Every county may respond differently. I own a farm on a 1/2 mile long dead-end gravel road named after my family along what used to be a county road that I have to maintain. Fortunately my farm is located in the in Oregon's Willamette Valley where significant snow-fall is rare. When it does happen, it is usually only on the ground for no more that a week or so. In my situation, since the farm has been in my family for over 100 years, there is some "history" as to why the county no longer maintains the road. I am not able to figure out exactly what happened, but the county told me that at some point there was a discussion between the county and my uncle who was in the ownership lineage and he told the county that he would maintain about 1/4 mile of the road length and the county wouldn't have to do it any more. I can only speculate, but I would imagine that my uncle may have been in non-compliance with a few things and he basically told the county "where to go". At some point in time, the county posted a sign at the 1/4 mile point that says "End of County Maintenance" to mark out where the maintenance officially ends. It is notable that the county typically tops off the first 1/4 mile with gravel every year.
When I first inherited the property, I had five 12-yard loads of crushed rock delivered that was spread along about 1/8 mile of the 1/4 mile part that the county no longer maintains. The reason is that when my uncle died without a will, there is a second home at the end of the road that was originally part of the family farm, that was sold off and another family now lives there. So technically of the 1/4 mile part of the road that the county no longer maintains, the family at the end of the road has to maintain their 1/8 mile section. Since they travel over the 1/8 mile section of the road that fronts my property, in theory they should also be paying half the maintenance cost of my 1/8 mile section too. I own a tractor and implements needed, and I initially told them that I would donate all of the labor to grade it and maintain the road if they would share the cost of the periodic loads of gravel for the 1/8 mile portion that we share the use of. After several years, to date they have not offered to assist with sharing any of the costs. After inheriting the farm and initially paying for the the first 5 loads of gravel myself, I decided that I needed to take a different long-term approach.
I contacted the local county roads department and they are the ones who gave me part of the "back story" of the relationship that they had with my uncle. I was told that if the county was EVER to consider taking back the road maintenance responsibilities, I would have to take some steps. First, I would have to download a PDF file that describes all of the road maintenance standards that the county requires. Next, I would need to compare that information with the condition of the road and bring it up to their current standards. After that was done, they would send out a "Road Master" to inspect the road to make sure that those standards were met. IF the road was in compliance, the Road Master would then send a notification to the county commissioners, that the road was now in compliance. I was told that there would be NO guarantee that the commissioners would vote to take the road maintenance back on. After hearing that, I pretty much gave up on pursuance of doing anything with the county. I asked them why they can't initially FIRST send out a Road Master who is more knowledgeable about the rules and regulations and who could quickly zero in on what might need to be done. Doing that would enable me to gather an accurate cost of any required work and better evaluate if such costs could even be afforded by private parties. That suggestion was pretty much "shut-down" by the county and I was again told, just to download the PDF file, interpret it for myself and get the work done. Then and ONLY then would a Road Master be sent out. They just weren't very flexible at all.
My current solution is just to let the road go to you know where for now. Since my neighbor has not been responsive to my cost-sharing suggestion and I am unwilling to keep pouring truck loads of gravel on the road with "my own dime", maybe someday the road will get so bad that they will be coming to me asking or complaining about it. To their credit, they have filled the pot holes a couple of times with some gravel, but doing that is merely a stop-gap measure and the gravel is quickly forced out by continued use. What really needs to happen is that it needs to be thoroughly graded, then a larger rock base put down and topped off with smaller crushed rock. In truth, my neighbors at the end of the road drive up and down the road, more than my daughter and her family who live at the farm. I guess that for now, it "is what it is" since I am "caught between a rock and a hard place"......between the county and my neighbor.
It is also true that some rural counties are just like me.....they have limited financial resources to pay for maintenance of any kind. With all that is going on......this is probably the "wave of the future". We are all going to need to develop our own networks of friends and neighbors and work together to accomplish tasks that need to be done. We all gotta' learn to work together.
The BAD news is that the county won't maintain it.....the GOOD news is that the county won't maintains it and it remains a private road. I put up a private road sign above the county's sign. Life is strange......my neighbor was willing to pay for half the cost ($10.00) for the road sign, but not willing to pay for any road maintenance. I guess that is a start!!!
