ROXBURY – Selectmen continue to field complaints from people upset about town roads.

As they have at previous board meetings, selectmen Tuesday night reiterated that the town can’t fix its roads because it lacks money.

“There’s really nothing that we can do, because we have pocket change left in the budget,” Selectman Deborah DeRoche said.

Town meeting voters in March agreed to raise $5,370 to patch holes in roads and do more paving on Horseshoe Valley and Roxbury Pond roads.

Prolonged rains and heavy truck traffic this year contributed to road problems, mostly in the Roxbury Pond village area. The town replaced two crushed culverts on the pond road and a deteriorating culvert at the intersection of Main Street and Roxbury Pond road.

Selectmen on Tuesday night did, however, acknowledge they had inspected roads drawing the most complaints.

Resident Jean Shaw asked when selectmen intend to fix upper Main Street near its intersection with Route 120.

When DeRoche asked what the problem was, Selectman Mike Worthley said, “There’s a big hump as soon as you hit the corner.”

DeRoche then mentioned driving along East Shore Drive to view road problems.

“They said there’s a rock there. That ain’t no rock, that’s a freakin’ boulder,” she said of one large stone painted orange that protrudes from pavement near the end of the narrow camp road.

Worthley said that plow blades have broken after striking the rock.

Another complaint cited a high crown in the center of Old County Road, which is off Rainbow Lane, and Byron Road on the east side of Roxbury Pond.

Worthley said he believes that heavy truck traffic created the high crown, not frost heaves.

When asked which roads Roxbury is responsible for maintaining, Selectmen’s Chairman John Sutton said he wasn’t sure.

Selectmen did know, however, that Route 120 maintenance is up to the state. Roxbury only handles snowplowing on it from the town line through the notches.


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