If we're making stuff up with no basis, I'll go with it distorts the process by bringing attention to and prioritising the potholes that bother people enough to make the effort of painting them. But really I think most municipalities are not as good at planning as you give them credit for.

Although if a big pothole remains for several years amid many complaints, it's reasonable to think there's no such list. Or there is a list, but it's so long that it might as well not exist.

> Most road maintenance crews probably aren't sitting around

Assuming that's true, the most likely explanation is that they are working on Big Projects. Pothole maintenance is (probably) behind these projects, even though it can be done without affecting their timeline.

> My model of municipal maintenance is that a city's road maintenance workers have a long list of known potholes to fix which is triaged with some formula and dealt with day-by-day.

What makes you think that?

I don’t imagine all government work has been perfectly prioritized on a well calibrated sliding scale.

I agree about the distortion, and it omits what is typically the greatest distortion: Wealth and power. I've been on bumpy, deteriorating roads in poor neighborhoods that suddenly turned into smooth, paved roads in wealthy neighborhoods.

Also, the person of a certain class, ethnicity and age who spraypaints is called an 'artivist'. For someone else it would be called graffiti and they might be arrested for vandalism.

Citizens should have a say in how municipalities order work. If they're not given that say through less-disruptive means, then they can choose to harmlessly tag places where maintenance is failing.

Why are we excusing civic inaction because it might cause an unexpected schedule change for road crews? Why am I supposed to be so full of concern for the ease of their schedule that I'm ok with broken streets?

In short, c'mon, man.

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