Here in Vermont we are blessed with more than just four seasons. Depending on how you count we might have five, or six, or, like, 10 鈥� But what do we all agree comes during the confusing transition between winter and spring? Mud season. And by many accounts, this year鈥檚 is full-on.
鈥淭his year is extremely bad. We have got a lot of mud in all corners of the town, creating, you know, nearly impassable situations,鈥� says Keith Gadapee, road foreman for the town of Danville, in the Northeast Kingdom. 鈥淪o people sometimes have to walk. And of course, nobody wants to do that. And so people are not being able to go where they want to go. And I blame it on the fact that it got warm so quick. And there hasn't been a lot of frozen mornings to kind of stall that thawing action.鈥�
According to our state Agency of Transportation, Vermont has more miles of dirt road than paved. And Keith Gadapee鈥檚 town, Danville, has the most dirt.
鈥淲e do have over 80 miles of dirt or gravel roads, depending on how you want to call them,鈥� he says.
That鈥檚 not even counting Class 4 roads, which aren鈥檛 maintained year round. So Keith, suffice it to say, knows some stuff about dirt roads. Or gravel roads, depending on how you want to call them.
Over the years, Brave Little State, VPR鈥檚 people-powered journalism show, has received many listener questions about dirt roads in Vermont, and mud season. Given this year鈥檚 conditions, we thought we鈥檇 put those questions to a road expert, and Keith Gadapee generously agreed to share his knowledge.
As always, we recommend listening to the audio above if you鈥檙e able 鈥� our show is made for the ear! But we鈥檝e also formatted the episode as a Q&A. Read on for a primer on the season that will literally stop you in your tracks.
And as we share more listener photos!
Subscribe to Brave Little State for free, so you never miss an episode:
Loading...
鈥淲hy are so few roads in rural Vermont paved?鈥� 鈥� Geoffrey Bok, Craftsbury
Keith: 鈥淲ell, that's a great question. I think it all comes down to the objective of the town. You know, whether or not they feel that the traffic level is high enough to warrant a paved road. I think that has a lot to do with it. But I also think Vermont is known for its and that alone is also maybe keeping more roads gravel in Vermont, and less paved roads. Speed is always a factor, but the use, the traffic volumes, things like that, I think plays a bigger portion of it. Of course cost does as well.鈥�
(More on cost a little later on.)
_
鈥淲hat is it about Vermont's soils and climate that make our roads so prone to frost heaves and tire swallowing muck during spring mud season?鈥� 鈥� Michele Morris, Jericho
Keith: 鈥淪o, in Danville, and that's what I can speak about the most, our soils are [full of] clay and have a lot of silt and loam and things like that, that are not good road base material. And so unfortunately, this creates water-holding material that, when frozen, obviously expands and ice builds. When that material thaws, because there's so much water under the road and it can't escape through the ice, the water has to come up, and the water comes up. And of course, then we travel on it. And it turns the road to very muddy situations. So the freezing and thawing and the fact that there's a lot of water in the roadway that is frozen 鈥� this creates the mud in the spring when it thaws.鈥�
鈥淲hat can we do about the roads in Vermont? Isn't there a technological solution to our horrific potholes at this point?鈥� 鈥� Ellen Starr
Keith: 鈥淲ell, I mean, yes and no. I always call it 鈥渂attling Mother Nature.鈥� You know, she throws us a lot of curve balls to try to hit. And sometimes it's a little overwhelming. I mean, yes, the answer is yes, there are many different aggregates that can be used in some situations. But, since the beginning of roads, there's been mud, and there's been potholes. If we choose to live on these gravel roads, we've got to expect that because a lot of times Mother Nature gives us a challenge to make roads perfect all the time.鈥�
Angela: 鈥淒o you think there is such a thing as roads that can be perfect all the time?鈥�
Keith: 鈥淎bsolutely not. And we can talk about paved roads as well as gravel roads, it鈥檚 that freeze-thaw situation in the soils in Vermont, you know? There can't be a road that's perfect all the time due to either those things or just, you know, the traffic. Things wear out.鈥�
鈥淚鈥檓 wondering how potholes and washboards form. What鈥檚 the science behind these unique architectural features on our roads?鈥� 鈥� Coco Moseley, Lincoln
(Note: Coco Moseley is a second-time question asker; she has also asked BLS about .)
Keith: 鈥淚 think there's several things that play a part in causing potholes and washboards. Obviously, the freezing and thawing at different rates in different areas of the road are going to create swells and sags as things thaw out. So that definitely plays a part in it too.
鈥淚 think another thing that plays a big part of it is the water, whether the water is staying on top of the road as cars are driving through it. And every time a tire hits this little sag in the road, you know, it creates a huge amount of force pumping the water out of the sag and bringing fines with it, [allowing] the hole to get slowly deeper and deeper and deeper as more cars go over. So [traffic amount] definitely plays a factor in it too.
鈥淎nd then as far as washboards, we see washboards a lot in the summertime. Dry washboards, I call them, where, you know, traffic is going down the dirt road and the tire kind of is pushing the car along trying to spin a little bit, maybe, and turn up and ruffle up the wear surface. And then the next car comes by and it makes it a little worse even though there might not be any water in these washboards. It creates a little of what I call a 鈥榗hatter鈥�. Quite often you see this going up a hill because the car kind of spins its way up the hill and creates 鈥� once a little one starts, [it] gets bigger and bigger over time.鈥�
鈥淗ow does Vermont maintain all these gravel roads? I鈥檓 surrounded by beautiful gravel roads that I walk on all the time, but it seems like it must be so much work smoothing out the ruts, filling in the gulleys. How does Vermont do it?鈥� 鈥� Jackie Spain, Wallingford
Keith: 鈥淭hat's a great question. You know, obviously, the town crews are geared up with equipment to maintain gravel roads. I think all towns are in the same boat, in that budgets are never big enough to support the aggregate that you lose in a season to keep them up as good as they could be. So there are hurdles financially. So I think the simple answer to that question is: The towns are equipped and are geared up for the amount of highways that they have to keep some level of maintenance for these roads.鈥�
鈥淓very mud season I鈥檓 told that it鈥檚 鈥榤ore expensive鈥� to pave the roads than to constantly repair the dirt roads. Where is the data for that?鈥� 鈥� Rich Grogan, Reading
鈥淗ow does the cost of resurfacing and maintaining dirt roads compare to the cost of paving them? And who decides if a dirt road gets paved?鈥� 鈥� Amanda Scull, Westminster
鈥淲hat makes a town decide to leave roads unpaved? And are they cheaper to maintain?鈥� 鈥� Nancy Wilson
Keith: 鈥淎gain, it's a little bit about town objectives, you know, how much money they want to spend on roads with certain levels of traffic and service required. I can only speak about what we do in Danville but to give you an example, we divide our budget into different . Generally, Class 2 roads are paved and generally Class 3 roads are gravel. And if this helps at all, you know, my Class 3 budget is about 40% less than my Class 2 budget. And that Class 3 budget has four times the miles of road on it than my class two budget does. And why that is, is because blacktop is very expensive. It's very expensive to install. And so when you choose to do, let's say, a mile of blacktop, that's a huge hit versus a mile of gravel road.鈥�
鈥淲ho gets to decide if a dirt road gets paved?鈥� 鈥� Amanda Scull, Westminster
Keith: 鈥淭o pave or not to pave solely relies on the Select Board of your town or however you are organized. And obviously input from the townspeople, and from the road foreman or road commissioner, however your town is structured, whether or not to pave a road, so there's no real formula or anything that they use.鈥�
Angela: 鈥淚s it something that eventually would go to voters? To say, 鈥榃e definitely want to keep this road dirt,鈥� or, 鈥極h, we can't handle it anymore. We want to pave this.鈥欌��
Keith: 鈥淭hat definitely could happen. And again, depending on your Select Board, that definitely is probably a good way to do that. I know in my experience we've had townspeople come in requesting a certain road to be paved. And believe it or not, I've had townspeople requesting it not be paved as well. So, I mean, there's two sides to every coin for sure. And there's many opinions out there.鈥�
鈥淲hat are the pros and cons of dirt roads vs. paved roads?鈥� 鈥� Steve Gladstone, Hinesburg
Keith: 鈥淭he level of service on gravel roads definitely is different on paved roads. You know, in all four seasons 鈥� for example, today you're not going to be able to drive everywhere you want to go on a gravel road, because the wear surface is now mud and is nearly intravelable in many areas. Whereas today you can drive anywhere you want on a blacktop road. So there are definitely levels of service, definitely different driving conditions that all play in the decision making of whether to pave a road or maybe to keep it gravel.鈥�
_
鈥淲hy do Vermonters prefer dirt roads over paved roads when some dirt roads are so bad in mud season that school buses get stuck? Some people will use speeding cars as a reason against paved roads, but those same people complain about speeding cars on their dirt roads!鈥� 鈥� Ed Green, Westford
Keith: 鈥淭hat's a fantastic question. There's a lot of different reasons why people respond in different ways. First of all, as far as blacktop versus gravel, some folks I've heard [say], 鈥業 moved to Vermont, because I want it to live on a gravel road because it's quieter, and, you know, less traffic and less speeders and things like that.鈥� So I think this question is gonna be beyond me, because it's more or less rather than figuring out the roads. So, you know, we have the same in Danville, you know, people want to live on the back road, but they also don't want people going fast. And so, you know, there's some things we just can't control. And we just have to manage accordingly. That's probably the most difficult question of the day right there.鈥�
Angela: 鈥淲ell, let me ask you personally, do you live on a paved road or gravel road, Keith?鈥�
Keith: 鈥淚 live on a gravel road, and my road was impassable this morning, by most vehicles. They were parked at the bottom of the road 鈥� the vehicles that have low clearance and things like that. But again, it was all about choice. When I chose to build my house where I did, I was willing to accept the fact that there's going to be times where I can't get out, or I've got to gear up my choice of vehicle to be able to get out in all conditions.
鈥淚 think most folks don't understand what mud season means for a road crew or a town. You know, when it snows in the winter time, we can respond to that hazard by taking snow plows out and plowing and sanding the road. Or if it's an ice storm, we can go out and sand or, you know, if a tree comes down, we can go out and we can clean that tree up that fell across the road to get rid of that hazard. . Think about how we fix mud. We take heavy equipment out on the muddy roads that weigh 30 tons carrying gravel and stone to this desolate place that needs a load to fill in ruts or to fill in a soft spot. And to get to that spot, we might travel three or four miles to get to it on these soft roads. And if you can imagine a 30-ton truck traveling three or four miles to get to this spot, we're doing more damage getting to the bad spot than we would by not going.
鈥淢ud season is the only season that our hands are kind of tied. So it's hard on the mind. It's hard on my guys, because they want to make everything good. We all want the same result 鈥� to make travelable roads and make it decent for people to go. But there's some times, and this year is a prime example, when everything kind of fell apart all at once. Where we can't respond to the hazard like people might think we can.鈥�
Subscribe to Brave Little State for free, so you never miss an episode:
Loading...
A huge thank you to Keith Gadapee of the Danville Highway Department for being game to answer all these questions 鈥� and to all the road crews across Vermont for tending to our roads during mud season, and all seasons.
And thanks to the many of you who shared photos of your impassable roads.
The Brave Little State team is Myra Flynn, Josh Crane and Angela Evancie; VPR鈥檚 news fellow is Marlon Hyde. Ty Gibbons composed our theme music; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.
As always, our journalism is better when you鈥檙e a part of it:
- Say hi on, and @bravestatevt
- Drop us an email: [email protected]
- to support people-powered journalism
- Tell your friends about the show!
Brave Little State is a production of 开云体育 Radio.
