Facing a record-breaking pothole season and a repair backlog that one city engineer described as “spiritually devastating,” Chicago’s Department of Transportation announced Wednesday the launch of the Pothole Adoption Program, a new initiative allowing residents to formally adopt, name, and sponsor individual potholes throughout the city.

The program, which officials say was inspired by the city’s successful Adopt-a-Street program and “a growing sense of municipal despair,” will let any Chicago resident claim a pothole through an online portal. Adopters will receive a certificate of adoption, a small weatherproof sign to place near their pothole, and the right to give it an official name, which will be entered into the city’s infrastructure database.

“We realized that if we can’t fix them, we might as well make them part of the community,” said CDOT Commissioner Ray Delgado at a press conference held, fittingly, next to a pothole on Western Avenue that has been continuously present since 2019. “Chicagoans already have personal relationships with these potholes. They know them. They avoid them. Some of them have cost people entire tire rims. That’s a bond.”

Early registrations have been enthusiastic. Within three hours of the portal going live, over four hundred potholes had been claimed. Popular names include “The Mariana Trench” for a particularly deep crater on Ashland Avenue, “Old Faithful” for one on Pulaski that fills with water and erupts when buses drive through it, and simply “Kevin” for a modest but persistent divot near the Belmont Blue Line stop.

Sponsors are encouraged, but not required, to maintain their adopted potholes. The city is offering a starter kit that includes a bag of cold-patch asphalt, a tamping tool, and a pamphlet titled “So You’ve Adopted a Pothole: A Guide to Responsible Road Parenting.” The pamphlet includes sections on seasonal maintenance, drainage management, and “letting go when repairs finally come.”

Not everyone is thrilled with the program. Alderman Patricia Nowak of the 35th Ward called it “an admission of failure dressed up as community engagement,” adding that her ward alone has over three hundred unfilled potholes and “naming them doesn’t make the suspension damage any cheaper.”

Civil engineers have noted that Chicago’s freeze-thaw cycle makes pothole prevention nearly impossible, a fact that Commissioner Delgado acknowledged with what reporters described as “a thousand-yard stare.” He added that the adoption program is meant to supplement, not replace, the city’s existing repair efforts, which he said are “ongoing, underfunded, and heroic.”

As of Thursday afternoon, the most-adopted stretch of road is a two-block section of North Avenue between Damen and Milwaukee, where eleven potholes have been claimed by a single resident who has named them after the characters in Ocean’s Eleven. The resident, who asked to be identified only as “Danny,” said he plans to throw a block party when the last one is finally filled.