Walking and biking – both as means of transportation and for recreation – offer benefits such physical fitness, fresh air, experiencing the Vineyard’s natural beauty, reducing demand on road infrastructure, and best of all, they are free. The compact nature of the Down-Island town centers are conducive to walking and cycling, and hold great promise for alleviating traffic congestion, there, where traffic is most intractable.
The Vineyard’s pedestrian and bicycle accommodations, both on road (sidewalks and shoulders) and off-road (trails and shared-use paths or SUPs) are often incomplete and not in the best of condition.
Many seasonal visitors are unfamiliar with the local roads and are unaccustomed to being in close proximity to high-volume traffic when cycling or walking, and ill-prepared to deal with roadside hazards such as sand on the road shoulders. Many residents and visitors are elderly, who may have particular difficulty with uneven sidewalks.
Town centers, particularly Down-Island, see heavy pedestrian activity, especially in summer. The dense, historic layouts of the downtowns of Vineyard Haven, Oak Bluffs and Edgartown make it difficult to accommodate large volumes of pedestrians, bicyclists, and motor vehicles.
Many sidewalks are only four feet wide, are obstructed in many places with utility poles, signs and mailbox posts, or have uneven surfaces. Pedestrians often spill out onto the roadway and cause automobile delays. In some downtown areas, pedestrian ways are merely indicated with lines painted on the asphalt, are not delineated at all, or don’t even have a right-or-way sufficient to dedicate a pedestrian area. This absence of a continuous pedestrian pathway network presents a safety concern by forcing pedestrians to walk in the roadway. In other areas, such as Upper State Road in Tisbury and Upper Main Street in Edgartown, sidewalks exist but the area is oriented to the automobile, with large parking lots, poorly defined sidewalks, and frequent curb cuts. Such layouts are not conducive to walking.
When it comes to cycling, we need two systems to accommodate the range of users. The network of off-road shared use paths (SUP’s) – physically separate from motor vehicle traffic – is preferred by many users such as cyclists uncomfortable riding in the roadway, and they also accommodate rollerbladers and pedestrians. Many experienced cyclists prefer to ride on the road, as is their right even when there is a nearby bike path, because they travel at relatively high speeds and do not mix well with slower-moving cyclists and pedestrians on SUPs. Also, the multi-use paths are less likely to be clear of surface debris that is very hazardous for narrow bike tires at high speed.
The Vineyard has a large network of unpaved paths and trails that provides walkers and cyclists another important alternative to the roadways and greatly expands the ways to get around, connecting neighborhoods to one another and to public lands, or providing short cuts to nearby destinations. The trails vary considerably in surface material, grade, and width — from narrow grass-covered footpaths to overgrown 8-foot-wide dirt roads — even along the length of a single trail. This variability limits the paths’ utility for some handicapped users, for strollers and road cyclists.
Objective T3: Make town and village areas more pedestrian and bicycle friendly.
If we want to encourage people to walk and bike, we should do a lot more to make sure that our town centers have a complete network of safe and attractive accommodations for pedestrians and cyclists, starting out with good sidewalks. This is especially important in areas of high pedestrian activity, such as on shopping streets, in town centers, and close to schools and other public institutions,
· Strategy T3-1: Create a working group in each town to focus on pedestrian and bicycle improvements. Several strategies to improve pedestrian/bicycle facilities are outlined below. In order to make them actually happen, we should set up working groups comprised of selectman, business association, parents-school association, DPW, planning board, and interested citizens to spearhead the effort. The MVC can offer technical assistance. The working groups in each town should identify deficiencies with in-town pedestrian and bike facilities (sidewalks, crosswalks, shoulders, bike racks, etc.) and should outline and spearhead improvements.
· Strategy T3-2: Outline and implement an pedestrian/bicycle improvement program: Each town’s working group should identify the problem areas and outline improvements to increase the safety and appeal of the pedestrian environment, particularly in village and commercial areas. Providing continuous and adequately-dimensioned sidewalks will require repairing sidewalks and ensuring minimal lighting, installing sidewalks or walking paths, widening sidewalks in areas of heavy pedestrian traffic, installing crosswalks with safety islands or sidewalk projections to shorten crossing distances. Other desirable improvements include: bike racks, comfortable places to sit, shelter from the weather, directional and informational signage, information centers, water, restrooms, plantings, lighting, trash receptacles and rest areas. It would be best to prioritize main streets and high pedestrian and bike activity areas. Improvements can be incorporated into street repair projects as they come up, or special funding – public or sponsorships – might be needed.
· Strategy T3-3: Require public review of road repair and improvements. In these times of limited resources, it is especially important, when a road is repaired or improved, that the project be done right, so it accommodates all needs. We should adopt or review our procedures, both at a town and state level, to make sure that the public has plenty of opportunity to provide input before decisions are made. There are several examples on the Island of roads being excessively widened with little public input.
Objective T4. Expand and enhance a safe and efficient network of off-road bicycle paths (Shared User Paths), on-road bicycle routes, and walking trails.
· Strategy T4-1: Extend the network of off-road bike paths and improve the safety of existing ones. Major gaps remain in the 37-mile network of SUPs, forcing cyclists back onto the road at the very places where the roadways are the most congested. We should prepare and implement a plan to complete the missing links in the network of off-road bike paths, starting with those that connect the main population centers – central Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, and Vineyard Haven – to each other and with the State Forest. Many of the existing SUPs, are too narrow for the volume and variety of users, have an inadequate buffer from the roadway, are interrupted with frequent vehicle crossings (roads and driveways), and are often littered with debris and overgrown vegetation. This could be remedied with a comprehensive improvement and maintenance program including better signage, and the installation of barriers (low shrubs or wooden barriers) separating SUPs from adjacent roads.
· Strategy T4-2: Carry out safety improvements for on-road biking: Bicycle safety on the roads can be improved by widening shoulders (within overall pavement width), by improving pavement markings and safety signage, and by ensuring proper maintenance including prompt removal of sand and debris..
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