Gilford rolls out 5-year plan for $12.6M in road improvements

GILFORD — The selectboard unanimously approved a five-year road plan with $12.6 million of improvements, including $2.5 million set aside for 2026.

Public Works Director Meghan Theriault met with the board on Wednesday, and said the five-year plan was just completed. Last year, the board directed her to a $2.5 million budget for annual road improvements, which she incorporated into the new plan.

Theriault said the plan is based on data produced by BETA Group, which inspected all the town roads.

“They did that with inspections, we have ratings on roads, and then we take all those ratings and assess where roads fall,” Theriault said.

Some roads need multiple repairs, which include crack sealing, preventative maintenance, reclamation, overlay, stress absorbing membrane seal, and shim and overlay.

Theriault said with shimming and overlays, and reclaims, the public works team is also tending to drainage on the roads.

“The town is full of corrugated metal pipes; they are all rotting,” she said. “We are continuously having problems with those, so we are trying to change everything over to plastic. That was not done in the past before I was here, they used to pave and not change pipes. So, we’re definitely playing catchup now.”

The drainage, she said, is a huge chunk of the cost.

The plan, which has been posted to the town website at gilfordnh.gov, lists 40 road repairs for this year, ranging from a sealing project on Yasmin Drive for $4,325.60, to the reclamation of Annis Drive between Breton and Old Lake Shore roads amounting to $304,296.82.

Roads in 2026 that will get the most attention include Annis and Mountain Drive, with five sections receiving shim and overlay, amounting to about $402,500.

Varney Point Road Left will be getting $222,109 worth of shim and overlay, Varney Point Right with about $164,680 of shim and overlay, and three other sections of Varney Point receiving shim and overlay amounting to about $162,780.

Yasmin Drive, as a whole, is scheduled for $224,125 worth of work done over six different projects.

Theriault said a good road plan is a mix of treatments, and the town can’t fix everything at once. She said there is a curve that shows how the road deteriorates, and once it reaches a point where there are cracks, water seeps in, and it deteriorates more quickly.

“The idea is to keep the roads in the upper portion of the deterioration curve so costs are cheaper,” Theriault said. “As we do more work over the years to get caught up with all these failed roads over time, we’ll be doing more preventative and routine maintenance, and less of the heavy stuff.”

She said this plan has a combination of all these types of work across the years, creating a schedule of working on a neighborhood, or group of roads.

“When we go to a neighborhood, we’re trying to tackle the whole neighborhood, because it is all the same age, so it is all very similar condition,” Theriault said.

She said the first annual report from five years ago was done by the Lakes Region Planning Commission. Theriault felt the numbers were high, and she doubted the roads had the pavement condition index listed. The PCI is a rating given to show the condition of a paved road.

Theriault said public works had to change their plan of work, which is like comparing apples to oranges with a new company. The plan with BETA involved a full town assessment, and every year they will start analyzing a third of the town.

“So, every three years, you will get a full look at the town,” she said.

Theriault said public works has done “a ton of work” around town, and have gotten a lot done with the funding they have. The department has done major improvements on roads, which allows them to better maintain them in the winter, when frost heaves can create issues removing snow.

“Paving the roads and maintaining them helps with the winter maintenance, as well,” Theriault said.

While unrelated to the town work, Vice Chair Chan Eddy asked if she knew if the state would take care of Intervale Road any time soon. He said the road is getting especially rough, and thought he might damage his vehicle driving over massive frost heaves.

Theriault told Eddy she would look into it. Town Administrator Scott Dunn knows the state is working on the Route 3/11 bypass, and a section of Route 11, but didn’t recall any mention of Intervale Road.

Chair Kevin Hayes inquired about Given Road, saying the cracks are so big a shim and overlay might not work. Theriault agreed, but said it might still be the first work done on the road.

She said with a dead-end road like that, the shim and overlay will buy time, and then when it is due for work, there will be more “meat on the road” for eventual reclaiming.

Hayes said it is scheduled for 2028, making the road 39 years old, and that means the pavement has provided a good service life.

Dunn called this a “great plan,” and selectboard members concurred.

“It was very comprehensive, and I liked the mixture that was in there,” Eddy said.