Expanding transportation services among airlines, ferries, buses and trains have made the Vineyard more accessible than ever this summer.

Four airlines are now operating summer service between the Island and three major metropolitan areas. And two months ago train service began between Boston and the Cape that connects with a shuttle to the Steamship Authority.

The Martha’s Vineyard airport commission has the authority to establish salaries for its employees independently of other county employees salaries, an attorney for the Dukes County commission said. In a letter sent by email to county manager Martina Thornton on Dec. 11, Darren Klein, an attorney with Kopelman and Paige wrote: “In my opinion, as long as the airport commission has sufficient funds appropriated through the enterprise fund or otherwise, the airport commission has the authority . . . to fix salaries as it sees fit.”

As the Island starts to transition from summer crowds to autumn quiet, the Steamship Authority is reporting that traffic was up compared with last year.

“The summer was good; the traffic has been good,” Steamship Authority general manager Wayne Lamson told the Gazette this week.

June passenger traffic to the Vineyard was up by 4.7 per cent; July passenger traffic saw a decrease of 1.9 per cent; and August traffic was up by 7.2 per cent compared with 2011, according to Steamship Authority data. Passenger traffic is up 4.6 per cent for the year to date.

After losing their motocross track in West Tisbury, the Vineyard dirt bikers may have a new home.

The Martha’s Vineyard Airport commission is considering issuing shared use agreement for a recreational motorcycle riding area at the airport. The two-acre parcel is currently used for staging construction materials and would continue to hold those materials in concert with the track.

A temporary flight restriction plan devised by Vineyard airport officials for President Obama’s summer vacation is being hailed as a model for airports across the country to use during future visits by the President and his traveling entourage.

From its beginnings as a Navy base during World War II to its present-day status as the Island’s only commercial airport, the Martha’s Vineyard Airport has seen a number of airlines come and go. For the past 20 years the main, year-round airline has been Cape Air, with a seasonal presence from U.S. Air bringing in flights from New York and Washington, D.C. This summer, two new airlines began service to the Island. JetBlue and Delta are flying from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and will continue service until Labor Day.

The Martha’s Vineyard Airport is getting new runways. But the work you’ve seen going on out there all spring is only phase one.

“To you guys it’s probably just asphalt and drainage but to airport people it is something that will last a long time,” airport manager Sean Flynn said on a tour of the new construction this week.

The total cost of the project is $12.5 million, 95 per cent of which is funded by the federal government. The state and airport split the difference in the remaining five per cent.

Vineyarders Jonathan and Linda M. Haar work in wind power technology, but one thing they share with wind energy opponents is an objection to seeing enormous towers built in pristine places.

And their concern is not just aesthetic, but practical. It would, they reasoned, make much more sense to generate the power as close as possible to where the power is used.

Hence their innovative new turbine, tested for the first time at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport this week: a turbine standing just 20 feet tall, intended to be mounted on city buildings.

Lightning struck the Martha’s Vineyard Airport during a series of thunderstorms that swept the Island over the weekend, knocking out the Islandwide emergency communications center computer server that operates in the main tower. The Dukes County Sheriff said yesterday damage and lost equipment were estimated at $100,000.

The Martha’s Vineyard Airport in association with responders from the Island’s police, fire, emergency medical service and other service providers will be conducting an exercise of the airport’s emergency response plan between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Sunday, March 15, at the airport.

This exercise is a requirement of the Federal Aviation Administration and is conducted once every three years to assist in the emergency response preparedness.