The three ways to reach 311, the details that actually get a hole filled, and what happens to your report after you send it.
Kansas City takes pothole reports through 311, and there are three ways in: the myKCMO app, the same service in a web browser, or the phone. All three land in the same system.
Use the app if you can. It lets you drop a pin on a map and attach a photo, which removes the two things that most often make a report useless — a location a crew can't find, and a description that doesn't convey how bad the hole actually is.
It takes about two minutes. The rest of this page is about doing it in a way that gets results.
myKCMO is the city's official service-request app, available for iPhone, Android, and any web browser if you'd rather not install anything. The city's own overview lives at kcmo.gov/talk-to-us/mykcmo.
It replaced the old "Report to 311" web form, so if you have that page bookmarked from a few years ago, it now just redirects you here.
Reporting a pothole in it comes down to picking the category, dropping the pin, adding a photo, and describing the problem. The app then tracks the request for you — it can notify you when the case status changes, which is the part the phone line can't do.
From a phone inside Kansas City, dial 311. From a cell phone on another carrier's network, from outside the city, or if 311 doesn't connect, call 816-513-1313. The city lists phone hours as Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Calling is the right choice when the problem is hard to describe in a form, when you're reporting on someone else's behalf, or when you want a person to confirm the report was taken. Have the nearest address ready before you dial — the call goes much faster.
A crew has to find the hole before they can fill it. Most reports that go nowhere go nowhere because nobody could tell exactly where "nowhere" was. Include:
A specific location. The nearest street address is best. An intersection is second best — and if you give one, say which corner or which approach. "Troost and 39th" describes four different places.
Which lane, and which direction. On a four-lane street this is the difference between a crew finding it on the first pass and not finding it at all. "Northbound, right lane, just past the light" is worth more than a paragraph of adjectives.
How big and how deep. Compare it to something: a dinner plate, a car tire, a bathtub. Depth matters more than width for prioritization, because depth is what damages vehicles.
A photo, if you're using the app. Frame something recognizable in the shot — a curb, a street sign, a driveway — so the picture also confirms the location. A close-up of a hole against featureless asphalt could be anywhere.
Whether it's in the street or the alley. The city tracks these separately, and they're handled by different work queues.
One thing not to bother with: arguing the case. The intake system is a work order, not an audience. Location, size, lane. Save the rest.
Not to talk you out of reporting — see the next section — but because it's genuinely useful to know. Kansas City publishes every 311 service request as public data, which is what this site is built on.
Search the block on the lookup page. If there's already an open ticket, you'll see when it was opened and how many days it's been sitting. That's worth knowing before you call, and it's worth a great deal later if the hole ends up damaging somebody's car.
People hesitate here, worried about creating a duplicate. Don't.
Duplicates are a normal, expected part of how 311 works, and the city closes them out routinely. Meanwhile, a hole with six reports on it reads very differently inside the system than a hole with one — and it reads very differently in the public record afterward. Volume is the only signal residents actually control.
The one thing worth doing is making your report specific enough that it's clearly the same hole, rather than a vague report that gets logged somewhere down the block.
Your report becomes a service request with its own record. Under the current system it goes to field staff directly rather than through a paper chain, which is the change the myKCMO rollout was mostly about.
From there it ends up in one of three states, and it's worth understanding what they mean, because the labels promise more than they deliver:
Open — received, not closed out. It does not tell you whether anyone has looked at it yet.
Resolved — the city closed it as handled. This is the city's own assertion that the work was done. It is not a guarantee the road is fixed, and a cold patch laid in February may be gone by April.
Canceled — closed without being addressed. Often legitimate: a duplicate, or a street that turns out not to be the city's. Sometimes less satisfying. The data rarely says which.
If a resolved pothole comes back, that's a new report, not a reopening. More on what these statuses actually measure.
Timing depends on weather, severity, and workload. Cold patch is what's available in winter; permanent asphalt work generally waits for warmer weather, which is why the same stretch of road can be patched repeatedly across a single season.
Not every road inside Kansas City belongs to Kansas City, and reporting to the wrong agency is the most common way a report quietly dies.
Interstates and state routes — I-70, I-35, I-435, US-71 and similar — belong to MoDOT. Report those to MoDOT's customer service line at 1-888-275-6636 (1-888-ASK-MODOT), which is staffed around the clock, or through the Report a Road Concern form.
Private property — apartment lots, shopping-center drives, most private drives — is the owner's problem, and the city has no authority to repair it.
Kansas City, Kansas is a different city in a different state. Its 311 is separate.
If you're not sure, report it to KC 311 anyway. Being routed or canceled costs you nothing, and a canceled ticket at least creates a record that someone raised it.
Then reporting it is still worth doing — but it's the second thing to do, not the first, and the deadline is tighter than most people expect.
Photograph the pothole and the damage today, before the hole gets patched and stops existing. Then check whether the city had already been told about it: search the location and note any reports that were open on the day you were damaged. A ticket opened months earlier and never closed is the single most useful document you can put in front of the city's Claims Unit, because it goes directly to whether the city knew and had a chance to act.
Missouri law generally requires written notice within 90 days of the incident. That deadline arrives faster than it sounds once a repair shop and an insurance call are involved.
Read the full claim guide, or go straight to the notice letter generator.
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