There is something idyllic about a dirt road. It conjures up images of a leisurely stroll, kicking up a few rocks here and there, or gathering around a hole heeled into the middle of the road for a game of marbles, interrupted only occasionally by a car slowly passing through. A background of bird song and the rustling of unseen creatures as they burrow through the brush at the road's edge come to mind on this road trip of yesteryear.

Newtown, like many New England villages, has worked to improve many of the pastoral roads that lace the town, but there are still a great number of roads that hail from that earlier era.

It is a different experience for each person living on any of Newtown's unpaved roads, said Fred Hurley, director of Newtown's public works department. Some people love the rustic atmosphere created by the narrow, winding roads and the annual challenge to maneuver about crevasses in the road carved by winter's tools of wind and freezing temperatures. Others beg for the perennially washed out roads to become part of the town's road system of smooth asphalt.

"In a lot of cases, we're talking road width, and we can't even get them to meet existing town standards," Mr Hurley said of Newtown's approximately 55 unpaved or partially paved roads. "We don't want to assault the character of the town," he said, by requiring scenic stonewalls and graceful trees situated at the road's edge to be removed for paving. "As long as a road can be maintained, we're not going to run out and pave it."

A good number of the unpaved roads are located in the lake communities, and, along with several others throughout Newtown and Sandy Hook, are considered to be private roads.

"Most private roads really are public roads that are just not in the town road system," he said, explaining that it may be that private owners never applied to have the road turned over to the town system, or it is a road that, because of its configuration and nearby structures, may never be able to meet town standards.

Other private roads, often called "trails," exist on paper but are not genuine roadways, he said. What makes maintaining and possible consideration for paving of a private road difficult are the different types of ownership that create legal issues. Some private roads are owned by an individual, or a group of individual homeowners. Some are owned by associations. Others, said Mr Hurley, are abandoned roads.

Even the town scenic roads, Sanford and Zoar, could be paved if it was necessary for safety reasons, Mr Hurley said.

"A lot of people like a dirt road - up to a point. When you get a consensus from homeowners on a road, that's when you approach [surfacing an unpaved road]," he said. In any case, Newtown typically tries to negotiate with those homeowners on a road being considered for surfacing, he said.

In January, a subcommittee of the Legislative Council presented its initial recommendations to the Board of Selectmen on long-term strategic plans for improving and maintaining roads. At the time, committee chairman and Legislative Councilman Anthony Filato suggested that the findings had indicated that surfacing unpaved roads would be a great source of savings for the town.

Mr Hurley agreed. "It is dramatically less expensive to maintain paved roads," he said. People do not realize the hidden costs of continual maintenance on gravel or dirt roads. When modifications for safety reasons are indicated, such as a road washing out regularly during storms, drainage works best on a road that is paved, he said, and improves public safety.

"Public safety trumps everything," he pointed out. The safety of first responders and members of the highway department is a consideration. "Our main thrust is trying to improve roads. And on behalf of our first responders, I will say that we will never, never tell people we won't get to their house [because of road conditions], some way. How safely we do it," said Mr Hurley, "is another matter. Good roadways improve emergency response time, too, of course."

[naviga:h4 class="subhead"]Life On Dirt Roads[/naviga:h4]

Old Mill Road is a short dirt road that runs between Sherman Road and Berkshire Road (Route 34). Rick Bovino has lived there for 40 years in the 300-year-old home that was once the mill for which the road is named.

A small portion of the road actually has been paved, he said, where Old Mill Road runs over the top of the dam that closes off the end of Warner Pond. The town installed paving to accommodate surface drains and prevent road wash outs, responding to ongoing issues created by beavers blocking a drainpipe from the pond. Of course, Mr Bovino said, the beavers are unstoppable, so the town must still regularly clear out the spillway.

That said, "This is great," he declared the condition of Old Mill Road. "It's the perfect setting for a house built half a century before we became the United States. I don't want it paved."

Among the positive features of a dirt road, Mr Bovino said, is that traction is good. There is a beauty to the area, as well. Stonewalls run alongside the road in most places, and wildlife thrives in the area.

"I manage my property for wildlife," he said, and deer, turkey, bobcats, rabbits, raptors, and fox live in the area and are seen on a regular basis.

He also has concerns about the loss of private property to any road widening, and widening or paving the road could contribute to a problem that already exists, he fears.

"Some people come through this road too quickly. If it were paved, it would seem to me that they would drive more irresponsibly. The speed at which some people drive down this road is already unconscionable," said Mr Bovino.

"The bottom line," he said, "is that when your house is this old, any modernization is awful."

Stone Bridge Trail is another quiet, quarter-mile road off Sugar Street that dead-ends at Paugussett State Forest. For Teresa and Joe Coelho, that is the attraction. They bought their house, one of only four on the road, in 2000. The natural wooded beauty along the road attracted them.

"We like that it's a dirt road," said Mr Coelho. "We can walk our dogs here. There's less traffic, less people," he said.

Occasional washouts of the road and storms that can leave the road in problematic condition, particularly if you do not have a four-wheel drive vehicle, Mr Coelho said, are not that much of a downside.

"The town does a great job keeping it up," he said.

The town also does a tremendous job keeping Zoar Road plowed in the winter and graded in the other seasons, said Marsha Moskowitz. A seven-year resident of Zoar Road, Ms Moskowitz is a big fan of the mostly unpaved, winding road that runs between Bennetts Bridge Road and Berkshire Road.

"I love the fact that it's gorgeous, all seasons. This time of year, when buds are on the trees, or in the fall, with all the colors, it makes you feel like you're in some place you read about but could never really live there. As soon as I turn down the road," she said, "it's peaceful."

That peace could be disturbed if the road were to be paved - an unlikely scenario, since it is one of Newtown's two designated scenic roads - she said. Used as a cut-through, especially if there is an accident on Berkshire Road, it would invite speeding, she said. Even now, the 15-mile-per-hour speed limit is not heeded by all who use the narrow road. That is a hazard not only for residents who stroll the road, but for the deer, turkey, and coyotes that wander across Zoar Road.

Living on a dirt road does mean having to wash the car frequently, since dust is stirred up in the dry season, and there are some ruts to contend with now and then.

"But I'd still rather have it this way," said Ms Moskowitz.

On the other side of town, a resident who preferred to remain unnamed since not all on the road are in agreement, would love to see her dirt lane improved.

"It costs the town so much money. It washes out every time it rains," said the 14-year-resident of the rough road. Living on a dirt road was not something taken into a lot of consideration when buying the property. At the time, said this resident, they thought a process to pave the road was already in the works.

But paving the road would be "very expensive," according to conversations this homeowner has had with the town, and homeowners could be required to pay a portion of the costs.

"I think it was around $100,000 - each - which is not something that can happen."

In the January report to the Board of Selectman, Mr Filato noted, "The town may also install paving, rebuild private roads, and do other improvements in cases where owners or a related association pays half the cost."

This resident is unable to see any advantage to navigating a rugged strip of roadway, and keeps her fingers crossed that the town will pave her road.

Keeping her fingers crossed that Nettleton Avenue, between Elm Drive and Juniper Road, is never paved, is Karen Pierce. She and husband, Dan, live in the same house Ms Pierce grew up in, and she has fond memories of the sometimes lumpy road.

"I've lived here since 1971, and grew up riding bikes here - it was never busy - and playing in the road. It had potholes, but a job my dad had for my brothers and me was filling in the potholes," she recalled.

She loves the rural feel to Nettleton, tucked away from the bustle of living right in town.

What she does not love is not the fault of the road. It is the lack of respect others have for what Ms Pierce says is actually a right-of-way, privately owned by her family and neighbors. When traffic backs up at the light at the nearby Route 302 intersection, impatient drivers cut down Juniper Road and then Nettleton Avenue to circumvent the back up.

"People fly down this road, and it is really a one-way lane. Rocks fly up on the lawns, and people don't seem to care," she said. The ruts in the road can only help to slow down reckless drivers, Ms Pierce said.

Also on Nettleton Avenue are Margo and Robert Hall, who have lived there since 1951, when the road was really "just a glorified driveway in terrible shape," said Mr Hall. "More than one person had to be hauled out of the mud."

In 1968, the town took over plowing the road, and then improved it somewhat by putting down dirt and occasionally a gravel base.

They have loved the privacy that the short road gives to their home, and while the "driveway" has evolved into a road technically wide enough to pave, they hope that will never be so.

"It would absolutely change the character," Mr Hall said.

In the 1990s, the town began a process to pave the road and add sewers to the neighborhood, an action that only one of five homeowners at the time desired. When it seems paving was actually going to go forward, Mr Hall took action of his own - and bought the road from the developer who had built the two houses near him. As a completely private road, the homeowners were able to prevent Nettleton Avenue from being added to the growing list of surfaced roads.

"It's a happy road," added Ms Hall. "Our kids and dogs played in the road, and one resident even had ducks at one time that would march around."

"The town did put in storm drains a while back, so it rarely washes out," Ms Pierce concluded. "And if it washes out on my end of the road," she said, she calls upon her childhood skills. "I just fill in the holes."