Our Roads by John Troyan Every Spring Jayne Hopkins gets phone calls from people complaining that the road repairs are stupid and the dust suppressant is a waste of money, and that some roads are in bad shape. Here is my explanation of the conditions of the roads and how we fix them. Sagamore Estates was not a planned community and its roads were not built to handle anything but light summer traffic. It was originally a vacation camp and then a country club. During the early years little road work was done, but SEPOA (and including too too many people to list here) fought for years and gained the authority to maintain the roads and common areas in Sagamore. Sepoa hired contractors to make the roads passable in the spring and free of snow in the winter, with varied degrees of success over the years. The board educated themselves and decided to improve the underlying roadbed drainage. Our roads are largely modified material, which is a blend of aggregates from dust to ¾ “ stone on a mat of hardpan clay that is saturated by springs, ground water, swamps and broken water lines. Our road surfaces flex as the seasons change with the changes of ground water and frost. To pave our roads would not be feasible as they are, because they have an inferior base To bring our roads to a condition they could be paved and then pave them would cost.. 18” of base at $ 57 a linear foot (LF) and paving at $65 LF totals $125 LF or $650,000 a mile, which works out to about $4,000 per homeowner.. Since we have about 6.5 miles of road, to pave Sagamore correctly we would need that for 7 years. And, keep in mind we have to keep them in repair and the water company is constantly doing repairs in the roadway. It is just not feasible for us to pave the roads. What we can do is deal with water, the enemy of a dirt road. We remove it from the road surface by ditching and ditch cleaning. We renew the crown every spring and make the center of the road to be the highest point so it sheds water. We apply dust suppressant, an environmentally controlled vegetable based compound that binds the top of the road together and holds the road bed together until ground water subsides and vehicle traffic pushes the water from under the roadway… You can help our roads if you SLOW DOWN !.. because it’s the right thing to do for the people on that road and it keeps the surface of the roadway intact (so water runs off!). Clean the ditch in front of your home or lot and don’t blow leaves and grass clippings into it and don’t cut the wheels real hard and stomp the throttle when pulling from intersections. Yawing front tires and spinning rear tires destroy intersections! The Board has chosen some of the finest contractors in the area; they have educated themselves in the construction and maintenance of open aggregate roadways; they possess a tremendous amount of experience, education and expertise and this goes into the roadwork decisions made by the board. And none of them get paid! Remember that when contacting board members and let’s have a great summer!
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 23:27:18 +0000
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