Two of the busiest roads on Martha’s Vineyard have seen an increasing number of vehicles in the last five years, leaving Island leaders wondering what can be done to ease congestion.
Edgartown-West Tisbury Road near Barnes Road, and Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road in Edgartown have routinely seen the highest number of vehicles in the summer months, according to data collected by six traffic counters around the Island. The statistics show that more than 10,000 vehicles travel these roads daily in the high season, and more cars and trucks have been added in recent years.
While not surprising — stop and go traffic is common along Edgartown-West Tisbury Road and it often takes 30 minutes or more to get through the Triangle intersection — several town leaders said it is about time to take a look at alleviating the clogged roads.
“It’s something that has to be addressed,” said Edgartown select board member Alex Morrison. “I’m in full agreement there.”
To see how traffic patterns have changed, the Gazette analyzed the traffic counter data for the last five years in the summer months of June, July and August. Out of the six counters, which were originally deployed in 2019, the counters at Edgartown-West Tisbury Road just west of Barnes Road and Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road just north of Dodgers Hole Road were consistently the two busiest locations.
In general, each saw a gradual increase over the five-year period, to the point where there were several hundred more vehicles passing each day.
For instance, in August 2022, the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road counter had an average of 14,103 vehicles daily. By 2025, that number rose to 14,842, before tapering off slightly to 14,700 in August 2026, making for almost 600 more vehicles daily when compared to four years prior.
During that same timeframe Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road went from 12,795 on average daily in August 2022, to 13,690 in 2026, or nearly 900 more vehicles daily.
June and July followed similar patterns.
In June 2022, the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road counter tallied up a daily average just shy of 11,000 vehicles. That number had grown to 11,639 in June 2026.
Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road during the same span went from 12,101 to 12,635 average daily vehicles.
Between July 2022 and 2026, the daily average went up by 611 between 2022 and 2026 at the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road counter and 550 at the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road counter.
The data does come with some caveats. Some of the most notorious intersections are not included in the counter locations. Five Corners in Vineyard Haven, for instance, is not one of the six. Officials have said that the nature of those intersections can make it hard to get an accurate count.
The other four active counters are at Edgartown-West Tisbury Road just east of Meshacket Road, Beach Road near the Big Bridge, State Road near Old County Road in West Tisbury, and State Road going from West Tisbury to Chilmark.
Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road has been a high traffic area for decades, passing between the three down-Island towns. Attempts to solve the issues also go back at least 30 years, said Edgartown police Chief Chris Dolby.
He recently stumbled across a Gazette article from 1997 that detailed then police Chief Paul Condlin’s attempts to make traffic better by temporarily shutting down Pinehurst Road, one of the tributaries of Main street — the destination of many on Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road.
“The man put his heart and soul in trying to help the Upper Main street traffic,” said Chief Dolby.
The former chief closed the road to traffic between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. daily with the idea that it would prevent added congestion from those trying to turn onto Upper Main. The change seemed to help, but drew the ire of the owner of Al’s Package Store, who said it was hurting business.
At the time, the old A&P grocery store had a traffic officer who would stop traffic to allow vehicles access to Main street.
Similar ideas are still floating around or being used today, as are concerns that fixing one area will cause new issues in another.
Chief Dolby said he has raised potential changes to help with the flow of traffic. Both he and Mr. Morrison said they’d like to have traffic experts look at the situation
“It’s gotten to a point where it’s time where we bring in someone versed in traffic patterns,” Mr. Morrison said. “It’s time we listen to the experts.”
Over at the Edgartown-West Tisbury and Barnes roads intersection, people often raise the possibility of a roundabout after the success of the roundabout further up Barnes Road at the former four-way stop location, Chief Dolby said.
Such a change would need the sign off from the state, which manages that section of roadway.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (DOT) is in talks about the nearby Martha’s Vineyard Airport entrance road, which clogs up in the summer and feeds into the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road traffic.
Airport director Geoff Freeman acknowledged that the growing popularity of flying to the Vineyard has increased traffic in the area, but said the efficiency of the roundabout and increased development have also contributed to the traffic jams on Edgartown-West Tisbury Road.
To ease the pain in the area, the airport hires a detail officer to direct traffic at the entrance road when a large number of passengers leave the airport. Mr. Freeman also said he put a freeze on new lease areas at the airport business park until the traffic issue can be ironed out.
Mr. Freeman’s current goal is to get a right-hand turning lane out of the airport, but such a change has proved difficult. The challenge for the additional lane is who has rights over the land that abuts the existing road.
The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) has easements in the area, and would need to sign off on the new lane. Being a state agency, the easement amendment would require the approval of lawmakers on Beacon Hill.
Just about every month, Mr. Freeman, DOT, DCR, the Federal Aviation Administration and other stakeholders meet to talk about the issue, as well as one of the runway approaches.
“It’s a legislative process,” he said. “And it’s a very complicated and time-consuming dealing with different entities in the commonwealth.”
Mr. Freeman believes that the Island’s road system needs to be looked at in an overarching sense in order to tackle the problem holistically.
“Is there a need for another roundabout at West Tisbury Road and Barnes Road? Those are all options that are out there but not one entity can make that decision,” he said.
The major hurdle the Island faces when it comes to traffic, though, according to Mr. Morrison and Mr. Freeman, is its popularity. The year-round population is higher than it used to be and vacationers sometimes bring several vehicles with them. There may be tweaks to make travel smoother, but there are only so many roads and only so many places for the growing number of drivers to go.
“They are public roads,” Mr. Freeman. “Everybody has the right to drive their vehicles.”
This article appears in September 11, 2026.
It should have been 20yrs ago. It would be nice to CLOSE the island to more vehicles on the SSA.
MV has become a suburb to the city. It used to be nice here. It is no longer. Way too many washashores now
Time to look at congestion pricing.
Oh the humanity
please save us.
Stop development along the road. Has everyone seen what’s going on at the Y complex? It’s hard to miss. Anyway will that take care of the housing shortage…..WOW, when they are all occupied with the average two cars per apt….look out Barnes and Vineyuard haven road…..Where are all these people coming from and what do they do for a living? What are the demographics on this situation….Also never should have built a larger Stop and Shop in the current location. I beg my town official and especially Mr. Morrison, who I see as our Savior to please stop all construction that will impact these roads….Thank you
I love how generous MV drivers are to stop traffic to let people turn in front of them, but it seems to add to the congestion problem.
It’s called common courtesy. If people in traffic leave open an entrance to roads (post office entrance side roads) there wouldn’t be such a back up or people trying to get out of a side road and can’t turn out because cars are bumper to bumper on main rd.
I disagree – that is the ONLY thing that keeps traffic moving at this point. Without 4-way stops or (god forbid) traffic lights at our key intersections, it is only by the grace of courtesy that cars keep moving at all.
If there was a connector road between the Edg VH rd and Edg WT road it would help if it did not disrupt current residential areas such as pennywise.. Is the dormant hallsgate property still vacant? The post office location creates multiple trips thru upper main as people from katama go to the mail. Perhaps a seasonal box location in katama would be useful to eliminate those trips.
i often wonder if the improvements we make for convenience don’t simply encourage more people. Or, to put it differently, perhaps the inconveniences we endure will discourage additional growth and development. Perhaps we can just wait it out. As so many Islanders say, it just for the summer season.
We have a remarkable advantage for addressing this glaring problem head on. We can limit the number of cars coming over on the Steamship Authority ferries. I would happily design a system for review and further development.
Simple..1 rental 2 weeks or under …1 car
Time for more round abouts
When was the last time Island leaders took a serious look at limiting cars allowed on island in summer? Please. I’ve lived here 22 years and, while I know perception isn’t fact, it felt like more cars than ever were clogging the streets this summer. I vote yes to researching limits on visiting cars. We have free buses! There’s Uber, Lyft, and taxis. Let the SSA charge even MORE for non-residents (and BTW, can you leave the year-round, working people’s fares alone; why do they hike OUR rates in summer?).
I agree anyone who hasnt been on the island for more than 23 years should not be alowed a car.
Another idea is to start limiting GIANT events on the island in the summer. These events encourage people to bring their cars and spend a lot of time driving from place to place. It has made a huge change on summer traffic (in my almost 50 years here).
Sorry Mr. Morrison is wrong. We do not need any more experts or any more studies. We know how to fix this. Install the roundabout on the West Tisbury Barnes Road intersection. If the legislative process to take the right hand turned out of the airport, was started 20 years ago we would have it by now no more discussions just go to work. All we do is talk about fixing the problem. This was talked about at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission 10 years ago.
May be time to consider installing traffic lights in addition to other changes mentioned to start addressing traffic congestion. The present MV road system simply cannot handle the summer volume of traffic and will always be a problem to deal with.
There has to be a better answer than another roundabout, another turning lane, or another traffic study. We cannot pave our way out of this problem.
The real issue is the sheer number of vehicles on an Island with a road system that was never designed to handle this volume. And now the numbers show that this is not just perception — vehicle traffic is measurably increasing.
Why not seriously investigate seasonal limits on nonresident vehicles coming over on the Steamship Authority, with reasonable exemptions for year-round residents, workers, businesses, medical needs and other necessities? I don’t pretend the legal or logistical details would be simple, but Island leaders should have been seriously studying this ten years ago.
Constantly accommodating more cars only encourages more cars. At some point Martha’s Vineyard has to decide how much traffic, development and growth this Island can reasonably absorb.
We don’t need to keep asking how to fit more cars onto the Island. We need to start asking how many are too many.
That said, put in the roundabout at Barnes road. That should happen in any scenario.
The issue is the airport and the number of flights they accommodate. They have made it very attractive to fly here and thus traffic coming from those flights are creating this issue.
The traffic circle at Barnes and the VH-Edg. Road has worked very well. One should also be built at Barnes and Airoort Road. That probably won’t work at the Y intersection of State Road and the VH-Edg. road because it’s surrounded by occupied buildings. But temporary STOP signs could be put up in the high season and folded out of site the rest of the year.
Curious. How many drivers do you see adhering to STOP sign rules? When I took drivers education in the year 1972 that at a STOP sign indicates “ count 3 seconds and only proceed when safe”. I love trying to navigate 5 corners when SSA boats are unloading – drivers just driving through STOP signs assuming they have the “right of way “.
This has been a growing safety problem for years, especially at Barnes/WT road and Chase/Edg-VH Road (and stop and shop). I thank Alex and Chief Dolby for stepping up and for talking about brining in a traffic expert, which we really need now that we have the data.
It is also time to truly consider the impact of the proposed development at Dairy Queen, and donaromas as these will further increase the traffic problem in an already highly congested and unsafe area.
I regularly walk chase road and that needs to be addressed as it has become unsafe, given the increased traffic, the lack of sidewalks, and for the safety of all the Edg school kids walking/biking to school
Yet all we talk about is more and more affordable housing. MV is on the verge of becoming another Barcelona. The island has to reduce the population (both year rounders and tourists). Or at least stop the growth before it’s too late.
Would a left turn lane on the WT-EDG road at Barnes Rd. help? I think it might.
One thing I have noticed is that vacationers are bringing more cars. Rentals in our neighborhood used to have one, sometimes two vehicles in their driveways. I did a mental survey this summer and the average was three vehicles and one house had six for one week. So while the number of rentals may remain the same, it seems the number of cars is increasing.
The solution is obvious. More affordable housing.
I think the right turn lane at the airport will help in the short-term, but I wonder if putting a roundabout at Barnes Road would increase the flow rate past the airport and make left-hand turns out of there more difficult; that could potentially back that left-turning traffic up so much that it blocks off a relatively short right-hand turn lane. It feels to me that both the EDG-WT/Barnes road intersection and the airport exit might ultimately need a roundabout. A simulation would tell pretty quickly; it would probably be helpful to hire someone to run that simulation to see what the best long-term solution would be. Depending on how much money there is, it could be possible to run a broader simulation to look at all the traffic holistically.
Here’s a suggestion: create a left-hand turning lane into Stop & Shop as you’re driving to town and make Pinehurst one way (heading away from Stop & Shop and toward Morning Glory farm).
Coming from VH or OB one has to go past the airport to get in.
Why not connect a second road from Barnes over to the Fish House side road?
Currently 100% of airport users have to drive edg-WT road to get in and out. A small side road would cut that in half and be way cheaper/easier than a circle
There should be a limit on how many cars people bring over when they rent. One car per house or rental. Better yet, people need to be discouraged from bringing their cars over here, especially if they’re in downtown Edgartown for a day or two. A car is totally unnecessary. More often than not lately I see the renters in my neighborhood coming over with no car at all. If you are renting downtown Edgartown, do not bring a car. Beaches, shops, restaurants, and more are all accessible by foot.
Noble thought but totally unenforceable MV is car centric & suburban mindset.,
It’s actually very easy for landlords and renters to restrict the number of cars that their guests bring. Enforceable by law? Probably not but it is easy to discourage people from bringing cars. I’m very lucky because I live smack downtown and I basically have to use my car about twice a month to go to the dump during the summer. I know I would be very miserable if I had to drive everywhere I needed to go. It’s also not that hard to change habits. If you’re able, try walking a little bit more to do your errands. When I need more groceries then I can easily carry in my hand I use a wagon. It’s all much cheaper than the gym too by the way.
-Round about at Barnes/ w.t.-edgartown road
-Seasonal traffic lights at all the hotspots
– full time police managing traffic at 5 corners in v.h.
– can airport stagger flights more, seems many land in short span of time?
-can ferry companies stagger landings/ departures in o.b.?
– traffic person at airport be out of their car more often to manage flow
– new construction projects, affordable only and for year round occupants. Are we physically maxed out on new developments????
– all towns fund studies and changes. It’s an all of us problem
The Vineyard is turning into the Brockton of Cape Cod
As someone who travels through the triangle daily, there are a couple of things causing backups. First, multiple driveways and parking lots entering the road from Santander Bank to Edgartown Stop & Shop. People stop and let several cars enter the road at each spot, backing up cars almost to Huckleberry Hill and Bend in the Road. Second, 2 lanes converging into 1 lane (Beach Rd. & Edg/VH Rd) at the Triangle. After you pass Stop & Shop, traffic magically opens up and starts moving. When you have the largest grocery store, the largest hardware and home goods store, the post office, a pharmacy, multiple coffee and food shops and a large public beach crammed into one square mile near a problematic intersection, there’s no getting around the snarl. One thing that won’t help – more housing and development in that area.
This is an excellent point. There is too much concentrated in that Triangle as it is. Adding Edgartown Gardens with 60+ units and likely 80+ cars is only going to add to the chaos there. Edgartown needs to do some urban planning. This hands off approach no longer works on an island overrun with cars.
End the gridlock in VH.
MAKE LOOK ST. ONE WAY!
House rental and hotel prices have been increasing, and there is likely some correlation with tenants’ willingness to spend. If you’re coming to the Vineyard for a few days or a few weeks, there is little incentive to park and cross without a car if you can find a reservation. SSA parking is far too expensive relative to the cost of crossing, especially if you’re staying for a week. I think an easy solution—and potentially the path of least resistance—would be to drastically increase the cost of bringing a car for non -residents while significantly reducing the cost of parking. I’m thinking something like $650 round trip to bring a car versus $5 a day to park. I think even some of the wealthiest families would start thinking twice about bringing an unnecessary second, third, or fourth car for the week and hotel goers may just skip a car all together.
My big sister fondly recalls hitchhiking. Howzabout rewarding carpoolers with…free rides on the Flying Horses or saltwater taffy.
What it comes down to is there are too many cars on the roads! I have had customers that have over three cars available for visitors who visit them year round. As Covid forced so many to “work from home “ the number of vehicles on the road increased as the “summer homes “ resulted in “year round homes “ additional vehicles.
Too late now – POOR MARTHA!!
The elephant in the room…..Seasonal and peak time traffic lights.
Flashing red/yellow in off season and non-peak times, and functioning during high volume times.
Limiting vehicles sounds good but doesn’t seem reasonable to achieve. It’s time to get over the old mindset and adapt to the conditions that cause a lot of inconveniences to those of us that reside here.
To everyone suggesting a way to limit vehicles, I would highly caution against this. There are state roads, state and federal facilities, among other essential services accessible to motorists. You cannot artificially limit public access to these places or roadways. It is no different than our counterparts in Woods Hole trying to limit our access to the boats and critical supplies coming here, illegal, dangerous, and uninformed.
We’re doomed,
More housing = more cars = more drain on resources
Stop the building, make Pinehurst one way. We have all the apartments ever needed on the Vineyard. The Vineyard was never meant to be a place for apartments, that’s Quincy…..What is going on at the Y complex is beyond destructive…Stop the nonsense….I wonder why the people who are developing these apartments didn’t move off island. They obviously want to live in a suburb….Stop the nonsense….People have multi families renting one home because, why not, helps with the expense. Multi families means more cars….Please, we now need more Police, Fireman, Water, Electricity, Power Plants, it’s a mess.