Crews repairing hundreds of miles of roads across Chicago

After a nasty pothole season, Chicago’s unofficial “paving season" opened Wednesday.

Crews will be re-paving streets all over the city. The mayor joined transportation officials in the Archer Heights neighborhood to kick it off.

Drivers delayed by the repaving project on Archer Avenue say it can't happen soon enough.

“It's a mess, but like, it pays off in the end,” one driver said. 

Mayor Emanuel used the grinding of asphalt as a backdrop for announcing that the city's "paving season" has begun, as the pothole season winds down. 315 miles of streets will be resurfaced this summer.

“There's nothing like a newly paved street because you also get the ADA sidewalks, you get sometimes obviously the streetscape work, it is more permanent and actually gives a whole different feeling to the community,” said Mayor Emanuel.

Pothole season isn't entirely gone. The city has 40 crews on the street right now, instead of the usual 30, trying to tackle that problem. 

The mayor acknowledged it's been tough staying ahead of the potholes.     

"Look, we had a, not only a horrible winter, I don't think I need to remind anybody, the other day, in the middle of April, we had snow,” said Mayor Emanuel.

Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld said 2,100 miles of streets have been resurfaced during the mayor's eight years in office, about half of the city's streets.

“That's really a remarkable transformation that has an effect on everybody's quality of life every day across this city,” said Scheinfeld.