At its meeting last week, the Pomfret Selectboard took steps to begin the process of rebuilding the infrastructure of Pomfret Road.
Selectboard chair Benjamin Brickner told the Standard, “Last night the board approved an RFP for Road Reclamation Engineering Services. Despite its prosaic name, this will be an extraordinary project. The road has been maintained through regular pavement overlays for decades, but that strategy has reached its limit — the underlying infrastructure now needs to be rebuilt. This is the first step toward that work, likely to begin in 2027.”
In regards to why the traditional paving methods are no longer sustainable, Brickner said, “The geotechnical report found 8 to 12 inches of accumulated asphalt on this road — the result of successive overlays dating back decades. The problem is that additional pavement over an inadequate base just fails in the same patterns as the pavement before it. At some point, you have to address the foundation, and that’s where we are now.”
Pomfret is now asking for bids from companies to engage this project in three phases, as outlined in the RFP. “Phase one is preparation of detailed specifications, including options for treatment, reclamation, upgrades — basically, taking the geotechnical information, doing site visits, and proposing to the town what needs to be done,” said Brickner.
For more on this, please see our March 26 edition of the Vermont Standard.
