Traffic

1998

January 30, 1998

Results of Transportation Gridlock Survey Point Toward Experimenting with Solutions

Julie Dulude
Traffic
Martha's Vineyard Commission

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.

1997

September 30, 1997

Planners Aim to Protect Island's Rural Roads

Tom Dunlop
Traffic
Rural roads

“The preservation of the road, its bordering hedgerows and walls, its overhanging limbs, its vistas of rolling countryside, is a matter of dollars and cents. Visitors come to the Vineyard for just such enjoyments as this noble old road offers....What it represents is what we need to keep and cherish, and when we are troubled we may well drive up and down the Middle Road and clear our thoughts to the proper order of the natural world.”

September 30, 1997

MVC Hears Presentation of Approaches to Control Traffic and Save Island Roads

Yvonne Guzman
Traffic
Martha's Vineyard Commission
Rural roads

Members of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission heard last week about a comprehensive new effort to lessen the number of cars on Island roads and make sure that those roads maintain their rural character.

In order to solve the Island’s traffic troubles and preserve its country feel, the MVC must embrace a plan and aggressively seek federal funds for two goals, they were told: establishing a system for reducing the number of cars on Island roads and rewriting government standards for road construction, at least as they apply to the Island.

1995

December 29, 1995

Vineyard Began to Confront Traffic Problems in 1995

Jason Gay
Traffic
SSA traffic statistics

Woods Hole never witnessed a morning quite like July 1, 1995.

Sunrise in the port town revealed a thick trail of overstuffed sedans, wagons, trucks and jeeps snaking its way from standby line at the packed Steamship Authority terminal to the Woods Hole Road and beyond. The standby line itself topped 400 cars; more than 1,000 passengers awaited ferries to begin a four-day holiday weekend.

It was, in a word, gridlock.

1929

August 13, 1929

Automatic Traffic Signal for Oak Bluffs

Vineyard Gazette
Traffic

An automatic traffic signal has been placed in Monument Square, Oak Bluffs, the first traffic signal in southeastern Massachusetts to be accepted and approved by the Department of Public Works, according to town officials. With five streets opening into the square and carrying the bulk of Island traffic, this signal splits and divides the stream of vehicles in a way calculated to eliminate practically all confusion.

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