It’s hard to love this highway. As it rises out of Brattleboro, its contours follow the logic of a serpent coiled to strike, not the needs of commuters on their way to work. Over the years, crosses have accumulated at likely and unlikely spots, marking the last breath of some poor soul. The road does not discriminate: young and old, male and female, rich and poor all have been victims of its sharp curves and seductive straightaways. “It’s the most lethal road in Vermont,” we tell incoming students. “When the weather is bad, don’t drive on it.”
Besides the crosses, there are the stories of near misses. There’s the ditch where Amer’s Subaru landed after spinning out of control. There’s the hill where a new Dean of Faculty did a 360 in wet snow. But not all the mishaps are products of inclement weather. There’s the stretch where the economics professor was hit by an oncoming car during his morning commute. The road was clear, but the driver had fallen asleep.
Many of the smashed vehicles end up at Marlboro Collision. Nestled in the crook of a particularly deep hollow, the body shop has conveniently put out for display what can happen when a sedan brushes shoulders with a semi. For the passing motorist, the view of wrecked vehicles has a prudent and sober effect. Like skulls on a medieval writer’s desk, those smashed sedans and upended SUVs remind us how easily our motorcars can become wads of steel dotted with engine parts.
There is a lot that can go wrong on Route 9. But in the litany of brutal encounters, I never imagined that this lethal highway could be so disfigured by a brook.
After last week’s flash floods, Google removed sections of Route 9 from their maps, increasing our sense of devastation. “Oh no!” commented a former Marlboro student on Facebook. “Route 9 is gone.” No longer a serpent coiled to strike, the road west of Brattleboro wasn’t just damaged; it was completely erased. Were it not for the parenthetical “planned” inserted into the updated map, one might think it was gone for good.
Given Route 9’s propensity for permanently crumpling both persons and vehicles, one might think its erasure would be a good thing. No Route 9, no fatalities, no twirling through the snowflakes to land in a ditch. But now that Route 9 has only past and future tense, we begin to see the good work it always did. That stretch from the Chelsea Royal Diner up to Sweeties kept traffic off Ames Hill Road and Hamilton Road. With Route 9 closed, these smaller tributaries have become thoroughfares.
The official word is that these back roads are closed. “If you’re not an emergency responder or a resident of Marlboro, Wilmington or points beyond, stay off Hamilton Road and Ames Hill Road,” begins a front-page story in the Towns Section of Saturday’s Reformer. It was on the basis of that definition that Marlboro College students returned last week. But now those of us who teach those particular Marlboro residents are faced with an ethical dilemma. How can we deliver the services they expect without disobeying the law? In order to minimize traffic on Ames Hill, we’ve organized carpools and the college is providing van runs to and from Brattleboro. Still, we know it is not ideal. Route 9 for all its problems could accommodate our comings and goings.
Route 9 may be a dangerous road but it kept its dangers to itself. Now that it’s interrupted, we see just how harmful our commuting life really is. We are like the Whetstone Brook in full flood, like a plague of locusts on a cornfield. With our sedans and SUVs, we storm our neighbors’ yards, covering sunflowers with soot and disrupting newly-laid ditches as we scoot through a narrow stretch. The costs of commuting are not so disguised on Ames Hill.
Friday afternoon’s commuter traffic was steady in both directions as Marlboro residents returned from work and Marlboro workers went back home. Both lanes of traffic sent up clouds of dust that coated the roadside ferns. A driver heading back to town, clearly unfamiliar with Vermont dirt roads, braked each time he met an oncoming vehicle, which meant about every fifteen seconds. A wrecker, carrying a burnt sedan, brought the timid driver to a standstill. For one of us trying to get to a doctor’s appointment downtown, it was hard not to curse his caution. Had we been on Route 9, we might have talked a salty streak; on Ames Hill we kept our four-letter words to ourselves. All these vehicles, whether or not they belonged to Marlboro residents, were interlopers. Commuters belong only on Route 9.
Governor Shumlin, who dropped in last Friday by helicopter, has stated that restoring Route 9 is of the highest priority. A friend, whose property sits at the crest of the road, confirmed that progress was being made. Federal money and national guards, we’re told, are moving earth and bringing in asphalt and fill almost as fast as the Whetstone Brook carried them away. With so many resources and so much money, surely Route 9 will soon be back in business. It may be a lethal road for its travelers, but it does a fine job of keeping dust off of Marlboro’s ferns and sunflowers. It may toss its commuters occasionally into a ditch, but it does a fine job of reducing traffic on fragile roads.
Oh, Route 9, we commuters of Windham County so welcome your return. Maybe now that we’ve seen the collective side of our own destructive habits, we’ll tread more softly upon you.
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