Carmel Gamble glared at the chain-link fence surrounding the beachfront lot next door to her Vineyard Haven cottage. “This is not the Vineyard Haven I knew,” said Miss Gamble, a veterinary technician and self-described “clown on sabbatical” who returned to Martha’s Vineyard two years ago after five years in Hawaii. “But this ugly steel chain-link fence, I mean, what we love about the Vineyard is that it’s beautiful. That’s why people come here,” she said.
Calling it an important step for the Vineyard and signaling a new determination to take the lead in regional transportation planning, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission voted with one voice last night to designate an Islandwide harbors and highways district of critical planning concern (DCPC).
“This DCPC proposal is a culmination of a lot of time and thinking about existing DCPCs and about the impact of the car and what it is doing to the Island roads,” declared MVC executive director Charles W. Clifford.
Tisbury selectmen got their first look Tuesday at what could be the future of Packer’s marine terminal on Beach Road as a support terminal for an offshore wind farm planned for waters south of the Island.
The state has doled out some $7.2 million in federal and state aid for pedestrian and bicycle paths between Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven, as part of a transportation grant package announced last month.
Beach Road is arguably the Island’s most important road; it is certainly the ugliest. The road fronts a harbor once given almost entirely to maritime uses. Many are gone.
A state plan for major improvements on Beach Road in Vineyard Haven is set to begin in the fall of 2019, but property owners continue to harbor serious concerns.
