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Butt Buster: A holey crusade - no ifs or ands, but definitely butts

I'M BUTT BUSTER and I want to ask you a personal question: Is your front-end frazzled? Are your ball joints in an uproar? Have your shocks become schlock?

I'M BUTT BUSTER and I want to ask you a personal question: Is your front-end frazzled? Are your ball joints in an uproar? Have your shocks become schlock?

Does driving on Market Street feel like your butt is riding a log flume - without the log?

Have the city-that-whacks-you-back's craters put a boo-boo on your Subaru, a contusion on your Fusion, a hickey on your hybrid?

Send me your potholes! Send your name, neighborhood and the location/description to

buttbuster@phillynews.com, and I will bust my butt to save yours! I will bug the bureaucrats until they get up off their asphalts and patch your pothole!

MARKET ST. MUTANTS: The sadistic stretch of Market Street that runs under the El from 46th to 63rd streets is a malignant moonscape of potholes and pot lumps - piles of bad patches on top of bad patches - that flatten your tires and your wallet.

SEPTA finished the $700 million Market Street El rebuild in spring 2009, and built new sidewalks on both sides of the street. But the city hasn't resurfaced any of the rib-rattling road that tries to send your SUV to RIP.

"It's so rickety raggedy, I get several complaints about it every week," said City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, whose district includes Market Street under the El. "The Streets Department's slowness on this is just abominable," she told Butt Buster. "If they don't fix it soon, they're going to have so many lawsuits from people who damaged their vehicles driving on that raggedy street." Blackwell said that she made her displeasure known when the Streets Deptartment went before City Council's budget hearings.

"They said, 'Yes, yes, yes,' but, darn it, when's it going to be done?" Blackwell asked. "They promised to start by late May, early June. We'll see if they finally keep their promise."

Andrew Stober, chief of staff at the Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities, told Butt Buster last night that repairs on the worst places will begin in late spring and that all of West Market will be resurfaced in 2012.

HOLEY TROLLEY TRACKS! Girard Avenue/College Avenue are a holey terror of trolley-track-inspired potholes near the intersections with Ringgold, 25th, Ridge and 16th to 18th streets.

SON OF A DITCH! Somebody dug a ditch on 15th Street, just north of Poplar, poured some slop in there - and left! Now, the son of a ditch awaits your front end.

CALLOWHILL THRILLS: Exiting I-95 South, you hit the bottom of the Callowhill Street off-ramp - and it hits back! Ba-BOOM! D'oh!