Thank you Edgartown voters for agreeing we need an independent study by nationally recognized transit-expert consultants who will take an independent assessment of the VTA’s unnecessary plan for installing three electric induction chargers on historic Church street. They will assess the size of the enormous (metro-sized) buses that run year-round, regardless of ridership numbers. They will assess the frequency of buses according to seasonal ridership — e.g., large numbers exist only in the two months of July and August; the rest of the year ridership is less than 10 per cent of those numbers.

They will question why we are running tourist bus lines in these months. They will assess the usefulness and the longevity of the (new) retro-fitted induction chargers, in relation to advances bus companies are now rapidly making in battery range (thereby obviating the need for induction chargers, particularly on this small Island).

They will assess the expertise of the current VTA administration and board makeup in terms of knowledge about transit technologies, planning expertise and human talent. Most importantly they will cast a critical eye on our small town that has been nationally recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (our nation’s premiere preservation resource) and our 1987 Town Meeting vote that established our Historic District Commission that was designed to protect our 1646 historic village.

One look around downtown Edgartown and you can see nothing but new construction (where it should not be) and construction vehicles — plus huge empty buses. To proceed with the VTA’s induction plans is folly. We support electric transit but sized to and respective of our historic downtown. Induction charging technology will soon be obsolete, but we would have made unattractive, useless and permanent changes on Church street: widened it by almost three feet, hacked down up to seven mature shade trees, installed two (enormous (6’H x 6’L x 3’W) ugly, gray electric storage units standing like monolithic blank statues on urban hardscape, and all for the VTA’s electric transit buses that don’t even need these induction chargers to operate and that are used now by only one regional bus authority in the entire United States.

Wise electric bus transit can be accomplished that will not damage our town. Residents and visitors and businesses can all be served as long as it is well thought out by experts in the field.

Right here in Massachusetts, we already have two transit expert bodies who perform consulting studies: MIT transit lab and Northeastern University transit group. Other cities have used universities, including Vanderbilt and Houston.

It is important that the new consultants do not report to the VTA, but rather to a committee appointed by the town that would include the chief of police and the head of the highway department as well as representatives of town government and other citizens who will take our town at heart,and put aside the urge to reap personal benefits.

Again, thank you Edgartown voters.

Jane Chittick

Edgartown