Berkshire County — Many Berkshire County towns are facing increased challenges with road maintenance, especially for unpaved roads, mostly due to the impacts of climate change. Our winters are changing with widely fluctuating temperatures often resulting in snow followed by freezing rain or rain. For unpaved roads, this means that residents and highway departments are often dealing with not just one but multiple and extended mud seasons. In addition, the increased intensity of precipitation is resulting in more erosion and washouts on unpaved roads. Sediment from unpaved roads can wash into our streams and impact our valuable cold-water-fish resources. The result is increased maintenance costs for municipalities and concerns for the safety of residents.
According to a press release, Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC) wants to hear from residents who live on unpaved roads or drive them regularly. Community information is key to developing grant proposals that can help address identified issues. an interactive online map of dirt road issues across Berkshire County. This map will be available to enter information up until April 30, 2025. As spring and mud season approach, BRPC encourages residents to keep this website handy. If an unpaved road issue is encountered or if there is knowledge of a long-standing issue, residents can pinpoint the problem on the map, describe the concern, and upload a photo. Information gathered will increase BRPC’s ability to effectively assist the towns and may support a larger conversation about Berkshire County’s needs to maintain safe, unpaved roads.
The Dirt Road Problems map is a small part of the Western Massachusetts Regional Unpaved Roads Project. Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG), and Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC) have joined forces to support municipalities as they prioritize and identify solutions on their unpaved roads. This project is funded by the state’s Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program, and the Town of Lanesborough is the lead applicant. In 2024, Franklin Regional Council of Governments developed an Unpaved Roads Stormwater Toolkit to support their region’s highway departments prioritization of unpaved road concerns and to determine best management practices to reduce erosion vulnerability and sediment transport into streams. The three regional planning agencies will build upon and amend the Unpaved Roads Stormwater Toolkit to ensure climate resilience is fully considered. FRCOG’s current Unpaved Roads Stormwater Toolkit can be viewed here.
The revised toolkit will also incorporate elements and lessons learned from the Rural Dirt Road Assessment and Recommendations report completed by BSC Group for Sheffield, Sandisfield, and New Marlborough under an MVP project conducted in 2020–21. During this project, BSC Group developed an unpaved road assessment and prioritization methodology that considered climate change and conducted assessments in all three towns on priority unpaved roads. BSC Group is the consultant for the current MVP project as well.
The goal of the Unpaved Roads Stormwater Toolkit is to provide highway departments with a path towards implementing best management practices that will improve the climate resilience of priority unpaved road segments and reduce long-term maintenance costs. The methodology includes, first, a prioritization process, including providing a “Vulnerability Assessment” that indicates the most vulnerable unpaved road segments based on criteria such as road slope, embankment steepness, and proximity to streams and lakes. Together with local knowledge, the top priority unpaved road segments in a municipality are identified. Second, a field assessment conducted by municipal staff on the top priority road segments helps identify the recommended best management practices (BMPs) to resolve issues observed. And third, the toolkit also provides BMP designs developed by engineers to assist highway departments implement recommended BMPs. BRPC has developed a Vulnerability Assessment map for each municipality in Berkshire County. These will be made available to the towns. For more information, please contact Alison Dixon at adixon@berkshireplanning.org.
