A stretch of Old Wendell Road in Northfield could soon lose its status as an official town road, as local officials weigh whether to simply stop maintaining the middle section or go further and discontinue it altogether. Town leaders say the segment in question is so overgrown and impassable that it barely qualifies as a road at all anymore.
Two Paths Forward For a Road Gone to Seed
The Northfield Selectboard discussed the possibility of discontinuing maintenance on the middle section of Old Wendell Road, according to the Greenfield Recorder. As the paper lays out, the Selectboard has two options on the table: discontinue maintenance while leaving the road available to people who like to walk there, or discontinue the road itself, which would be a full extinguishment of the public's right to use it.
Town Administrator Andrea Llamas described the middle section plainly, calling it just a trail, if anything, per the same report. That framing matters, because the two options carry very different legal weight. Discontinuing maintenance would preserve the public's right to travel over the road even as the town stops plowing or grading it, while discontinuing the road itself would end that right entirely and, the Recorder notes, require approval from Town Meeting voters.
Surveying the Line Between Road and Trail
Highway Superintendent Tom Walker has already surveyed Old Wendell Road and, after that survey, identified the correct place where the two ends of the road should stop and where the discontinued middle portion would begin, the station's report states. That boundary work is central to whichever option the town eventually pursues, since any formal discontinuance would have to be based on that very specific surveyed line.
Cutting through the impassable section to restore it as a usable road would cost millions of dollars, according to the same account — a price tag that appears to be steering officials away from simply repairing the stretch and toward one of the two discontinuance paths instead.
A Process Built on Hearings, Not Shortcuts
Discontinuing maintenance would require a vote of the Selectboard following a series of public hearings, notices and postings on the town website, the article notes. Those hearings would have to establish that the way is abandoned and not used for ordinary travel, a standard that echoes language in Massachusetts law. Under state statute, a town may discontinue a town way or a private way at a meeting, while a related section of Massachusetts General Law allows officials to view the premises and requires that they hear interested parties at a regular or special meeting, or at an adjournment.
If Town Meeting ultimately approves discontinuing the road based on that surveyed boundary, the section would need to be well-marked and delineated, because the town would have to put people on notice, per the same report. Paving of the sections that remain in active use would in fact be done first, before the exact endpoints for each piece of the road are formally established, the Recorder notes.
A Possible Name Change, and a Slow Road Ahead
Separately, the Selectboard has floated changing the road's name on one side for better GPS representation, though that decision would come to a Town Meeting vote rather than being settled administratively, per the report. Whatever direction the town takes on Old Wendell Road itself, officials have been clear about the pace: this isn't a project that would happen quickly, the Recorder's account states, pointing to a deliberate process built around surveys, hearings and formal votes rather than a fast resolution.
