HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

This isn’t political commentary, just fact: No one I know in the whole wide world of Oak Bluffs wants the roundabout. Oh, one exception: At a brunch a couple of months ago, a visiting transportation guy from Boston, when his back was shoved to the wall, said he was for it, but even his wife weighed in with a thumb’s down.

The basic objections to the roundabout are threefold: 1) It’s ugly, 2) It’s expensive, 3) It’s unnecessary.

On the ugliness front, that aerial model released in the papers did nothing to aid the cause. Because the image is digital, virtual or, at the very least, imagined, why not make it more quaint, more Vineyard, with stone walls borrowed from an ancient Chilmark property, overflowing with rosa rugosa or, what the heck, bougainvillea? Why not plan for something prettier anyway? Where did that strange slab of pink bubblegum in the center come from? Is it a trampoline? An organ donation from a water buffalo? And those lozenges of green are presumably tiny triangular parks, but who’s going to appreciate them when drivers are whizzing around an asphalt circle at 60 miles per hour?

And expense? Don’t get a neo-Yankee started! Even if we came in at budget for $1.6 million, couldn’t that buy a lot of what we really need? Like, 658 years of year-round trash receptacles at the top of Circuit avenue and in Niantic Park? Or a few more measly hours of open time at the library? Or, speaking of the library, how about a renewal of a programs director such as we enjoyed in the Golden Age of Matthew Bose? Let’s be realistic: $1.6 million here and $1.6 million there, and pretty soon we’re talking about real money.

And finally, necessity is the mother of invention but not, alas, the mother of the most hideous of all roundabouts. Everyone seems to have the same take on the thing: For a few minutes daily for two weeks in August, certain summer folks have had to wait a few minutes to get through the four-way stop of the intersection in question. They visit from some of the busiest cities and suburbs in the country, and yet they’re apparently incensed at a seven-minute delay on their way either to the Edgartown Triangle, where they’ll be waiting three hours, or, in the other direction, the T-junction in Vineyard Haven, where they’ll need to rely on the kindness of strangers — such as a cavalcade-bearing the Dalai Lama — to make that left turn onto State road.

All these years we’ve resisted a light system at that particular intersection only to plop down 4,000 tons of macadam with a pink rubber slick in the middle? For what? For jobs? You know they’ll be importing workers from the mainland who’ll park on Chapman avenue on the weekends, blocking the street for locals and patrons of the Ocean View. For safety? Not with the higher speeds and misguided souls hurtling around the roundabout like lost Charlies on the MBTA.

It’s tempting to speculate that something’s corrupt at the center of this proposal, but maybe we’re paranoid after all the banking scandals and movies like Ides of March, where even the cutest young politician can take a turn for the diabolical. But like so many dumb ideas, this was probably just a dumb idea to start with (again, no political commentary here, just a hypothesis), and the nice, otherwise bright folks who hatched the plan forgot what their original thinking was anyway.

So let’s take a giant step back and remember that if we could keep McDonald’s and Sears and a Submarine Shop (oh, wait a minute, we did have one of those, didn’t we?) at bay, then it shouldn’t be difficult to rule out something that only a Cape Codder or an Englishman could love. In England they call them “dual carriageway experimental roundabouts.” That was back in the 80s, so maybe they’ve lobbed on a few more adjectives.

By the time you’re reading this, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission may already have taken a vote yay or nay, and they’ve been warned to disregard everything that’s being said or written about the roundabout (how do you like that democracy in action?), so there will be either some major grumbling or dancing in the streets, depending on which way these duly elected officials have decided to direct our traffic — round and around or the same old same old, just the way we like it.

Coming up is the Featherstone Center for the Arts Annual Holiday Gift Show preview party on Friday, Nov. 18 from 7 to 9 p.m. The show continues through Sunday, Dec. 18, and is open from noon to 4 p.m. daily. All gifts, crafted by Island artists, are priced at $250 and under.