NEWPORT, Maine — Each spring Martin Stream Road becomes an impassable mess. This year has been the worst yet, said one resident who lives on the road.
“I’ve been living there for five years, and it’s always been like that,” said Chris Boulier. “If you saw it two weeks ago, it was much worse.”
Martin Stream Road is in both Plymouth and Newport. It’s a dirt road that branches off Ridge Road.
It has been the subject of two complaints on the See It. Fix It. section of the Bangor Daily News website.
The road has been so full of ruts and potholes that people have left behind pieces of their vehicle.
“They lost parts off their cars. You can hear them dragging them,” said Boulier, adding that the road sees a lot of traffic for a dead-end road. “[Residents] were literally parking at the end of the road and walking [to their houses because the road was impassable]. Some live almost a mile away.”
Although part of the road is in Plymouth, Newport Town Manager James Ricker said the road is Newport’s responsibility.
“The summer before last, we spent $30,000 on that road,” said Ricker. “A lot of dirt roads have been particularly bad this spring. We went from winter to July in 24 hours and that stayed with us for four to five days. It’s not a typical thawing type of spring.”
Ricker also said Rutland and Pratt Roads are also in rough shape right now.
The reason Martin Stream Road is such a problem is because it’s a flat road at the end of Ridge Road hill, said Boulier. All of the water from the hill goes into Martin Stream Road. A culvert under Ridge Road that would take water directly to Martin Stream would solve most of the problems, Boulier said.
Martin Stream Road is much better now, said Boulier, after Newport put down some rocks in the gravel in the middle of the road.
“We at least got one travel lane in the middle of the road,” said Ricker. “It’s not Interstate 95. You don’t want to travel more than 5 or 6 mph. That’s all you can do.”
Ricker said a little more can be done for the road during the spring.
“The selectmen will decide which [roads] to rebuild this summer,” said Ricker. “We’ll go as far as the money can take us.”
Another See It. Fix It. complaint came from a reader in the middle of March who stated the Togus Veterans Affairs Medical Center parking lot was a “nightmare.”
“[There’s] not enough parking spaces. [Veterans] have to circle the lot over and over again hoping a spot will open up,” said the reader in a comment left on the website.
Ryan Lilly, Associate Director of the VA Maine Healthcare System, said the parking situation at Togus used to be a major problem. But it has since been fixed.
“We just opened about 400 new [parking] spots in November and haven’t had a problem since then. We have more than enough parking now,” said Lilly. “It was a long-standing problem for many, many years. We were fortunate enough to get some construction funding to expand our parking lots.”
Lilly said he could see many open spaces from his window.
“I can assure you there’s open spots every day,” he said, adding that handicapped parking spaces were also expanded.
People, it’s a DIRT road… deal with it.
HMMMM. I understand its a dirt road, but the picture doesnt show what it looked like for almost a month. You couldnt walk up it, nevermind drive.Having a son with special needs, and yes I live on the road, the smaller bus cannot make it up the road….all of his therapist ( pt, community support) also cannot make it up the road. So everyone has to walk! I understand its a dirt road and I we live in Maine, but this road is impassable for weeks.Not to mention all the water that drains down the hill into your yard, WE have a small pond every year for month, everything went under water in the garage last year. We lost $1000s of dollars of items in there.The water has no place to go, there is no culvert under martin stream road that would allow water to cotinue to STREAM(martin).The water was 3 feet deep this year that came fom melting snow, ice, and rain.Next year I plan On taking pictres of everything. I took a few this year of all the water but no place to upload them. Not to mention I watched elderly people stumble and trying to walk throught the mud..Also 3/4 mile down the road there i sperson with health issues, no way if anyonef needed ambulance or fire truck could they ever get to anyone of them. Thats the sad part!
I still don’t understand how you can do anything but move.
Was it a dirt road when you moved there?
How did the town become responsible for your dirt road as opposed to my really long dirt driveway?
How can I make the town pave my driveway while we’re at it?
Nobody is asking the town to be responsible for personal property. I do believe it’s not unreasonable to expect to get too and from your residence when you pay the same taxes as everyone else in the town. The road is better this date, for now. All the people on the road want is for the town, whichever town is supposed to be responsible for it, to fix it properly when they can so it does not lead to personal property being damaged or prevent someone from getting emergency assistance when needed. The same as anyone else would expect that may live on a paved road. Just because the road is dirt does not mean I should just accept the conditions, when there are things that could be done to prevent it. Anyone who choses to live there life being passive because they are afraid to stand up for themselves can live on they’re so called “dirt road” and deal with it by keeping there mouths closed. I will not just accept it, and I hope your house doesn’t burn down because you didn’t stand up for yourselves.
The VA parking has not been fixed. I go there a lot and I always have to circle the lot hoping for a space to open up……..if not then I have to park very far away and walk a very far distance which is not easy.
400 new spaces? Where? Did they fill in the duck pond or something?
I live on a dirt road. I expect my road to be kept in a condition where I can drive my car on it no matter what time of year it is. There are naysayers out there that think that when you live on a dirt road you should just shut up and say nothing if your road turns into a goat trail. Not me. I pay the same taxes as the people who live on paved roads, and I want the same amount of attention paid to my road that the paved roads get.
No, I don’t expect my road to be as smooth as the turnpike, but I do expect it to be in a condition that allows fire and ambulance services to be able to get to my home in an emergency, that my mail person can drive on to deliver my mail, and that I can drive my car down without destroying it.
Slow down and you wont beat your vehicle to death..