Hard-top, black-top, tarred, paved, modern. Or dirt, gravel, mud, old-timey.
Now’s the time of year when rural Upper Valley residents think about getting around as Mother Nature kicks up the frost heaves and turns firm rights-of-way into greasy, rutted, often-challenging byways. This brings into focus the tough dilemma officials face in managing our network of local roads.
Through the first third of the 20th century, town roads around here were terrible — so bad that people looked forward to winter when snow could be packed down, sprinkled with water and made into smooth ribbons of ice that facilitated transport with teams of horses and oxen and sleighs and cargo sleds. Come spring they became quagmires such that many schools ceased to operate for weeks at a time and travel and commerce were commonly suspended. Summer and fall were plagued by washouts, dust and bumpy going.
So the idea of mixing petroleum-based asphalt with sand to give the roads a hard, impermeable surface took hold and soon people were hoping and praying their road would get “tarred” and become passable all year long. But this approach cost a lot of money and many residents would wait decades for their road to be surfaced, and many others would never see it happen on theirs.
Roads that had been paved would eventually need a fresh treatment and the push for surfacing additional mileage would largely stall in most towns.
Thus came equilibrium — perhaps half the roads in a community hard surfaced, the other half not. Gravel was the key to keeping unpaved roads functional, and towns on both sides of the Connecticut River dug out and hauled untold thousands of cubic yards of gravel to upgrade and stabilize these roadways.
Today the paved sections get the most attention and much of the road maintenance money. Asphalt paving material costs have risen sharply in recent years and seem to rise steadily even as oil prices have declined in the past decade. That leaves the gravel roads to play second fiddle.
Sheet erosion — the kind caused by heavy rains — will carry away an average of one inch of road gravel a year, so in 10 years a 10-inch layer of gravel will be carried off to Long Island Sound, leaving behind dirt, the stuff that makes for mud in the spring. Replacing lost gravel is an expensive proposition, too, with the cost of the material itself plus the trucks and machinery to haul, spread and compact it.
Another contemporary dimension of this is resistance to paving any new sections of roadway. People want “their” road to stay “country” and fear traffic will go faster by their properties if it’s paved.
So give those selectboards and road agents a little sympathy as they try to find the right balance between the asphalt and the gravel.
Steve Taylor lives and farms in Meriden.
