April 25, 2019 Draft Meeting Minutes
Steve Hall called the meeting to order at 7:05pm
Roll call:
Steve Hall, Nate Kimball, Jim Pickman, Matt Ordway, Jason Allen (Selectman’s Rep) arrived at 7:49pm
Joe Messer absent
Goal:
The goal of the Road and Bridge Repair Committee is to create and maintain a Town road and bridge management plan and advise the Select Board on the maintenance, repair and construction of all town roads.
Regular Business:
- Steve provided members a document outlining the various roads and major culverts and bridges in Bradford, leveraging detail compiled by previous Road Committees.
- The Committee discussed road conditions in general and reviewed some specific strategies for recommending improvements:
- Class VI Roads – Fire lanes may allow some work to be conducted without assuming full maintenance ownership. Steve will do some further research.
- Review plans with Bruce Edwards concerning the Warner River & Trout Unlimited initiatives to try and secure funding for bridge and culvert work. Will follow up with Bruce regarding scope and status of the initiative.
- The Committee discussed the rating system used for bridges. Committee would like to understand why bridges are rated a specific way. Steve had spoken with the State about Breezy Hill Bridge and lower tonnage rating was due to the size of the abutments.
- Seek out a grant writing resource to go after available funding.
- Get all Road data into a spreadsheet and flag what is in scope for the Committee to consider.
- The Committee also discussed how to go about establishing a near term, mid-term and long range plan:
- Jim suggested assessing each road individually and, similar to Newbury, establishing a ten year plan to present at Town Meeting. Laurie will follow up on obtaining some sample plans from other communities. Nate suggested the Committee try to clearly separate repair versus replacement requirements and Steve expressed concerns with the budget amounts being allocated for repair & maintenance work. Available funding does not cover much spot paving or patching and gravel costs are going to be introduced into the budget soon along with more requirements to fund sand purchases.
- Anticipated average lifespan of a road post construction is twenty years +/-.
- Main arteries are built at a higher standard than secondary road and activity for those roads would include securing/verifying rights of way, survey work and professional engineering. Even with preparation the Committee agreed costing a project can be difficult before work begins as conditions dictate the work required which often cannot be fully identified until construction begins.
- Strategies on annual recommendations included focusing on primary arteries, then secondary arteries, possibly incorporating a worst road rating system or lottery system to recommend prioritization.
- The Committee will incorporate traffic data into their prioritization considerations.
- The Committee elected a Chairman:
Motion: Jason Allen motioned to elect Steve Hall as Chair.
Second: Jim Pickman
Vote: 5-0 in favor
- The agenda structure for future meetings will
be:
- Updates
- New Projects
- Appearances
Future Business:
- The next Road and Bridge Repair Committee meeting will be held May 23rd at 7:00pm at the Bradford Area Community Center.
- The Committee will invite Bruce Edwards to the next meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 8:38pm.
Draft minutes submitted by Laurie Colburn