After punishing winter, towns confront costly road repairs

After 38 years, you kind of know what’s under the roads. It’s like tree rings. You can track its history.

CORNWALL — Local road crews are tackling winter damage across the Northwest Corner, but with tight budgets, small staffs and rising costs, towns are feeling the strain as the spring repair season begins.

On a steep, narrow stretch of Dibble Hill Road, the smell of hot oil hung in the spring air as a crew worked methodically along the winding route, sealing over a winter’s worth of cracks and scars left behind by snowplows, ice and relentless freeze-thaw cycles.

Last week, working alongside private contractors, Cornwall highway department crews began resurfacing sections of the roughly 1.5-mile scenic road, applying a thick base layer of asphalt to damaged pavement before coating it with stone chips and compacting the surface — a process known as chip sealing.

Road foreman James Vanicky, who has spent more than 38 years on the job, coordinated the multi-step resurfacing process on Dibble Hill Road as crews and outside contractors worked along the hilly, winding terrain.

Vanicky said that while potholes have been relatively minimal this season, the problem has been extensive cracking on roads due to frost heaves.

“When the frost heaves settle down, salt water seeps under the pavement making it soft, and then you have traffic pounding on it, and it creates cracks,” Vanicky said.

The scale of the work is compounded by limited staffing with 62 miles of roads and only three employees.

Budget pressures are also mounting as towns move from winter operations into repair season.

“This year our numbers came in at about $75,000 for winter,” said Vanicky.“For the amount of miles that we have, that number was actually comparable to past years. But we’re kind of running on fumes right now until July 1, when the new fiscal year begins,” he said.

Even so, careful planning helped stretch limited resources.

Experience, he added, plays a critical role in deciding where to focus limited funds. “After 38 years, you kind of know what’s under the roads,” he said. “It’s like tree rings. You can track its history.”

In neighboring Canaan, road foreman Tim Downs described similar conditions and budget challenges.

“The dirt roads took quite a hit this winter,” Downs said, as did his equipment. “We had a lot of truck problems and spent a lot on repairs. At one point, we were down two trucks during a heavy storm.”

In North Canaan, which has 33 miles of town roads, road officials report widespread cracking caused by frost and freeze-thaw cycles.

“This winter was pretty tough,” said Mike Simmons of the North Canaan Highway Department. “We had a lot more freezing underneath the roads, and some of them cracked quite a bit.”

Rising material costs are compounding the challenge. Salt usage alone pushed the town beyond its planned budget, Simmons said.

“Asphalt went up $5 a ton,” he added.

Crews have begun patching roads as conditions allow, but larger repairs loom ahead, including work on Sand Road and Tobey Hill Road.

“The roads took a beating. Some of the paint is coming off the roads,” said Simmons, who noted that line repainting is sorely needed.

State roads, too, have seen widespread pavement damage.

According to the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT), as of late March, the state has seen a sharp increase in pothole reports, with 101 reported to the DOT in the first 16 days of March, surpassing the total from the entire month of March 2025.

As towns move deeper into the spring repair season, officials say the full extent of winter damage, and its financial toll, will continue to unfold.

“We have a lot of repairs to make,” said Downs.

And, as repair work ramps up, officials warn that spring is also one of the most dangerous times of year for road crews.

Gov. Ned Lamont recently urged drivers to slow down and stay alert.
“A moment of distraction can have serious consequences,” he said.