Mad About Midd 'Town-gown' tightness

Author: Dave Barker

I have no idea what "town-gown" relations mean. You see the hyphenated term thrown around in the Princeton Review college guide for prospective students looking for a school that has managed to be more than an island in the surrounding community. We are encouraged to read on Tuesdays in J-Term to children at Ilsley Library for the Page 1 Literacy Project. A recent post on the College Web site displayed a picture of members of the hockey team with students from Ripton Elementary School. These projects are wonderful and should be expanded, but I question how much the College administration and students are doing to improve the infrastructure of the town.

While the satisfaction of making a kid smile trounces that of, say, a completed water main, a public meeting I attended on Monday at the municipal gym convinced me that aging structures in town deserve some of the attention we're offering to kids. The Battell Bridge, which cuts through Main Street and offers those stunning views of the Otter Creek Falls, has multiple cracks in its foundation. The two railroad bridges in town are tangles of holes and exposed rebar.

Photographs of these crumbling structures were presented at the meeting by Town Planner Fred Dunnington as he told an audience of about 50 of the need for a new bridge that would cross Otter Creek to the right of Mister Up's, linking with Cross Street and Route 7. As of now, the traffic clogging the College Street/Main Street intersection often proves more frustrating than the Pub Night bartender shaking his head saying, "Sorry, we're out." Emergency vehicles which have to navigate the maze around the town green would be able to reach Porter Hospital faster.

The idea for a second bridge dates back to 1953. Several sites have been examined for a bridge including the current Cross Street plan, first discussed in 1992. What the town lacks are greenbacks. The proposed $16 million bridge project requires help from Montpelier, but given the tone at the meeting, it's going to take Battell Bridge cascading down the falls before the Vermont Agency of Transportation shows Middlebury the money.

The College should step in and help out. Without hockey games, family weekends and graduations, drivers could put the Aleve back in the glove compartment most of the time. Yet I was shocked at the small number of College administrators and professors at the meeting. One College representative present, Bob Huth, the executive vice president and treasurer, stated that the College supports the bridge but said that there has been no talk of helping to fund the project.

We as students should be involved as well. I cringed at the suggestion of writing and calling legislators. We should register to vote in Middlebury so we can participate at the annual town meeting in March. There, residents will be asked to endorse the bridge and to approve funding to continue the project. That meeting on Monday could have used the breath of idealism and ambition usually found in stifling quantities in Middlebury classrooms. We all know how frustrating it is to sit in traffic in rural Vermont when we should be cruising to the chair lift.