Calgary Potholes: Why roads keep cracking open

[CALGARY, AB] — It's pothole season again, and if your commute has felt like an off-road course lately, you're not imagining it. A Calgary Reddit thread is circulating the question everyone already knows the answer to — but the actual numbers behind what the city is doing are worth a hard look.

4,673 Holes and Counting

As of today, April 20, 2026, the City of Calgary's Mobility Department has filled 4,673 potholes this year. That sounds like a lot. Until you remember that crews filled 35,856 of them in all of 2025. We are, in other words, deep in the trenches of another brutal pothole cycle — and spring hasn't even fully arrived.

The city runs a year-round repair program on a budget of $6.9 million. The approach: temporary cold-patch fixes through winter, more permanent repairs once temperatures stabilize. Priority goes to severity, safety impact, and location — meaning your residential side street is likely waiting its turn behind a major arterial.

Why Calgary Roads Crack So Fast

This isn't just bad luck. Calgary's climate is uniquely punishing on asphalt. Chinook winds drive dramatic, rapid freeze-thaw cycles that expand and contract moisture inside road surfaces — essentially cracking them open from the inside. Combine that with decades of underfunded maintenance and you get a road network that's losing the battle against physics and time simultaneously.

The numbers on that underfunding are genuinely striking. A February 2026 report to the Infrastructure and Planning Committee found that roughly 11% of city-owned assets — worth some $18 billion — are in poor or very poor condition. The same report recommended bumping the roads budget to $100 million in 2026, scaling up to $140 million annually by 2027.

For context: the 2026 Capital Budget, approved by City Council on December 3, 2025, allocated $201 million for all infrastructure — roads, intersections, and streetlights combined. That's the whole envelope.

The Gap Between What's Needed and What's Approved

Here's where it gets uncomfortable. A January 2026 report found Calgary needs roughly $5 billion annually to maintain and improve all of its infrastructure. The 2026 budget is spending $3.8 billion on capital infrastructure. That's a $1.2 billion annual shortfall — every year.

City Council did approve a motion back on May 28, 2025 to develop an "Infrastructure Reinvestment Program," with the intention of folding it into the 2027–2030 four-year budget cycle. But that's a plan to make a plan. The potholes are here now.

What This Means for Your Commute

The Mobility Department's repair crews are working. The spring shift to more permanent fixes is underway, which typically means faster, more durable results than the cold-patch band-aids you've been dodging since January. High-traffic corridors and safety-critical intersections will see action first.

But if you're on a quieter street, or your neighbourhood arterial keeps getting passed over, that's not an accident — it's a prioritization framework built around a budget that experts say is structurally too small for this city's needs.

The $6.9 million pothole program isn't the problem. It's a symptom. Council has the reports. The Infrastructure and Planning Committee has the recommendations. The 2027 budget cycle is the next real inflection point — and right now, the road to getting there is a little rough.