LIVONIA, Mich. (WXYZ) — Potholes themselves aren't new, but every year, they bring up a whole new round of frustrations. We spoke with people along a bad stretch of Merriman Road, to hear their frustrations, and took their concerns to the Department of Public Services for Wayne County.
Watch Ali's report below
"The potholes are terrible," said Livonia resident Pat Ogozaly.
And it's clear to see that Ogozaly isn't wrong. Her house butts up to Merriman Road, which is riddled with pesky potholes from West Chicago up to Joy. She's lived in her home for the last 44 years.
"They've gotten worse over time," she said of the potholes. "They need to get out there and fix these."
Pat isn't alone in feeling more needs to be done to fix the potholes, which are popping up quicker than they're being fixed.
“It’s been getting worse, the last couple of years," said Livonia resident Kayla Dietz.
As I was checking out what Pat and Kayla were talking about, I spotted something in the middle of the road. We wondering if this was ice or concrete and we drove past it. I ran out in the street, and found that it is definitely a chunk of road that has come up.
I took the concrete chunk to Scott Cabauatan, the Deputy Director of the Department of Public Services for Wayne County.
"“That is a big piece of concrete," Cabautan said.
He told me this is a normal part of the freeze-thaw cycle, and that the county does take preventative maintenance, in the hopes of stopping road deterioration like this.
“What we do in the summertime, we’re doing crack sealing, and we’re doing surfacing of roadways, which we’ve done a tremendous amount of last year. Last year we did over 280 lane miles of resurfacing," he said.
Another part of making sure roads stay safe is following up on pothole reports. So far this year, 439 potholes have been reported in Oakland County, Macomb County has responded to 414 pavement-related requests in 2026, and in Wayne County, there have been 865 requests for service this year to date.
"I know they have the online form that you can fill out, and I have done that for some of the really large ones, but nothing has happened yet," Kayla said.
So, what does Cabauatan have to say to her?
“First of all appreciate her giving us the heads up on those things, while we drive the roads, our supervisors and our staff drive the roads on a regular basis, I don’t want to say daily because we can’t hit ever single road on a daily basis, we focus our time and our efforts on hitting the very most heavily traveled roads, those that are going to pose the most safety hazards to vehicles, and then kinda working our way done there," he responded.
During our interview, I got the opportunity to check out Wayne County's Call Center.
"Well, I know we get about 3,000 calls a month into our call center," Cabauantan said.
He tells me it will take no more than a week to respond to these calls. And I did find someone who has reported the potholes along Merriman. He tells me he saw results.
We have resources below where you can report a pothole in these three counties:
Related: How to file a claim for pothole damage
