, though Thibeault said that with a well-below average season in 2023-24 due to fewer freeze/thaw days, people might have felt as though this latest pothole season was even worse than it was.
Even so, given the state of Greater Sudbury’s degrading roads due to an average annual underfunding of $77.8 million on asphalt rehabilitation alone, potholes are en route to become an even worse issue as time goes on.
Although pothole patching has continued, much of the crew has shifted toward streetsweeping operations, which is being chased by annual line-painting efforts.
Street sweeping began on April 28 in the Ramsey Lake watershed, machines were seen in the city’s downtown and Donovan areas this week and are proceeding clockwise around the balance of Greater Sudbury.
This year’s efforts have a train of machines following one another, beginning with a flusher truck to put water on roads for dust suppression, followed by various other machines to complete the process, concluding with dump trucks to load sediment into.
The city sweeps approximately 2,800 lane kilometres of road each season and 420 kilometres of sidewalks, taking approximately six to eight weeks to complete the job, working 24/7.
A map is tracking this year’s street sweeping status, which is updated twice daily and available by clicking here.
Greater Sudbury city council approved the purchase of a Python 5000 all-in-one pothole patching machine in late 2021 at a purchase price of $554,898 and an annual estimated operating cost of $200,000. It was anticipated to apply 592 metric tonnes of asphalt to local streets per year.
It started operations in January 2022, though the city has ceased most winter operations due to poor performance in -10 C conditions. It is now primarily used in the summer months.
In 2023, it applied 120 metric tonnes of patching material, which fell well shy of the 592 metric tonnes anticipated.
That year, the machine was operated for eight-hour shifts, approximately 1.5 to two hours of which was spent cleaning the machine.
Sudbury.com will report on the upcoming Python 5000 report as soon as it becomes available later this year.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.