Potholes. Kettles. Chuckholes. Whatever one chooses to call them, there seems to be a consensus that 2008 will be a year of notoriety for that bone-jarring, suspension-smashing scourge of Brattleboro drivers.
Posters on ibrattleboro.com have described the worst roads as “crater-like,” “war zones,” and “minefields” with Park Place and the Estey St. bridge duking it out for the dubious distinction of “Pothole of the Year.”
Potholes are not as simple as they look. They are caused by a complex combination of factors including severe weather, deferred maintenance, lack of money, and political realities.
This year a severe winter which included all forms of precipitation and extreme cold, in combination with worn roads, has created potholes all over town, with Park Place a particularly bad stretch of road.
Everyone involved seems to agree about the vision of the Putney Road Master Plan: to gradually convert the north end of town from a strip-development wasteland to “a 50-acre, mixed-use center that is pedestrian oriented and provides a rich sense of place,” the document says. But one hell of...