A Pothole Menace

Clackamas Community College potholes are a common sight on roads. Despite multiple attempts to fill them, they always return with a vengeance.

While not everyone has an issue driving around the potholes, some believe CCC could have done a better job handling the situation.

“Those potholes have been sitting out there for about six months,” Ric Jenkerson, lead information and testing specialist said. “I think it could have been a little more timely.”

Unfortunately, there are unseen variables preventing a permanent fix. The first has to do with the weather. Weather conditions control whether or not the college will attempt to fix the potholes.

“Campus Services has to wait for stretches of dry weather to patch potholes, otherwise the patches don’t completely dry and they tend to break up again,” Public Information Officer Lori Hall said.

“It’s been a wet spring,” Dean of Campus Services Bob Cochran said, echoing Hall’s statement.

With cars swerving into the oncoming lane to avoid potholes, what about concerns they may cause an accident or damage one’s vehicle? It shouldn’t be an issue as long as you drive slowly, according to Cochran.

Construction for DeJardin, that will end by fall 2018, will come with road reconstruction. This will be similar to what happened with the Barlow parking lot.

@ClackCollege @ClackamasPrint it’s pothole filling day! Some backing up of traffic on the roads, but the chasms are disappearing! pic.twitter.com/idVqn224Q9

— Jeanette Wright (@abs_solutely_me) 25 April 2018

Last year, one concrete patch near the two-hour parking lot lasted about a week before the potholes returned.

On April 25, the college sent a crew around campus to mark potholes.

Part of the construction with DeJardin includes running a new bus road through the existing parking lot that will come closer to the DeJardin building.

Photo provided by Clackamas Community College

Last year, The Clackamas Print reported on a long and arduous project that the college is partnering to complete- the Beavercreek Employment Area. The BEA project aims to bring more businesses into Oregon City and a partnership allowing workers to be trained at the college.

“The purpose of the initiative is to encourage and attract targeted industry by leveraging education and training resources at CCC,” Hall said last year in an email to The Clackamas Print. “As large businesses move into the BEA, we can not only provide them educated employees who are job-ready at the time of hire, but we can also offer customized training specific to a business and help grow their existing workforce.”

Because of this, Barlow construction started before DeJardin. Instead of the bus loop wrapping around the flag, buses will drive in through a slightly angled road, which will provide much easier parking for buses and the CCC Xpress, the shuttle that provides free transportation to students and community members from Oregon City to the Clackamas Town Center, Harmony campus and Wilsonville campus.

Part of the overall construction planned for the Oregon City campus includes a newly constructed Community Center. It will be slightly more to the west, towards Gregory Forum than McLoughlin, as it currently is. This would drastically change the current bus drop off zone and the flagpoles. With the existing quad between the current community center and Barlow Hall, the new building, once finished, would include a larger quad with more grass, according to the official photo provided by CCC.

This would decrease the parking spots available near the DeJardin and Roger Rook halls by cutting off an entire section for the new transit road, and the new addition being added to DeJardin, which is roughly the same size as the current building, effectively doubling the building size.