NORTHFIELD — During a conversation with Highway Superintendent Tom Walker, the Selectboard recently discussed the possibility of discontinuing maintenance on the middle section of Old Wendell Road.
According to Town Administrator Andrea Llamas, the Selectboard has two options when it comes to the middle section of the road. The board could discontinue maintenance, meaning the road would still be available to people who like to walk there, or the town could discontinue the road itself, which would “literally be an extinguishment of the public’s right to use the road,” according to Llamas.
Discontinuing maintenance of the road would require a vote of the Selectboard following a series of public hearings, notices and postings on the town website, while discontinuing the road itself would need to be approved by Town Meeting voters.
At these public hearings, Llamas said the Selectboard would have to establish that the way is abandoned and not used for ordinary travel, which she said the board wouldn’t have any problem establishing, as the road is “just a trail, if anything.”
“It’s much more complicated, and the road essentially goes away,” Llamas said regarding discontinuing the middle portion of Old Wendell Road altogether. “So the people who have land in between lose access. That didn’t seem … optimal for the public. … One thing we did discuss was the discontinuance of maintenance. This means that the public will continue to have the rights to travel over that road.”
Walker said that after a survey, he’s identified the correct place for the two ends of the road to stop in the middle and where the discontinued portion would begin. Llamas said cutting through the impassable section of the road would cost “millions of dollars,” which is why the town has settled on these two options.
This isn’t a project that would happen quickly, Walker noted.
“There’s a process you can go through, some determinations as a Selectboard that you would have to make and then you could ultimately vote to discontinue, based on the survey, that very specific boundary,” Llamas told the board. “It is something to consider doing, because it’s already sort of been in limbo for a little while.”
Selectboard Chair Barbara “Bee” Jacque asked if a decision needs to be made before paving is done on the used sections of Old Wendell Road, to which Llamas replied that the paving would in fact be done first to establish the exact end points for each section.
“We could do that process simultaneously, but ultimately we would want that [section] well-marked and delineated because we would have to put people on notice,” Llamas said.
If the town eventually does decide to discontinue maintenance, the Selectboard could propose changing the road name on one side so it would be better reflected in GPS. If the Selectboard does take that path, the decision would come to a Town Meeting vote.
