Montreal pothole problems: drivers brace for another winter on rough city roads

De Lorimier Avenue, near the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, is home to a massive pothole — so big you could literally sit inside it — highlighting the state of Montreal’s roads.

Last winter, the city received a record number of pothole reports, with more than 4,200 complaints in January 2026 alone.

Now, as Montreal prepares for another winter, residents are concerned about what freezing temperatures and snow could mean for the city’s already battered roads.

“I’m worried about it because last year, I damaged my car’s front suspension,” said John, a Montreal resident.

“The number of potholes we’ll see will only get worse with the freezing and thawing,” said Brian O’Conner, another Montreal resident.

“It’s getting worse and worse every year, I think,” said Sophie Carter.

Saad Tekiout has made a name for himself by taking pothole repairs into his own hands. Since April, he has been responding to Montrealers’ requests to patch holes across the city. He has even met with the mayor, but says little has changed, leaving him to continue the work himself.

“We don’t really know who is taking responsibility for this because, if I were in charge, I would fix it in one week. Everything would be good,” Tekiout said.

Tekiout says the city needs to prevent potholes from growing by having dedicated crews identify and repair small cracks in the road before winter sets in.

CityNews reached out to the mayor’s office for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.

Transportation planning lecturer Pierre Barrieau agrees, saying the city’s winter repairs are largely temporary.

“But the issue is really what the city is doing from spring to fall in identifying where road fissures are going to become potholes in the winter and fixing them pre-emptively. And that’s where the city right now, unfortunately, doesn’t have the budgets and the staffing levels to be able to do it sufficiently,” Barrieau said.

Across Montreal, Tekiout says rushed city repair jobs may be contributing to pothole patches already crumbling, including one on Saint-Jacques Street, which has long been known for hazardous potholes.

Barrieau says temporary repairs can deteriorate quickly in freezing conditions.

“The potholes, when the city fills them when it’s freezing and thawing, that patch sometimes doesn’t even last 48 to 72 hours because the freezing and thawing destroys them,” Barrieau said.

The city is also changing its winter maintenance strategy, including using more salt on sidewalks. Barrieau says that while salt can improve pedestrian safety, the resulting water can seep into roads, weaken their foundations and contribute to pothole formation.

“By adding the salt, yes, we’ll have more water, but sometimes it will freeze more. And that’s going to be a potential issue that we’re going to have,” Barrieau said.

Beyond the salt and temporary fixes, Barrieau says Montreal’s pothole problem is decades in the making and will not be resolved anytime soon.

“The reality is we have a multi-decade deficit in maintaining our road network. We’re not going to be fixing that in a week, we’re not going to be fixing that in five years or even 10 years,” Barrieau said.