While many of Mattapoisett’s main roads are being addressed on the Highway Department’s five-year road improvement plan, secondary roads and sidewalks have gone by the wayside.

At Tuesday’s Selectmen meeting, Town Administrator Mike Gagne and Highway Surveyor Barry Denham discussed prioritizing those areas in light of requests from residents.

In ranking unpaved streets, Denham said input from the public and the number of people who support a specific road is a top concern. “Another factor is the time the town has owned the particular roadway,” he said.

Wolf Island Road, one of the town's first streets, requires regular maintenance.

“It generally costs us about $10,000 a year to maintain…just from a grading point of view, not counting extra trips out to salt and sand in the wintertime,” said Denham.

Unpaved roads will require significant funding, said Denham. “When you start construction on dirt roads, it’s like the road was never there before,” he explained.

Many of the streets go through wetlands, which increases expenses. Denham said one short road could cost over a million dollars.

Gagne disagreed with Denham on exactly how to prioritize the roads and sidewalks that need repair.

Rather than focusing on “public outcry,” he said it was more important to focus on technical issues. Gagne asked Selectmen to review a document from the University of Indiana that outlined options to rank roadwork projects.

But Gagne said word from the public did alert him to the need to repair some of the town's sidewalks.

“The condition of some of the sidewalks causes me immediate concern,” he said. “Over the last three or four months I have heard or spoken with three or four people who have fallen due to sidewalk problems.”

Gagne said sidewalks are usually addressed in conjunction with road improvements; however, that means many problems may not be addressed for years.

Gagne suggested training residents in the senior work-off program, which provides a tax break in exchange for municipal work,  to review the sidewalks and help build a priority list.

Selectmen will also review the University of Indiana document to be discussed at a future meeting.

Denham raised concerns about the town’s ability to fund the projects.

“We have enough problems just trying to come up with the funds to pave our paved roads. I can put together all the plans in the work, but the costs continue to rise. So the plan costs aren’t the project costs,” said Denham.

Still, he was hopeful about the state of the road improvements, soon to enter the third phase.

“We’re getting to a point where we can see to the end of the tunnel,” he said.