Time to make some noise!

The long awaited DPW directors report will be presented to the Road Advisory Committee at their April Meeting.  This meeting will be held at the Cedarville Community Center at 6pm on April 2nd.

This is your chance to voice your concerns and hear what the DPW has to say about the future of Ship Pond Road.  PLEASE attend this meeting.  We really need to fill this room to make ourselves heard.  If you can't be there send a family member.

Hope to see you all there!

Pot Holes (this is Old Sandwich Road, but Ship Pond is just as bad).

March RAC meeting rescheduled

The March Road Advisory Committee meeting has been cancelled and will be rescheduled for Thursday APRIL 2 6:00 pm at the Cedarville community room. Jonathan Beder,  Plymouth's  DPW Director is expected to be at this meeting to present his report the the RAC.  This is your chance to voice your concerns and hear what he has to say.  Please try to attend if you can, it's important that we have a presence at theses meetings!    

A recap from the January Road Advisory Meeting

The January Road Advisory Committee meeting was held on Thursday, January 8. A couple of Plymouth Fire Fighters came in and spoke about how frustrating it is for them when they are responding to an emergency and can only travel at 5 mph because of the road.  I passed around a few pictures.  One showing how bad the road was a few weeks ago.  The other was a picture of a School Bus and Delivery Truck that got stuck trying to pass each other.  (Thanks Dan!)  People that don't drive on roads like this really don't understand our frustration.  The pictures help.
Sid (Town Engineer) showed us a map that they have put together with the various drainage requirements that will be necessary as part of the paving project.  One of their biggest concerns is that residents will not be willing to grant the town drainage easements, forcing the town into eminent domain takings that are very costly.  It just goes to show how complicated this process has become.  The RAC is working on some statistics to show how much money it's costing the town to maintain SPR as gravel. Money that would be better spent towards paving. I think they all agree it needs to be paved, our job will be to convince the Selectman that it's time to do it. JB (DPW Director) will be in attendance at the next RAC meeting to present his full report.  Aaron Wallace  (Plymouth Emergency Management director) will also be at the next meeting to discuss Ship Pond road as an evacuation route.  PLEASE attend this next meeting if you can.  February 5th, 6:30pm at the Cedarville Community Center.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Here's a picture from Dan Enos of a school bus and a PeaPod truck trying to pass each other.  The picture is a few years old. "Both vehicles ended up stuck and were there for quite awhile, if I remember correctly they brought another bus in to get the kids stuck on this bus."  What would have happened if another vehicle had come flying around the corner? 

Notes from the December Road Advisory Meeting

About 10 of us attended the Road Advisory Committee's meeting on Thursday December 4th.  We learned that the DPW director is working on a report for the Board of the Selectman in regards to paving Ship Pond Road.  Sid Kashi  (The town's DPW engineer) was in attendance and was able to provide some details.  It sounds like the DPW agrees that it's time to pave Ship Pond Road.  The report that they are working on will outline the necessary steps and request commitment from the board of Selectman before they proceed. The road will have to be widened and drainage easements need to be obtained.  This can get complicated if property owners object.  The Selectman can take the property needed for drainage easements by eminent domain if need be, the DPW needs to know they will before they move forward.  This is exactly what happened on the Valley Road / Roxy Cahoon paving project that the DPW is currently working on.  It sounds like the report will be ready in the next few weeks.  We need to be there when it is brought before the board of Selectman.  Selectman Tony Provenzano was also in attendance at the RAC meeting.  He said it's important for the selectman to see and hear the residents concerns when they make these decisions. The meeting agendas are posted on the town calendar.  I'll watch them and let everyone know when this meeting will take place. In the meantime, if anyone has ideas to help gather support please let me know. I'm trying to contact the Cedarville Steering Committee to ask for their support.  Oh and Sid mentioned that Ship Pond Road is an evacuation route! (obviously a decision made by someone that has never actually seen Ship Pond Road). I was not aware of this, but I think we can leverage that fact as a strong argument for paving it too.   

A follow up email to the RAC

As a follow up on Friday Nov 7,  I sent this email to the RAC...

Thank You for your time and consideration addressing our paving request for Ship Pond Road at the Road Advisory Meeting last night.   I’ve gone back and taken some more accurate measurements of the different sections. I also want to be clear that we are not willing to support a betterment for funding of this improvement.  Ship Pond is a MCSC (Minor Collector of Special Character) and  by definition this is : “Minor Collector – road used by general traffic to connect neighborhoods, or connect a Local Street to a Major Collector, with a traffic count in the range of 200 - 1000 ADT”.   This road supports much more then just the residential traffic.  Asking the residents of this road to support the financial burden of upgrading when so many other Plymouth residents would benefit from the upgrade is not reasonable.   We look forward to discussing this further at the next RAC meeting, at which time we hope to have input from Mr. Beder as well. 

 

Sincerely,

Robyn Risso

 

The East Section of SPR from the existing pavement to OSR  .50 kilometers.

The OSR section where SPR and OSR are merged  .47 kilometers.

The Main Section of SPR  from OSR to the existing pavement  1.44 kilometers.

The West Section of SPR from the existing pavement to Long Pond Road  .58 kilometers.

 

Total Distance = 2.99 kilometers / 9,810 feet / 1.857 miles.