Dear Santa: Need tractor to navigate Maine roads

Dear Santa: Would you please – pretty please – bring me a tractor for Christmas?

Seeing as I live on granite ledge, it’s not that I need a tractor for farming, nor for mowing enormous grassy areas or for pulling heavy boat trailers.

Nope. I just need a tractor for transportation, just to get there from here and back again in one piece.

You see, I live in Maine, where rural two-lane roads make up much of the transportation picture, kind of like a “crazy quilt” pattern, when I think about it.

Which reminds me of yelling out that very word “crazy” earlier this week when I read that the Maine Department of Transportation does not plan to do $130 million in needed highway work anytime soon. That, after promising about 140 communities they would see roadway improvement.

Now we learn the DOT will “defer” this funding, a decision that will affect one-fifth of all of its proposed projects.

Santa, you should be thankful for your sleigh and reindeer. Flying over these winding, rutted, narrow roads is certainly a lot quicker and much safer than traveling them on wheels.

Just think about delivering all your presents this Christmas from a Land-Air Express eighteen-wheeler, wobbling around these corners, dodging culvert wash-outs, and trying to hug the center line to avoid slipping into the bay waters because of no guardrails.

That is precisely why I need a tractor, Santa, so that when I come upon pavement cracked wide open because of torrential rains or frost heaves, I can just roll right over the crevice and continue my trip.

When rounding a curve, it won’t matter if the tractor wheels mire down in a ditch; they’ll get traction eventually. So what if the state highway has no shoulders? With a tractor I could maneuver such hazards by creeping along and keeping my right eye open for a sudden abyss.

It’s ironic, this backing-off of road work just months after a report by TRIP, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., concluded that nearly “one-third of major roads in Maine, maintained by state and local governments, are in poor and mediocre condition.”

Now, the state may move up to “two-thirds of its roads in poor condition.” That’s something to brag about to our tourists; we just like to keep things quaint.

According to reports, the director of the Maine Better Transportation Association said this recent DOT deferral of $130 million would increase the more than $1 billion backlog of needed road and bridge improvements already existing in Maine.

Santa, I really need a tractor. Please ignore my previous request for a Hummer. I measured our roadways but they’re not wide enough.