N.S. resident builds crowdsourced pothole map in effort to promote civic responsibility

CITYnews halifax/ By Rachel Morgan

As winter begins to wane, you’d think road conditions would improve, but one Nova Scotia resident is becoming increasingly frustrated.

“Spring thaw is coming, and Canadian roads are about to get a lot worse,” Jason Turnbull, a resident of Cape Breton, told CityNews.

That’s why he created RoadRot, a crowdsourced map that shows where potholes exist across the province.

“I got fed up hitting the same potholes every day and realized there was no easy way to see where the worst roads were,” he said. “Municipal 311 systems take reports but don’t show the public what’s been reported or where usually.”

Halifax Regional Municipality says it has two priority levels for potholes that determine when they get repaired. Priority one potholes are classified as at least 25 centimeters in diameter and eight centimeters in depth and are repaired within 30 days of reporting. All other potholes are labelled as priority two and can take up to 12 months to repair.

The municipality says repair service standards are in effect Apr. 1 through Nov. 30, but some repairs have already begun in 2026.

Last week the municipality advised residents that repairs would begin on Robie Street, Agricola Street, Barrington Street and North Street.

A screenshot of a data point on roadrot.ca.

But Turnbull said this process is relatively hidden from the public. His map brings a classification of potholes out into the open, which can both inform residents and push for civic accountability.

“The site ranks the worst roads by city, and there’s a one-click feature to email your municipal, provincial, or federal representative about the potholes in your area. We track how many people have emailed about each pothole,” he said. “Potholes that cause damage or are ignored should be in the public record. Public pressure works and I want to make it easy.”

RoadRot was launched earlier this month. In the first two weeks, he said there were over 120 reports across Cape Breton and now he is looking for people to add data for other regions across the province.

“Just visit roadrot.ca on any phone or computer. Tap the map where you see a pothole, rate its severity, optionally add a photo, and submit. No signup, no app download, completely anonymous,” he said, adding citizens can also confirm others’ reports to help verify the data.

RoadRot is part of a series of crowdsourced civic accountability tools that Turnbull is creating. He also owns WattRot.ca to compare power bills across Canada, and recently released erstat.ca which pulls Nova Scotia Health wait time data to allow residents to choose a threshold for which they want an alert for when the wait time drops below.