West Tisbury businesses, from a gas station to farm stand vendors, fear that the partial closure of South Road and prominent detour signs spurred by President Obama’s visit will hurt sales during one of the busiest weeks of the year.
President Obama arrived for a nine-day visit on Martha’s Vineyard last Saturday. The first family is staying at a private home off South Road in Chilmark. Because of security concerns, South Road is closed between Meeting House Road and Wooton Bassett Road until August 18.
A portion of South Road in Chilmark is slated to be closed to traffic during President Obama's visit to the Island, the Chilmark selectmen learned on Tuesday.
Oak Bluffs police Lt. Timothy Williamson said a Chevy sedan crossed the center line and hit a taxi van head-on in front of the restaurant Hooked. The crash occurred around 1 p.m. The taxi was not carrying passengers.
Lt. Williamson said police are investigating whether the driver of the sedan “may have been impaired.”
The automobile has long been an integral part of American life; there are 40 million more registered motor vehicles in this country than licensed drivers.
Yet on Vineyard sidewalks and bike paths this week, people cruised along on bicycles with no worries about traffic and congestion. The parking lots for the Tisbury and Edgartown park and ride programs were jammed full, while bus stops for the Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority were packed with people waiting to be picked up at all hours of the day.
A Martha’s Vineyard Commission subcommittee decided this week to require a new traffic study for a proposed fuel station off State Road in Vineyard Haven, but not before a bit of open disagreement on the merits.
Concern over traffic and parking problems in Edgartown’s historic town center has spread all the way to Boston.
To Northeastern University, specifically, where a group of transportation engineering students have tackled the town’s traffic situation as part of their senior project.
While the proposed Oak Bluffs roundabout has received most of the press, Tisbury is quietly moving forward with another long-planned major traffic management infrastructure project: a proposed system of connector roads that would link Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road to State Road and bypass the summer crush in Vineyard Haven. But unlike the roundabout, the state hasn’t been forthcoming with money for the proposed $3 million project. Now it’s up to voters to decide whether to build the connector system.
