The Middlesex Road Committee formed in April of 2024 in response to a major flood in 2023 and the exceptionally warm winter of 2024 which created extremely muddy roads. Three months later, serious floods again washed out roads throughout Middlesex.

The Road Committee looks into planning, funding, maintenance and improvements needed to sustain more than forty miles of roads. It supports the work of the Town’s road crew warriors who battle rain, wind, snow and toppled trees to make sure this vital network remains open.

About Members

Members are appointed by the Select Board. Members include people with backgrounds in transportation, construction, architecture, project management and planning including current and former Town Foremen and Road Commissioners.

Meetings

Committee meetings are the third Thursday of each month from 5 to 6:30 pm at Town Hall and By Zoom - See calendar for Zoom link to this meeting.

More Information

Click sections to expand.

Members

Chair

Zara Vincent

802-355-1400

Paul Cerminara

802-399-7216

Mike Kline

Hilton Dier III

Steve Martin

Richard Cowles

Sandy Levine

Marianne Mullin

John Rahill

Dexter Lefavour

Jessica Millard

Scott Gurley

Vic Dwyer

The Road Committee won a Municipal Planning grant to help us with a 5-year plan starting in 2027 to replace culverts which are undersized or of unacceptable flow. Upgrading these will help water reach its intended destination and help our roads maintain their integrity.

This will result in an increase in resiliency, cost effectiveness, and thoughtful infrastructure in the town of Middlesex. Ideally, these improvements will cause fewer culvert failures and road washouts and a decrease in adverse mud season road conditions throughout town.

For more information on Middlesex roads and culverts visit:

After devastating floods and washouts in 2023 and 2024, Brook Road in Middlesex has been rebuilt with travel along the road, and access to homes again possible. However, if you drive or walk along the road with an eye toward the brook, it is easy to see the continued risks of more erosion and landslides.

Looking to the future, what can we as a community do to:
  • best provide access to properties
  • maintain a route that is safe to travel,
  • avoid expensive and time-consuming rebuilding after rain events
Some community members have come together to begin answering this question.

The Great Brook Futures Project

The Great Brook Futures Project is being led by Mike Kline, a river ecologist who lives in Middlesex and knows Great Brook well. The work is being sponsored by the Middlesex Road Committee, a local committee of volunteer neighbors.

The Great Brook Futures Project works with University of Vermont and Norwich Engineering faculty and students, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources staff, local residents and volunteers to collect and analyze river, road and weather data and geology to help find long-term solutions to curb ongoing erosion. Middlesex is doing its homework to help show what is needed to keep people and property safe in the long run.
 

The Great Brook Futures Project will:

1) Collect data and evaluate alternative engineering or natural solutions that will stabilize the brook and its hillslopes to reduce future hazards and costs to the town and property owners
2) Provide benefit-cost information to the town and property owners wanting to explore home buyouts or alternate road and drive alignments to protect against future flood or landslide damage.
Work has already begun at no cost to the town. This includes:
  • Aerial drone imagery and fine scale topography maps to support stream and slope stability studies.
  • Collecting data on road infrastructure, stream movement, and maintenance and stream stabilization costs to support possible restoration projects.  
  • Collecting geologic and river information needed to develop cost-effective solutions.

​What’s Next?

The data collection listed above will put us in a good position to obtain the hazard mitigation funding that is typically available. Assuming that we are successful with getting grants, it may take another year or so to look at alternatives and complete restoration designs. If there are more cost-effective ways to stabilize the brook and avoid/minimize the type of post-flood maintenance we are caught up in now, then we will seek additional funding to do on-the-ground projects.
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