To the Editor:

These are questions for the meeting at Tisbury Town Hall Thursday, March 9, at 4:30 pm, regarding a 75 percent completion plan for the shared-use path (SUP) and Beach Road construction.

  1. According to the 2008 prefeasibility study, one of the project’s objectives is to avoid creating an intersection. The reason: When bicycles encounter motorized vehicles, the chances for extreme harm to the cyclist are great. (There was no followup feasibility study to look at proposals in the initial prestudy.)
    I talked to an attorney about this, who advised me that any road designed by the town that contains inherent safety issues, which the town invites and encourages people to use, could create a liability to the town.
    An online search of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly indicates damages in such cases are generally over $500,000, and can be a million or more for cases involving vehicles hitting cyclists and moped riders. There was one for $1.5 milllion here on Martha’s Vineyard, involving a moped. Has town counsel looked into this, and would the town be liable, since the selectmen have actually designed the road?
  2. Will there be a pedestrian-crossing light at the intersection, and if so has there been a study to show how this would impact traffic flow, or its impact on businesses, if any?
  3. The road will be repaved. Will it be a light color; will it be raised?
  4. Gov. Charlie Baker recently signed into law a prohibition against vehicles parking or unloading on bicycle paths. On Beach Road it is customary for delivery trucks to do just that. Has MassDOT come up with any guidelines on how the change can be made, and how to guarantee that trucks will be able to make deliveries, and that in the process — which will require crossing the SUP — there will be no collisions with cyclists or pedestrians?
  5. The plan calls for the moving of utility poles to the south side of Beach Road. Has there been a study to look into whether this will require removing or trimming of limbs of shade trees, which are important for shade and aesthetics to the town, and to Beach Road in particular?
  6. The construction of the road will involve significant disruption to local businesses and the Island in general. If the town and MassDOT do not agree to raise the road at this time, then certainly it will need to be raised in the future, so the construction would have to be repeated. What are your comments on this, if in fact the road is not being raised at this time?
  7. Will the speed limit be reduced, as petitioned by citizens of the town?

Frank Brunelle

Vineyard Haven