A year-to-date report from the city's own 311 data: how many potholes were reported, when, where, and what happened to the reports.
This report covers pothole reports filed with Kansas City, Missouri's 311 system from January 1, 2026 onward. The data was pulled on October 7, 2026, and the newest pothole report in it was filed on October 5. Comparisons with earlier years use January 1 through September 30 of each year, so every year is measured over the same nine months. We'll update this page as the year goes on.
The counts are 311 reports, not potholes. One hole can draw several reports, and plenty of holes are never reported. One more technical note: the city started filing potholes under the category "A Pothole" in December 2023, but about a thousand 2024 reports still used the old "Street Maintenance – Pothole" label. All the year-to-year figures here add the two together. No 2026 reports used the old label.
Other pages on this site go deeper on two related questions: how long repairs take across 2024–2026, and why potholes peak in late winter. This page sticks to what 2026 itself looks like.
From January through September, Kansas Citians filed 5,218 pothole reports. That's 41% fewer than the 8,843 filed in the same months of 2025, and 40% fewer than the 8,740 in 2024. It's also the lowest January–September total of the last five years: 2022 had 7,864 and 2023 had 6,264.
Almost all of the drop came in winter. The summer months looked like a normal year, and September 2026 was actually busier than September of either of the two years before it.
Counting everything through October 5, there have been 5,278 reports this year. Of those, 4,554 (86.3%) are marked resolved, 501 (9.5%) canceled, and 223 (4.2%) still open. The median resolved report closed in 5 days.
| Month | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2026 vs. 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 2,422 | 822 | 469 | −43% |
| February | 2,214 | 1,417 | 532 | −62% |
| March | 864 | 2,322 | 983 | −58% |
| April | 701 | 1,237 | 786 | −36% |
| May | 942 | 874 | 610 | −30% |
| June | 510 | 803 | 545 | −32% |
| July | 436 | 589 | 443 | −25% |
| August | 342 | 441 | 424 | −4% |
| September | 309 | 338 | 426 | +26% |
| Jan.–Sept. | 8,740 | 8,843 | 5,218 | −41% |
Split the year in two and the pattern is plain. January through April 2026 brought 2,770 reports, against 5,798 in 2025 and 6,201 in 2024 — less than half of either. May through September brought 2,448, which is 20% below 2025 but only 4% below 2024.
In other words, 2026 didn't have a real pothole surge. March was still the busiest month, as it usually is, but its 983 reports were fewer than 2024's January or February and well under half of March 2025. In 2024 the city got more pothole reports in January alone (2,422) than it did in the first three months of 2026 combined (1,984).
The data can't say why. A milder or steadier winter would do it, since the late-winter spike is driven by freeze-thaw cycles; why Kansas City has so many potholes explains how that works. Resurfacing could play a part too. The 311 records record reports, not weather or paving, so we're not going to guess at the split.
The late summer is worth watching. August was nearly level with 2025, and September's 426 reports were the most for any September in the three years compared. The first five days of October brought 60 reports, against 52 in the same days of 2025 and 40 in 2024. That's a small sample, but it means the fall has not been unusually quiet.
Grouping reports by week (Monday through Sunday), the three busiest weeks of 2026 were back to back in March:
| Week starting | Reports |
|---|---|
| Monday, March 9 | 289 |
| Monday, March 16 | 239 |
| Monday, March 2 | 222 |
| Monday, April 13 | 192 |
| Monday, April 20 | 181 |
The single busiest day was Wednesday, March 11, with 67 reports, followed by March 18 with 59 and March 12 with 53.
Those numbers are modest next to recent years. The busiest week of 2025 started March 3 and drew 740 reports. In 2024 the peak came during the late-January freeze and thaw: the week of January 29 drew 1,379 reports and the week before it 1,362. On January 26, 2024, the city logged 502 pothole reports in a single day — about 1.7 times as many as in 2026's busiest week.
Reports also follow the work week. Wednesdays had the most of any weekday this year, 1,013, while Saturdays (405) and Sundays (410) had less than half that. Part of the reason is who's filing. About a quarter of 2026 reports, 1,296 of 5,278, are labeled in the dataset as coming from city staff rather than the public, and only one of those was filed on a weekend. Reports from the public dip on weekends too, but much less sharply.
The dataset doesn't have a ZIP code field, but nearly every report's address ends with one, so we counted those. (One 2026 report had no ZIP.) These are the ZIP codes with the most reports from January through September, with the same months of the two prior years:
| ZIP | Most-reported streets in 2026 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | vs. 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 64114 | Wornall Rd, Belleview Ave, Ward Pkwy | 561 | 696 | 325 | −53% |
| 64131 | Holmes Rd, E Red Bridge Rd, Troost Ave | 364 | 432 | 291 | −33% |
| 64151 | NW Waukomis Dr, NW 68th St, NW Barry Rd | 331 | 469 | 288 | −39% |
| 64118 | NW 68th St, NW Barry Rd, N Oak Trfy | 371 | 274 | 230 | −16% |
| 64111 | Westport Rd, Warwick Blvd, Wyoming St | 484 | 472 | 225 | −52% |
| 64108 | Summit St, Southwest Blvd, West Pennway | 488 | 470 | 225 | −52% |
| 64130 | — | 285 | 294 | 200 | −32% |
| 64119 | — | 264 | 289 | 173 | −40% |
| 64127 | — | 387 | 247 | 166 | −33% |
| 64155 | — | 231 | 305 | 160 | −48% |
64114, on the south side along Wornall Road and Ward Parkway, has led the city for three years running. It's also where the 2026 drop was largest in raw numbers: 371 fewer reports than in 2025. The midtown and near-downtown ZIPs, 64111 (Westport) and 64108 (the Westside and Crossroads area along Summit Street and Southwest Boulevard), were each down by about half.
The Northland held up better. 64151 and 64118, both north of the river and both crossed by NW 68th Street and NW Barry Road, ranked third and fourth this year. 64118 fell only 16% from 2025, the smallest drop of any ZIP in the top ten. NW 68th Street drew 47 reports across the two ZIPs, and North Oak Trafficway, which runs through 64118 and beyond, was the most-reported street name in the whole city this year, with 70.
Other streets with 50 or more 2026 reports: Prospect Avenue (65), Holmes Road (64), East Front Street (59), Troost Avenue (56), Summit Street (55), NW Barry Road (53) and East Red Bridge Road (50). Long streets naturally collect more reports, so these counts say as much about length and traffic as about pavement.
Only a handful of ZIP codes had more reports in 2026 than in 2025, all with small numbers: downtown's 64102 went from 14 to 16, and a few far-north ZIPs gained one or two.
A caution about all of this: report counts measure who reports as well as what the roads are like. A busy commuter street in a neighborhood where people use the myKCMO app will produce more reports than an equally rough street where nobody does. Council district comparisons have an extra problem this year: 402 of the 2026 reports have no council district recorded, against 69 in the same months of 2025, so we've used ZIP codes instead.
Here's the current status of every report filed from January through September of each year:
| Filed Jan.–Sept. | Reports | Resolved | Canceled | Still open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 8,740 | 7,582 (86.8%) | 1,156 (13.2%) | 2 |
| 2025 | 8,843 | 5,970 (67.5%) | 2,860 (32.3%) | 13 |
| 2026 | 5,218 | 4,554 (87.3%) | 499 (9.6%) | 165 (3.2%) |
The biggest change is in cancellations. Almost a third of 2025's reports ended up canceled, 1,079 of them from March alone. In 2026 fewer than one in ten were. The dataset doesn't record why a report was canceled; duplicate reports of the same hole and roads that belong to MoDOT or another city are common reasons. Understanding the 311 data explains what each status means.
The share still open in 2026 is higher simply because those reports are newer. 2024 and 2025 reports have had a year or more to close.
Repairs were quick. Of the 4,554 resolved 2026 reports, 36.2% closed within three days, 67.8% within a week, and 98.5% within 30 days. The median was 5 days, against 14 days for reports filed in the same months of both 2024 and 2025. Pothole repair times breaks that comparison down in detail. By the month a report was filed, the 2026 median stayed between 3 and 7 days all year:
| Filed in 2026 | Reports | Resolved | Median days to close | Closed within 7 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 469 | 427 | 5 | 61.6% |
| February | 532 | 481 | 3 | 83.6% |
| March | 983 | 846 | 5 | 60.5% |
| April | 786 | 703 | 4 | 78.4% |
| May | 610 | 560 | 5 | 69.8% |
| June | 545 | 488 | 7 | 55.5% |
| July | 443 | 380 | 7 | 55.5% |
| August | 424 | 371 | 5 | 69.0% |
| September | 426 | 298 | 5 | 77.2% |
Medians and percentages count resolved reports only. September's figures will drift as its 78 still-open reports close, and the slowest ones haven't been counted yet.
Even in March, the busiest month, the median wait was five days. That's the biggest practical difference from the last two years, when the median for January through September was 14 days in both years. June and July were the slowest months of 2026, though only by a couple of days.
As of the data pull, 223 reports filed in 2026 were still open. Most are recent: 136 were filed in September or October. But 91 had been open more than 30 days, and 54 more than 90 days.
The oldest open 2026 report was filed on January 23 at 805 Westport Road, 257 days before our pull. Next oldest are reports from February 6 on Madison Avenue in 64112, February 23 on N Lane Avenue in 64158, and February 27 on Walnut Street downtown. The Hall of Fame tracks the longest-waiting reports across all years as they stand today.
Among resolved reports, the slowest was filed January 22 on McGee Street in 64111 and closed August 26, after 216 days. Only 67 resolved 2026 reports took longer than 30 days.
Staff are filing a bigger share. Reports from the public fell 44% from 2025 (6,972 to 3,937 for January through September), while staff-filed reports fell 32% (1,871 to 1,281). So reports from city staff rose to 24.5% of the total, up from 21.2% in 2025 and 21.7% in 2024. The dataset doesn't say which staff file them or why.
Fewer "entire block" reports. When you report a pothole, the city asks whether it's one hole, several, or the entire block. In 2026, 701 of the January–September reports (13.4%) said the entire block, down from 16.9% in 2025 and 14.8% in 2024. The rest split almost evenly between "one pothole" and "multiple potholes."
Some spots keep coming back. The 5,278 reports this year came from 4,227 distinct addresses, and 627 of those addresses had two or more reports. The most-reported address was 4925 E Front Street, with 20 reports between January 7 and July 27. Twelve were resolved, seven canceled, and one filed in late June is still open. A spot that keeps getting resolved and then reported again is what a patch that doesn't hold looks like in the data. Address spellings vary, so the true number of repeat locations is probably higher.
Alleys are a small slice. 98 of this year's reports were filed as alley potholes, against 4,939 for streets. The other 241 carry a work-group label instead of a street-or-alley subtype.
October through December are usually the quietest months. In 2024 they brought 249, 282 and 318 reports, and in 2025 306, 233 and 333. If 2026 follows the same shape, it will finish well below either of the last two years. The next real test is the 2027 freeze-thaw season. The peak came in late January in 2024 and in early March in 2025.
If you've spotted a pothole, search the address first to see whether it's already been reported, then report it with as exact a location as you can. If it's on an interstate or a numbered state route, it's probably MoDOT's, not the city's: who maintains Kansas City's roads sorts that out. If one has already damaged your car, see what to do after pothole damage and the claim guide.
Everything here comes from the City of Kansas City, Missouri's public 311 service-request dataset (d4px-6rwg on the city's open data portal), pulled on October 7, 2026. Counts include issue type "A Pothole" plus issue type "Street Maintenance" with sub-type "Pothole," grouped by the date each report was opened. Statuses are as of the pull. Days to close come from the dataset's own days-to-close field for resolved reports, and medians are exact. ZIP codes and street names were taken from the end and start of each report's address. Weeks run Monday through Sunday. Every figure will change as reports are added and closed, and we'll revise this page as the year goes on.
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