Beach Road along Vineyard Haven harbor is one of the busiest and most critical transportation corridors on the Vineyard. It serves Vineyard Haven residents and is also heavily used by Islanders from all the other towns. The improvements proposed for this roadway, therefore, should be of great concern to all Vineyarders.

The original improvement project focused on the section between Five Corners and Tisbury Marketplace where the adjacent retail businesses generate high volumes of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The existing confined sidewalks with utility poles and other obstructions, as well as the narrow shoulders, poorly serve this extensive activity in this part of Beach Road. The proposed improvement would provide expanded unobstructed sidewalks and wider roadway shoulders.

The section between Tisbury Marketplace and Wind’s Up was added to the project to address a completely different issue. The primary goal in this section is to provide a critical missing segment in the Island’s shared use path (SUP) network for bicycles and pedestrians between Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs,

One of the Vineyard’s longstanding transportation goals has been to provide a continuous SUP network connecting Vineyard Haven, Oak Bluffs and Edgartown. The objective has been to encourage bicycles as an alternative to cars, and to make the Vineyard a more desirable place, particularly for visitors and the economic benefits they bring. Recent surveys have shown that respondents rate the completion of a down-Island SUP system among their highest priorities.

The SUP network currently is incomplete, and the most critical gap has been identified as the section between Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven. MassDOT considered the SUP important enough to incorporate it in the new drawbridge project and commit to the completion of its extension to Wind’s Up. The proposed improvement to the Beach Road project is to extend the SUP to Tisbury Marketplace. From there studies have identified a continuation through the marketplace and Columbus Park, avoiding Five Corners, to downtown Vineyard Haven.

The land use along the Tisbury Marketplace-to-Wind’s Up section of Beach Road is very different from that in the Five Corners-to-Tisbury Marketplace section. Adjacent properties are mostly large commercial establishments that generate few local trips. Counts show that pedestrian activity is a fraction of that in the adjacent section where expanded sidewalks are proposed. In this section a shared-user path can easily accommodate the pedestrians.

Several alternatives have been proposed. One of these, the so-called hybrid alternative, which recognizes the different characteristics of the two sections, provides wider sidewalks and shoulders between Five Corners and Tisbury Marketplace, and an SUP between the marketplace and Wind’s Up.

A variation of this alternative adds a continuation of the harbor side sidewalk from the Five Corners-to-marketplace section to Tisbury Wharf, which serves small cruise ships and other vessels.

Another alternative was proposed because some local property owners have expressed concerns about having to cross the SUP, even though this condition exists in numerous other locations along the Vineyard’s existing SUP system. This so-called symmetrical alternative eliminates the SUP and extends the Five Corners-to-Tisbury Marketplace configuration, with widened sidewalks and shoulders on both sides, throughout the project to Wind’s Up.

This alternative makes no planning sense. It does not recognize the very different characteristics of the two sections, one with a high level of local pedestrian movements and the other with little local pedestrian activity. Most importantly, by excluding the SUP, this alternative eliminates the possibility of achieving the Vineyard’s established goal of linking the down-Island towns with a safe bicycle and pedestrian network.

Last week the majority of the Tisbury selectmen came out in favor of the symmetrical alternative. Their rationale for choosing this alternative emphasized the supposedly greater safety without an SUP. Transportation professionals promote SUPs because experience has shown that they increase safety. The Vineyard’s existing SUPs have an excellent safety record. We forget too quickly the tragic death of a young bicyclist on State Road who was on the sidewalk adjacent to a heavily-traveled road, a configuration similar to that proposed in the symmetrical alternative.

This week the selectmen reversed their earlier decision and now endorse the hybrid alternative, with the extension of the sidewalk to Tisbury Wharf. They should be congratulated for listening to the negative feedback from their earlier decision, and having the courage to admit that they had made a poor choice. This experience should encourage honest criticism of our local officials when their actions are not supported by facts.

Dan Greenbaum is a retired transportation engineer who lives in Chilmark.