On Tuesday, town administrator Jay Grande told the Tisbury board of selectmen that a meeting with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) in Taunton on Monday for the Beach Road project was both “productive and positive.”
During their regular meeting, Mr. Grande updated selectmen on some of the proposed changes that MassDOT had addressed in the design of the $2.4 million state and federally funded project. The work, which will change the half-mile from Five Corners to the seawall past R.M. Packer Co. Construction, is expected to begin in spring 2018.
The Beach Road design committee was created in September 2016 by a group of town representatives: selectman chairman Melinda Loberg, town administrator Jay Grande, Department of Public Works (DPW) director Ray Tattersall, Ben Robinson of the planning board, and Tisbury Water Works superintendent Paul Wohler.
The aim of the committee has been to address the issues and concerns of the project as the plan progresses to a 75 percent design (before which all permits must be submitted to all involved agencies), which MassDOT said they’d accomplish by the end of the year.
On Monday, MassDOT agreed to have utility poles set back behind the sidewalk, as well as placing an underground conduit beneath the road instead of having overhead wires crossing the street, from Five Corners to Tisbury Marketplace and from Martha’s Vineyard Shipyard to Wind’s Up. Mr. Grande called this a “tremendous visual improvement.”
Other improvements include the width of the sidewalks. The town had requested a width of eight feet, but MassDOT told Mr. Grande on Monday that they were unable to make that change. Instead, they proposed the option of a five-and-a-half-foot sidewalk on the east side of the road from Five Corners to Tisbury Marketplace, and a seven-and-a-half foot sidewalk on the west side of the road, with room for planting trees and creating “a true streetscape,” Mr. Grande said.
“It will really add to defining that area as part of the downtown village business district, and I think clearly it’s moving in that direction,” Mr. Grande said.
He said MassDOT also addressed the issue of stormwater management, and that he was “cautiously optimistic” that they will come back with a proposal to look at innovative and environmentally conscious options.
In other business, selectmen and Tisbury shellfish constable Danielle Ewart honored Rick Karney, director of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group (MVSG), who will be retiring on Jan. 1, 2017, after a 41-year tenure as director.
Mr. Karney is a renowned shellfish biologist and the founder of MVSG, and oversaw installing the nation’s first public solar shellfish hatchery in the early 1980s, as well as new pilot programs that study the viability of kelp farming and mussel farming in Vineyard waters.
Selectmen also discussed sending a letter of concern to Gov. Charlie Baker regarding recent budget cuts that impact the Island, pertaining to the opioid epidemic, shellfishing, affordable housing, and the Chamber of Commerce.
