Most roads in the U.S. are built for cars, not for pedestrians. Whether we’re happy or unhappy with this, most of us are aware of it.

But this brilliant illustration, by Claes Tingvall of the Swedish Road Administration, shows just how extreme the situation truly is — even in an urban business district that’s designed with pedestrians in mind.

If we keep this in mind, and the concept of Complete Streets that Massachusetts is starting with the proposal for equal consideration to pedestrians, and cyclists on both sides of Beach Road from Mass DOT, then the recommendations for Beach Road improvements, if they can be contained within the 40-foot right of way, make a lot more sense.

On that note, a fully compliant shared user path on Beach Road if implemented would likely be safe — and beautiful. With wide shoulders on both sides and a wide path to make it more capable to give room for cyclists to avoid traffic going in and out of curb cuts, then it would be pretty nice. However, with only 40 feet to work with it is impossible to do this (for a total of 21 feet on the south side) and to have complete streets on the north side of Beach Road as well. This matters.

It may not seem to matter to some people, but it does. And so, the recommendations by the MassDOT make sense and hopefully we as a town can accept that.

Frank Brunelle
Vineyard Haven