I think the report was too long for most people to want to read. I've been frustrated that so much time was spent this year with so little progress towards actually solving the problems the Commission was formed to address.
On the plus side, Pete Coughlan of the DOT has been working towards getting information about privately maintained roads more readily available on the DOT mapviewer site. This will be a great help for those looking to buy land. Being able to produce numbers of roads will also help give private roads more clout with the Legislature.
There has also been some progress towards limiting landowner liability on privately maintained roads, both in terms of people who may suffer injury or property damage due to a road defect, and in terms of liability for environmental damage that is not the fault of those who maintain the road.
On the other hand, the Commission has not yet succeeded in untangling the confusing terminology of "private way" and "public easement." The main sticking point is that the term "private way" was supposed to be replaced by the term "public easement," but the term "private way" has been applied to at least three different types of roads.
The other big frustration is that there has been little progress on the issues the Commission was formed to address. How can a town be relieved of the expense of maintaining little-used roads without damaging access to abutting properties? Before 1965, when a road was discontinued it was usually extinguished, leaving abutting properties legally land locked. The "solution" that's been used since 1965 has been to retain a public easement - a road that the public no longer has any obligation to maintain, but which remains open to public use. The result is that the private landowners end up maintaining the road for the public's use at private expense.