Oak Bluffs police Lt. Timothy Williamson said a Chevy sedan crossed the center line and hit a taxi van head-on in front of the restaurant Hooked. The crash occurred around 1 p.m. The taxi was not carrying passengers.
Lt. Williamson said police are investigating whether the driver of the sedan “may have been impaired.”
While the proposed Oak Bluffs roundabout has received most of the press, Tisbury is quietly moving forward with another long-planned major traffic management infrastructure project: a proposed system of connector roads that would link Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road to State Road and bypass the summer crush in Vineyard Haven. But unlike the roundabout, the state hasn’t been forthcoming with money for the proposed $3 million project. Now it’s up to voters to decide whether to build the connector system.
Concern over traffic and parking problems in Edgartown’s historic town center has spread all the way to Boston.
To Northeastern University, specifically, where a group of transportation engineering students have tackled the town’s traffic situation as part of their senior project.
A Martha’s Vineyard Commission subcommittee decided this week to require a new traffic study for a proposed fuel station off State Road in Vineyard Haven, but not before a bit of open disagreement on the merits.
The automobile has long been an integral part of American life; there are 40 million more registered motor vehicles in this country than licensed drivers.
Yet on Vineyard sidewalks and bike paths this week, people cruised along on bicycles with no worries about traffic and congestion. The parking lots for the Tisbury and Edgartown park and ride programs were jammed full, while bus stops for the Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority were packed with people waiting to be picked up at all hours of the day.
A final draft of a county initiative to move beyond summer gridlock calls on Island officials to replace talk with action and develop a regional, coordinated plan to target growth and traffic problems on the Island.
Susan Wasserman, a planning consultant and the facilitator of the in-depth study of the Island’s transportation problems, presented the results of Transportation 2000: Moving Beyond Gridlock to the county commissioners this Wednesday along with project assistant Juleann VanBelle. A final draft of the report goes to the printer today.
