To build or not to build?

When it comes to a bike path on Chappaquiddick, that’s not really the question right now. There’s been no town meeting approval or funds appropriated to build a bike path, and in these tight times, it’s seems unlikely that will happen anytime soon. And yet the bike path question remains one of the most divisive issues the tiny island, situated off the extreme eastern end of Edgartown, has ever seen. It is a debate that has spanned more than three decades, prompted residents to form numerous committees for or against the path, and has drawn a jagged line down the middle of the rural community.

And with the arrival of a small group of civil engineering students, the debate has exploded once again.

Northeastern University graduate students Adam Blaser, Dan Curley, Michael Pritula, Heather Georgallas, and Henry Nsang traveled to the Vineyard in January to do a study of the main roads on Chappy and develop ideas for their use. The plan, they said, was to take a look at what’s there and decide what could use improvement. In a public presentation at the Edgartown town hall last Friday, moderated by highway superintendent Stuart Fuller, the students shared their findings, which they had translated into four possible options for the town.

The first is to do nothing. The second option is to add painted markings on the roadways called sharrows that alert drivers to the presence of bikers along the road. The third option would require widening the roadway to allow bike lanes. And the fourth is a mixed-use bike path separated from the road by a strip of grass and vegetation between five and ten feet wide.

The proposals are not new; bike path proponents have long argued that the current shared use of the road is highly dangerous to bikers. Opponents argue that the 25-miles-per-hour speed limit on the Chappaquiddick Road is a deterrent to serious accidents, and that a bike path would alter the rural character of the island and destroy wetlands along the roadside.

The team of engineering students assured the crowd of several dozen spectators gathered in the meeting room that their evaluations were purely objective. None had ever been to Chappaquiddick prior to the study, though they had been informed ahead of time that the bike path was a highly contentious issue.

But the presentation strongly favored the construction of a mixed-use bike path, both for safety and aesthetic reasons. “It’s looking forward and preventing a disaster before it happens,” said Mr. Blaser, the project manager. He said the study found that motorists rarely adhere to the speed limit on Chappaquiddick, increasing the possibility of accidents. A path modeled after the one along the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road would also maintain the rural character of the existing roads on Chappy, he said.

The presentation also included a design to change the parking lot and ferry line configuration on the Chappaquiddick side, and the students proposed adding a roundabout at the intersection of Chappaquiddick and Dike Bridge Roads, with green space in the middle.

Cost estimates were not included in the preliminary study; the students intend to return in April with further work including cost estimates.

At the outset Mr. Fuller asked that the presentation not be used as a forum for debate, and his request was respected. Instead, opinions became clear through questions. Why not install a full-time traffic patrol officer to monitor speed? Or install traffic calming measures like speed bumps?

Students responded that a traffic officer could not be present all the time, and speed bumps are impractical; it would take too many of them. “It becomes so frequent that it creates problems for all users,” said Northeastern professor Daniel Dulaski, who supervised the study.

Other questions went largely unanswered, including whether a path would create the need for more signs, and how it would affect residents whose driveways crossed the path. Mr. Dulaski said students will take the next couple of months to sharpen their study before returning for a final presentation. At that time, they will have more answers to the many questions, he said.

The study drew strong objections from bike path opponents, among them Chappy resident Roger Becker, who appealed to the Edgartown selectmen on Monday to “rein in” Mr. Fuller, whom he accused of spearheading the campaign for a bike path and using town time to arrange for the engineering project. And Mr. Becker said it was inappropriate to use town hall for meetings to discuss the study, which is not a town-sponsored project.

In a letter to the selectmen, which Mr. Becker read at the meeting, he said Mr. Fuller made it appear that the selectmen and the planning board had endorsed the student study when they placed a legal notice in the Gazette for the presentation. “Mr. Fuller has wasted countless man-hours and needlessly fueled the flames of controversy within the community,” Mr. Becker said. “I specifically ask the selectmen to have Mr. Fuller disengage from this Chappaquiddick student project . . . I am asking that the selectmen request that the private developers’ next student presentation be held not at the town hall, but rather at the Chappaquiddick Community Center, a more convenient location.”

Selectman Arthur Smadbeck said it was inappropriate to address the complaints without Mr. Fuller present; he said the board would invite Mr. Fuller to attend next Monday’s meeting. But Mr. Smadbeck did agree with some of Mr. Becker’s points.

“It does have the appearance that this has some kind of town sponsorship,” Mr. Smadbeck said. “It was the wrong thing to do. It never should have happened. As far as holding meetings here in the town hall, I agree with you. I think these types of meetings should be held [on Chappaquiddick].”

Mr. Smadbeck said the bike path project is not at a level of town involvement yet, and that even if it were the town would be hard-pressed to come up with the millions of dollars needed for construction. “The town isn’t going to spend tax dollars on something that is a controversy,” he said.