Being one of the small majority of residents living in the Southwick/Westfield region of Western Massachusetts that pay attention to the state of current events, and does not follow there parents footsteps in becoming an irrational conservative, without any clue what conservative politicians plan to run local governments.
I believe I have earned the right to complain about the condition of the roads in this area, I understand that the urban areas of the Commonwealth are overly populated in comparison to where I reside, and this deserves more attention from state level officials. This does not need to prevent the middle aged white men that run the city/town halls from taking action to rectify the situation. Everybody in the area comments on the sorry state of the roads in the region, you literaly cannot drive more than a quater mile without hitting a pothole, that is at least a foot wide, and at least 10ft by 10ft.
They are discusted by the delay in their daily commute and the hassle they experience due to the at least once a year claim they have to file with town clerk to receive compensation from vehicle damage. The largest sense of frustration that people have is due to the many inconviences caused by the terrible condition of the vast majority of roads you would think the mayors, town managers, selectmen and city council would make this a priority.
You guessed wrong this winter they decided the best way to shave dollars off the budget would be to only contract snow-plowers if there was more than six inches of snow accumulated on the roads. Not just sporadically driven rural roads that have two houses in a 20 mile radius but the roads that provide access to the vast majority of the local businesses. You want to know what the end result in savings will be at the end of the fiscal year. I really have no idea but I do a lot of local traveling via automobile on mainly local roads, and after the recent thaw and heavy rains they have gone from a state of disaster and embarassment to borderline impassable.
Hopefully this will wake-up my neighbors and they will realize that they need to stop telling the people that sell them the Republican, and Westfield Evening News or the pizza delivery guy how much the potholes cause their blood pressure to rise, but taking on some civic responsiblility and inform the local pols that if the roads are not fixed promptly they will be looking for a new job.
I doubt that this recent development and possible sense of renewed civic responsibility will amount to mass party affiliation change, or the belief that higher taxation is a good thing when it results in improved services and business conditions. But hopefully it will at least tear people away from the Karadashians, Jersey Shore and the other mindless forms of entertainment that have distracted working class families from the actual causes of their economic and social problems that have befallen them.
The mess in rural WMass
Please share widely!
kirth says
I’m not sure what “at least a foot wide, and at least 10ft by 10ft” means. If you meant a foot deep, then yes, that’s severe. I live in the Lowell area, and commute to Burlington. All the off-highway roads I use have potholes, but not that deep.
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p>I wonder if there really is a correlation between lax plowing and potholes. My understanding is that they occur when liquid water gets under the surface of the pavement, then freezes. It’s not obvious that plowing more frequently would prevent that.
jimc says
Why the elitism?
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p>
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p>That’s just rhetoric, right? You do know the things you listed get attention from all classes?
christopher says
…but it’s also a fair cultural criticism. The idea of “bread and circuses” (ie feed and entertain the riffraff and hope they don’t notice that you aren’t really looking out for their best interests) goes back to Roman times.
jimc says
— the enlightened upper classes?
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p>I kinda thought democracy was intended to shed these notions. I’m not so dumb to think that we’ve achieved perfect equality, but I’m also working class enough to know that my government isn’t always there for me.
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p>Kim Kardashian, on the other hand, is reliable.
christopher says
…but if you’ve seen Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” you might see how a certain class really isn’t interested in democracy. I’m hardly upper class, but it’s hard not to look down on those who vote against common sense and their own interests. Not sure what Kim Kardashian is reliable for. As far as I can tell she’s famous for being famous with no obvious talent.
mark-bail says
New Yorker article appreciatively discussing Michael Savage. Not his inconvenient political views, but his concern with his bodily disintegration.
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p>Sometimes the upper-classes eat better bread and watch fancier circuses (like Sunday morning talking head shows).
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p>Ryan, here’s a shout out from Granby. Our fire chief comes from Southwick.
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p>We’re in similarly dire straights. The fact is that Chapter 90 funds don’t take care of enough of our local roads. In fact, it’s unlikely that any municipality will be able to keep up with its roads.
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p>Tip:
between paragraphs will give you spaces.
peter-porcupine says
Did you know for the last few years, Ch. 90 is the only local aid that has gone UP? When the bonds are sold, they can’t use the money for anythig else, so there has been a slight increase each of the last 3 fiscal years.
mark-bail says
I’m not sure I understand “local doesn’t equal eligible.”
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p>Are you talking a funding formula? My town gets Chapter 90 funds. I know they don’t exist to completely finance local repairs.
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p>Our DPW superintendent has been keeping track of how much we spend and has a schedule of when we should be repairing and renovating roads. We’re falling way behind. At least in Western Mass, we’re far from unique. Except for the fact that our guy has actually identified the problem.
peter-porcupine says
What I meant about local not being eligible is that if a road if private, it isn’t elegible for Ch. 90 funds even if it is heavily used. And Ch. 90 is for capital improvements – repaving and crack sealing rather thatn patching. Although if you string enough potholes together…
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p>BTW – tell your guy to be sure to do periodic updates of the road inventory (it can be done on-line now, and the accuracy can also be checked on line to see if corrections need to be made). Sometimes, roads are misclassified and it hurts your share of funding. A road that was originally private, built as part of a housing development for instance, may have been accepted by the town but the Boston inventory may not reflect that and you aren’t getting credit for it.
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p>It behooves a town to make sure they are getting credit. Because if Town A updates its list, it actually takes money away from you by making their share of the finite pie larger, and that much less available to be split among the other communities.
peter-porcupine says
One thing you should check on the roads with the worst potholes – are they public streets?
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p>Western MA, aka Region One, does pretty OK in the Chapter 90 roads funds distribution because the main factor in the formula (60%) is miles of road. BUT – that is miles of approved PUBLIC roads.
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p>We have a lot of private roads here, too. They are in disrepair, and they may or may not get plowed. One person once complained to me that when the realtor told him it was a private road he thought it meant people couldn’t drive on it, not that he owned it. But that is what a private road is – the abutters own to the ‘fee’ in the road, that is the center, in front of their house and they are responsible for maintaining it.
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p>If you have car damage, you can legally send a bill to those abutters demanding that they pay.
chrismatth says
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p>I love that! Kind of reminds me of “I will use your taxpayer dollars to pay to repair the seawall behind my house, but don’t you dare use my property to access the beach!”
mark-bail says
like that. Near Craigville Beach. My understanding is that the resident of this very short stretch leave it a very bumpy road to discourage tourists from taking it as a shortcut.
liveandletlive says
And what I love is when there is a pool of water covering it so you don’t know it’s there. Boston Rd/State St. from Parker St to Main St. Springfield saw me hit the bottom of my car about 3 times last week. It was ugly.
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p>I don’t expect that it will ever be fixed. There is no money and we must keep taxes low for the wealthy. That is the obvious priority.
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p>My son has 4 years left of school and then we are moving south, to the Carolinas. I just can’t wait.
amberpaw says
I feel like I am driving an obstacle course.
christopher says
Leave our history alone!:)
jarstar says
I agree wholeheartedly, Ryan. What bothers me the most are the pothole repeat offenders – the giant sinkholes appearing every year that clearly evidence a more serious problem with the road than mere damage from a plow. The corner of Lower Westfield Road and Homestead Avenue in Holyoke is my best example. Woe be to the tired commuter coming off I-91 and taking this corner in the dark at 15 miles per hour. Yet the real problem is never addressed, i.e. fix the structural problem, don’t just throw shovels of hot asphalt into the hole. The failure to do this year after year results in inconvenience, aggravation, spinal pain, and damage to vehicles.