To the editor,
I write this letter from the driver’s seat of my car, parked on the shoulder of Pond Road, where I have just watched a woman in a Subaru Outback lose a hubcap to a pothole the size of a laundry basket. She pulled over, retrieved it from the mud, and drove on. I imagine she will not be writing a letter. But someone ought to.
Mud season has come and gone, and Pond Road remains a hazard. The town patched a stretch near Homan’s Pond last October, and those patches have held — more or less — but the quarter-mile between Farr Road and the boat launch is a moonscape. I counted 17 potholes on my drive in this morning, some deep enough to bottom out a sedan.
The selectmen will say the town’s paving budget is already allocated for the year. I understand that. But there is a difference between a planned road improvement and a safety issue. A cyclist hitting one of these ruts at dusk would not walk away laughing about it.
I am asking the Board of Selectmen to declare Pond Road an emergency repair priority before the summer tourists arrive and before someone’s alignment bill lands on the town desk.
Respectfully,
Mr. Harold St. Pierre 17 Farr Road Willow Creek