BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – With almost 16,000 miles of dirt roads in Vermont, road crews say they were kept extra busy with multiple warm spells this winter.
Worcester’s road commissioner Michael Utton says the town’s 19 miles of dirt roads got a lot of TLC this winter, with the first round of mud season coming as early as January.
“This year has been a little odd. We’ve had three, maybe four mud seasons this year,” he said.
He says they used their grader in February too, depending on the weather as it came.
“Flexible and ready to work seven days a week or whatever it takes,” said Utton.
Utton adds July’s flooding didn’t help the town, leaving 17 roads majorly damaged. He says there wasn’t enough time to get everything done – and then the snow came.
However, he says turning to paved roads isn’t necessarily a cheaper or more efficient option.
“I think the last time I heard it was like, almost half a million dollars do a mile. So it’s a lot of money, where you know, a grater you graded once a month, maybe twice a month, and you’re good to go for a couple of weeks,” said Utton.
Roxbury’s road foreman Loren Bent agrees, noting the price of gravel and the need to navigate Vermont’s natural landscape.
“No, there’s no good answer,” said Bent.
The small town is home to 36 miles of dirt roads, and like in Worcester, Bent can’t believe the year they’ve had.
“This last winter was probably the worst. I mean, we’ve had fosse in the middle of winter and had to fix roads, but it wasn’t constant like this winter,” said Bent.
Bent says they graded the roads all winter – an unusual task that only happened because of the wacky weather. He says the mud seasons in the middle of winter were worse than the one we would typically be in right now.
But now that spring has sprung, the familiar chore is underway again. He says they’ll be grading roads all spring, even re-doing the ones they completed a few months back.
“Just gonna have to play it by ear. This was a warm winter, that’s for sure. Hopefully it gets cold again. Because really, it’s hard to deal with. Makes for a lot of late nights,” he said.
For driving on dirt roads, experts recommend reducing your speed and using four-wheel drive if you have it.