The Town Council has decided the town will work on rebuilding Hardy Road this year since more traffic is expected after the reconstruction of its intersection with Route 101 and Jenkins Road.

For the past few years, the town has been rehabilitating its roads at a pace of $4 million a year, spending an additional $1 million on maintenance. In 2008, the town originally had big plans for both Hardy and North Amherst roads.

That was before the defeat of the $8 million and $12 million bonds in the March town election. In the absence of those bonds, the town now has just $4 million left for its road program, not counting maintenance, which is funded through the operating budget.

That financial reality led the Town Council at its Wednesday, March 26, meeting to hold off on making a decision about North Amherst Road, which was on the list of road slated for work this year. Several town councilors suggested that the money they have might be better spent on other failing local roads which are in dire need of repair.

“These are chunks of road that are just going to get worse and worse over time, and next year we’re going to have people saying, ‘I can’t get to my house anymore because this road is in such bad shape,’” said Town Councilor Michael Scanlon.

“We can no longer just tell all these people, ‘Have patience and wait, your turn is coming,’ because we don’t know if their turn is coming.”

The council did not come to any consensus about what to do over the long term. Councilor Bob Young proposed that the town organize a committee that would come up with a proposal for another bond.

Scanlon opposed the committee, saying that the town had already studied its roads and established a program to take care of them. He asked what a committee would accomplish, suggesting that the idea was a “slight” to Public Works Director Jim Stanford and the professional staff in his department.

“This is the man’s career, his life and if we don’t have enough confidence in him to know that there’s not a better way to reconstruct a road I think we ought to tell (Town Manager) Russ (Marcoux) to let him go and find ourselves a new head of that department,” Scanlon said.

Other councilors said they did not want to end the road program, but saw a benefit in taking another look at it. “We don’t need to tear down the road program,” said Councilor Bill Dermody. “Maybe there are things we can do within the road program to improve it.” Chairman Mike Izbicki said the proposed committee would give residents a better understanding of how the road program works.

No vote was taken on the committee. Instead, the council agreed to discuss the road issue in depth at its annual retreat, scheduled for Saturday, April 5.

The council also needs to figure out what to do, if anything, about fixing the intersection of Nashua Road and Route 101, where many teen drivers are expected to be traveling to and from Bedford High School. The $8 million bond, which failed in the March 11 election, would have paid for a left-turn lane onto Nashua Road and a flashing light, as well as a second eastbound lane from the intersection to Meetinghouse Road.

“There is a great concern for the Nashua Road/101 intersection and the need for a light there,” said Councilor Norm Longval. “I realize that the $8 million bond failed. It would have provided us that.

But maybe this could probably be abbreviated where we just put a light at that intersection to at least make safe to some extent so that people can make a lefthand turn in and out without committing suicide.”

Meeting with state DOT On Tuesday, April 29, state lawmakers will hold a meeting on improvements to the intersection of Route 101 and Nashua Road. The meeting takes place at 7 p.m. at BCTV studio. State Sen. Sheila Roberge and Bedford state representatives are expected to attend.

“These changes are needed for safety reasons,” Roberge said. “I hope the people of Bedford will come out to show state transportation officials how critical these improvements are to our community.”

Assistant Transportation Commissioner Jeff Brillhart said at the meeting state officials will collect information on the needs of the community and explain why the Route 101 improvements were excluded from the latest draft of the state’s 10-year transportation plan.