At least three Island towns will likely be asking voters in the spring what they think about the controversial roundabout, even as town officials said this week not even a lawsuit could stop the project if the state decides to go ahead with it.

Oak Bluffs this week joined the towns of Edgartown and West Tisbury in certifying petitions for a nonbinding referendum about the project on annual election ballots. All three towns would pose the simple question: Should a roundabout be built at the blinker intersection of Edgartown-Vineyard Haven and Barnes Roads?

The ballot questions are the latest efforts by opponents of the project to get officials to rethink their approval of it.

Earlier this week, Edgartown and West Tisbury selectmen voted to suspend a lawsuit they had filed against the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which approved the project in October, to force a more thorough review.

The decision came after all six selectmen from both town boards held a brief executive session conference call with attorney Richard Renehan, special counsel for both towns.

“Our attorneys have informed us that the department of transportation is not bound by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and will not be bound by any legal process,” selectman Richard Knabel said in moving to suspend the lawsuit. “DOT is looking to go forward if it so chooses, and any remedies we may have appear to be political and not legal.”

Reached by telephone this week, a spokesman for the state DOT declined to comment on the controversy.

Edgartown and West Tisbury filed a joint complaint in Dukes County superior court in early December seeking to invalidate the commission’s Oct. 6 decision, which was affirmed on Nov. 3. The complaint claimed the commission “failed to adhere to several of its own procedures and regulations regarding the consideration” as a development of regional impact (DRI).

The lawsuit cost both towns $35,000 before they decided to drop it.

“The intention was never to spend a lot of tax money on it, particularly now if there is no legal remedy,” said Mr. Knabel, adding that the selectmen will rely on a town referendum process to receive the public response.

Mr. Knabel said he was disappointed by the new direction, but that the town had no other choice.

Edgartown selectmen agreed that pursuing a lawsuit now seemed pointless.

Counsel informed the selectmen that the state department of transportation is “not bound by anything that the MVC would do or not do, there are not permits, they are not subject to MVC regulations, and that really at this point their intention is to move forward regardless of the outcome of any lawsuit with the MVC,” said chairman Arthur Smadbeck.

West Tisbury was the first town to place the question on their ballot. On Jan. 13 West Tisbury resident Barbara Day hand-delivered a petition with the ballot question to the town hall but was two days late for a Jan. 11 deadline for such submissions. Instead, the West Tisbury selectmen voted unanimously last week to place the question on the ballot themselves.

In Edgartown, Madeline Fisher filed a petition to put the referendum on the ballot. In Oak Bluffs, it was roundabout opponent Sara Crafts who sponsored the petition.

“I think [the roundabout] is an idiotic waste of money that solves a really minute problem that we have for eight weeks for two hours a day,” Ms. Crafts said yesterday, adding the roundabout would be detrimental to the surrounding landscape as well.

She said the money would be better spent fixing the five corners intersection in Vineyard Haven, which she said has far worse traffic problems.

Oak Bluffs selectman chair Kathy Burton said she thought the referendums were unlikely to influence the outcome of the project, but as long as the petition was properly certified, the selectmen would allow it on the ballot.

“It’s my understanding that the state is planning to build the roundabout anyway, so I don’t know if we’d be doing anything differently,” Ms. Burton said.

Tisbury has received a similar petition but at their weekly meeting on Tuesday the selectmen decided to take up the issue at their next meeting.

At the weekly West Tisbury selectmen’s meeting on Wednesday, selectmen Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter 3rd and Mr. Knabel reacted to the end of the lawsuit. Mr. Manter said while he didn’t regret the decision to pursue the lawsuit, in hindsight he wished there had been an Islandwide conversation before it was filed.

“I don’t think we got enough public input. We should have done more research and gotten legal guidance before we jumped in,” he said. “We should have gone to the other four towns and gotten their opinion — not after the fact . . . . I don’t like the roundabout being built there but I don’t know how we proceeded was in the best interest of the citizenry. I think I let some people down and I’ll be more careful in the future.”

Mr. Knabel had a different take, and said while he was upset with the outcome he did not regret the board’s choice.

“I thought one of the benefits of going forward with the lawsuit...is that they would have understood that there was a deep concern and considerable opposition to what they had done and they might want to reflect on that or reconsider what they were doing,” Mr. Knabel said.

“Evidently they took the opposite tack,” he said. “Have we learned something on this? I suppose we have, but I’m not sorry we proceeded as we did.”

Mrs. Day and Ms. Crafts said they hoped that putting the controversy to a public vote will reveal how unpopular the project really is.

“If the selectmen allow it to be on the ballot, I certainly will stand out there with placards urging people to vote no,” Ms. Crafts said, saying that she’s talked to about 10 people in town who support the roundabout and 300 people who are against it.

Added Mrs. Day, “I feel it’s a good way to go and perhaps it should have been done before the whole thing was voted on by the commission.

“I would hope as many people in as many towns as possible vote and make their feelings clear in one way or another,” she said.

Gazette reporter Sara Brown contributed to this story.