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Brandon And Rutland county Officials Blast Plan to Delay Route 7 Upgrade

Tuesday January 9, 2007

By Ed Barna

For the Brandon members of the Route 7 Steering Committee, new Secretary of Transportation Neale Lunderville's “Road to Affordability” looked like a detour at best, and at worst a nightmare come true.

During the eight years that the group of Brandon and Pittsford representatives, Vermont Agency of Transportation specialists, and contracted consultants has been working to fast-track the first major work on U. S. Route 7 since the 1930's, the big fear has been that all the planning would end up on the shelf like several previous attempts. The locals were constantly vigilant, least the project be put on hold for lack of money or lack of political clout or some other cause, which could last until the planning was obsolete or the cost was too high or the funding went to something to reduce vehicular use or

At their last meeting (on Dec. 20), Lunderville came himself, with copies of a December 16 report making the case for giving seriously deficient bridges and culverts priority in state spending. In the long run, he said, this would actually free up money for bigger projects like rebuilding Route 7, by avoiding much more expensive emergency repairs.

For instance, the report said:

A culvert 20 feet under the Interstate can be dealt with for $100,000 before it collapses, but would cost $1 million to replace if it failed-as some are threatening to do.

For bridges, a $100,000 waterproofing cover similar to the “rubber” roof covers on flat buildings would avoid $1 million in later deck problems.

Paving a roadbed that is in good shape would take $1 million for a segment that would cost $5 million to reconstruct later.

On the plus side, the report said, such preventive maintenance would avoid future “aggravation and delays for the traveling public and freight haulers.” And safety would improve: the Strategic Highway Plan calls for highway improvements to reduce the occurrence and severity of crashes, it said.

It's what the public wants, the report claimed. In a 2006 public survey (methodology not given) “70 percent suggested spending greater share of the budget (sic) on bridge repair/replacements and highway road repair and repaving.” Also, “Yearly regional Transportation Advisory Council meetings called for trading new roadway segment investments for preservation of existing systems.”

For Route 7, the whole project would be delayed about four years, Lunderville and the AOT officials said (completion of all segments would be around 2021, not 2017). Instead of Segment 6 having a high priority, Segments 3, 4 and 5 would be put ahead of it (these are all between the two villages, making right-of-way acquisition much easier); 3 and 5 already have Act 250 construction permits.

The overall rationale was familiar to the two Brandon representatives, Richard Baker and Lynn Saunders (who could not attend but got the report later), because they were both Select Board members. Brandon's board had successfully proposed a $7.3 million bond for infrastructure work, on grounds that prompt action would save money in the long run.

But, Baker pointed out to Lunderville, that money included $750,000 as Brandon's share of Segment 6, the work on Route 7 through the village. That money is invested in a bank account that pays higher interest than the town is paying on its loan, a practice called arbitrage that is legal for a municipality only for five years, he said-meaning the town would be violating the law by the time the State got around to Segment 6.

Castastrophic failure? The west side of Brandon gets its water through an 1876 cast iron water main that runs right under the same Route 7 traveled by OMYA's marble trucks, Baker said. If that goes, either Segment 6 has to be done in a hurry or repairs must be made that will be torn up when that part of the project takes place.

Removing the 10-foot-wide Depression-era concrete slabs that are still the roadbase for Route 7 and putting in something modern and well-drained and 12 feet wide with 8 foot shoulders WAS maintenance, Baker stormed. It was long overdue and repeatedly promised maintenance, not laying out a new roadway as in the Bennington Bypass or the Circumferential Highway.

In regard to saving money by doing things promptly, Baker said the suggested cost of the whole project has risen from $40 million to $85 million in the past eight years. In all probability, $750,000 would no longer be enough by the time the work began, he said.

As for the Transportation Advisory Councils, Rutland County's had given the Route 7 work its #1 priority, Baker said. Lunderville was making his life easier, he said sardonically: there was no reason for him to keep going to all those Rutland TAC meetings as Brandon's representative, because the State wasn't going to pay attention anyway.

Safety? Saunders recalled that the whole surge of public demand for improving Route 7 had begun with a horrendous quadruple fatality south of Brandon. Baker pointed out that it was a road people had driven for years with bumper stickers saying “Pray For Us, We Drive Route 7,” a supposedly United States highway locally referred to as The Goat Path or The Cow Path of Doom.

Later, Rutland Regional Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donahue took AOT to task for ignoring the historic fact that the southwestern side of the state never got its promised Interstate highway. This work was essential to help boost the economy of a section of Vermont that has experienced lackluster business development and population growth, he said.

The Route 7 Steering Committee had pioneered a new approach to managing large projects that was seen as having the potential to help other work all around the state, Saunders recalled. But the fast track seemed to have gotten sidetracked.

Lunderville, who had come from a meeting that day informing Morristown and Morrisville that the “Morrisville Bypass” was not going to get built, was unsympathetic. “I know this wasn't a good message for you,” he said, but “this was a lot better message than some communities will be hearing.”

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