The state Department of Transportation has finalized a $5.2 million renovation plan for the coastal roadway that runs along the Vineyard Haven waterfront.
Dillon Tree Services of Shrewsbury were at work this week removing a large number of trees along Edgartown-West Tisbury Road that Mass DOT said were a safety hazard for drivers.
The devil is in the details, the Tisbury planning board heard last week, as an improvement project for Beach Road in Vineyard Haven continues to be the subject of intense discussion. Talks continue this Wednesday in the town hall annex at 6 p.m.
Narrowing the road, adding sidewalks and building a shared-use path are all part of an emerging plan to re-engineer a portion of Beach Road that runs along the waterfront in Vineyard Haven.
After a long winter of trying to beat the red lights between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, Islanders can look forward to a summer without traffic signals on Beach Road. On Tuesday highway department supervisor Richard Combra confirmed that stoplights at the two bridges on Sengekontacket would be gone for Memorial Day weekend as work wraps up on their reconstruction this week.
With summer fast approaching and the time-honored tradition of jumping off the big bridge at Sengekontacket set to resume, town and county officials are once again calling on the state to remedy what has become a dangerous situation along the rebuilt bridge walkway.
“If there’s a kid sitting down on that railing any truck mirror that comes by is going to take their head off,” county manager Russell Smith said on Wednesday.
The time-honored Vineyard tradition of jumping off the Big Bridge into Sengekontacket Pond has now been joined by a yearly concern about the safety of jumpers — not for their daring leaps into the water below, but for the time they spend sitting and standing on the bridge as traffic whizzes by.
Low railings that divide pedestrians, including bridge jumpers, from Beach Road are the worry, and Oak Bluffs and Edgartown are taking steps to address the problem that they say ultimately should be dealt with by the state.
