Broken Sidewalk? Get in Line. 8 Out of 10 Sidewalk Repair Calls in Boston Are Past Due
City 311 records show 491 of 598 sidewalk repair requests opened over the last 30 days are already marked overdue. Potholes aren't far behind.
Look, everybody in this city has tripped on a busted sidewalk at least once. Here's what the city's own numbers say about getting it fixed. Between Sept. 19 through Oct. 18, 2026, people filed 598 sidewalk repair requests through Boston 311. As of the city's latest data, 491 of them were flagged "OVERDUE." That's about 82%, so roughly eight out of every ten.
That's the worst on-time rate of any 311 complaint type with more than 150 requests in that window. Second-worst: utility contractor complaints, the ones about crews tearing up streets, at 226 overdue out of 317, about 71%. Potholes were right behind, 297 of 430, about 69%.
Zoom out and it's not all bad. Across all 14,037 requests opened in those 30 days, 10,907 were marked on time and 3,130 overdue, about 22%. The Public Works Department handles the most cases, 8,495 of them, and 1,915 of those were overdue.
What "overdue" means here: the city sets a target close date for every request, and the dataset marks a case overdue when it blows past that target. It doesn't tell you whether the crew showed up a day late or a month late, and some cases opened recently may still get closed. So this is a snapshot, not a final grade.
Got a sidewalk that's been reported and nobody came? You can file or track it at 311 online, on the BOS:311 app, or by calling 311.
How we reported this
Boston Uncut queried the City of Boston's 311 Service Requests (new system) dataset on Analyze Boston, last updated Oct. 19, 2026, for every request with an open date from Sept. 19 through Oct. 18, 2026 (timestamps as published, UTC). We counted requests by case topic and by the dataset's on_time field (ONTIME / OVERDUE). Topic comparisons include only topics with more than 150 requests.
