THE STATE OF OUR ROADS
By Peter B. Brace

Nantucket's town roads received a B+ in a recent assessment of their condition by town consultant Mactec of Wakefield, Mass., which performed the town's pavement management study of all its roads and bike paths.

This fairly complimentary critique of an island of cobblestoned downtown streets and bumpy outlying area ways likely surprises many Nantucket drivers, who can list their least favorite driving routes.

Much of the town's road upkeep money comes from the state through its Chapter 90 Local Road Program, which doles out grants based on a town's mileage, population and employment levels. The fact that Nantucket is the fastest growing county in the state is also factored in, but not, however, the fact that asphalt paving costs are three to four times higher here than on mainland America.

For the last 10 years, according to DPW Superintendent Jeff Willett, Chapter 90 kicked out just under $5 million to Nantucket. For fiscal year 2007, Nantucket received $467,000. The rest of Willett's roads budget comes from a line item in the town's budget adopted each year at the Annual Town Meeting. For this fiscal year ending on June 30, voters gave Willett $240,000 to work with.

Drivers must also remember that most of the lesser-maintained, skeleton rattling roads on Nantucket are private, and therefore maintained in varying degrees by the homeowner's associations established when those parts of the island were developed.

For instance, solving the dilemma of the massive puddle in the low spot on Friendship Lane that swells to several feet deep with just a few hours of rain is a homeowner association issue as this is a private road. Ditto for Monohansett Road's horrendous potholes and the lake midway down the Boulevarde.

Nonetheless, several town roads are not above reproach, including certain sections of downtown cobblestone streets and those roads being torn up during the multi-year sewer line repair project including North Beach, Easton, Swain and Cornish streets and Jefferson Lane. Though only a months-long project, driving down these crater-pocked ways last winter and this spring felt like the work went on for eons. And then there are the utility trenches cut across all roads. Hastily dug and backfilled and most times, poorly patched, these can be the most aggravating.

It is all enough to make you get out and walk or ride the bus. But before you do anything rash, check out The Independent's guide to island roads and

learn the hows and whys of road maintenance and driving on Nantucket. I

THEIR ASPHALT CANVAS

Like magic, fresh coats of reflective yellow paint appears on downtown streets in town and out in 'Sconset, marking no-parking sections of streets just in time for the first big weekend of the year. Is it Daffodil weekend fairies at work ensuring color coordination for Nantucket's rite of spring? Well, not really. DPW road crews re-paint parking and traffic markings in the island's two core areas two or three times a year starting in April. For the major roads, the DPW hires an off-island company to re-paint center and roadside lines every two years or so for nearly $50,000.

REPAVING PARADISE

Laying new asphalt is not out of the realm of road improvements the DPW can perform. Within the next two years, the town plans to re-pave Fairgrounds and Quaker roads, Orange, Broad, Liberty, North Liberty, Hussey, Meader, West Chester and Milk streets, Vesper, Rosaly and Bayberry lanes, First Way and the approach to Surfside Road on the Boulevarde.

BUMP AND GRIND

For some, driving the cobblestones is a joyride over living history, while others feel only the bone-jarring bumpiness as visions of mechanics' bills jostle around in their heads. All of us, at one time or another, have probably questioned out loud the town's schedule - or lack of one - for smoothing them out.

Because the cost of doing so surpasses paving of new asphalt - the short section in front of the Pacific Club cost nearly $100,000 last spring - the DPW prefers to wait for larger municipal projects that include removing and replacing the stones for more pressing reasons other than busted shock absorbers.

When the town completes the next phase of its inflow/infiltration repair work on sewer line,s which happens downtown, all cobblestones removed, including the rollercoaster between the Club Car and Easy Street, will be replaced on freshly graded streets.

WHAT'S IN A ROAD NAME?

Naming a road on Nantucket is purely the choice of the person or group building it. In many cases, roads are named by developers of residential subdivisions after historical areas of the island in which the road is created. Far more private roads have been approved by the Planning Board and built by developers in the last five years than town roads.

Since the spring of 2002, the town added just three new public roads to its streets list. Town roads are solely the result of the County of Nantucket taking a private road for public use. In roughly the same time period, developers opened up and named around 15 private roads such as Wampanoag Way, Aurora Way, Ellen's Way and Nanahumacke Lane.

TEAR IT UP, LAY IT DOWN

Just as new road paint downtown makes perfect sense in early spring, one might ponder the perceived lunacy behind leaving the lower, south end of Orange Street in rough condition and tearing up Old South Road just before the vintage vehicles parade out to 'Sconset.

The answer is tied to the need for affordable housing and a smoother ride in general. Costing slightly more than $500,000, grinding down and paving of Old South Road is part of the DPW's schedule of island roads that need paving. And the trench warfare going on from the bottom of Orange Street out to Fairgrounds Road is a private matter with public impacts; the installation of a sewer line for the Beach Plum Village 40B.

VANISHING AND VANDALIZED

With predictable regularity, the Gay Street sign is one that disappears from its gray post. Because Willett does not wish to encourage the theft of public street signs, he would not list others that frequently disappear. He did say that there are some they replace two or three times a summer, and that there are summer weekends when up to 40 signs are vandalized.

Traffic signage is a different bucket of clams. Willett reports that the DPW annually plants hundreds of traffic signs around the island, including the new stop signs on Surfside Road, at the intersection with Fairgrounds and South Shore Road, and the new one-way signs planned for Chestnut and Broad streets later this spring.

ROAD OF DISTINCTION

We like Milestone Road. Technically, it's Nantucket's only state road, but it's long and rolling and well maintained by the town. Honorable mentions go to Cliff, Polpis, Madaket, Hummock Pond, Surfside and Wauwinet roads for their relatively wide layouts, scenic beauty and only minor surface flaws.

ASPHALT BAND-AIDS

As oncoming traffic allows, one can usually avoid most potholes, giant steel plates covering trenches and road blemishes. But the infamous and prolific utility road cuts force everyone going over them to spill their coffee. These necessary, yet maddening, road hazards that cut through the pavement to connect, repair or replace water, sewer, power, cable TV and phone lines require street opening and street blocking permits from the DPW signed by the fire and police departments, and by the Town Administrator's office. And yet, the feeble patching most receive must hold until the DPW gets around to paving the road that has been cut through. Potholes get filled with asphalt as time and money allows.

FIVE CORNERS OF INSANITY

Nantucket's intersections were not exactly designed for the 60,000 people in the summer season, but rarely do five roads come together anywhere on the island in such a manner as at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue, and Pleasant and York streets. Obviously more confounding to off-island drivers than the Rotary is the honor system employed at this and other intersections.

Getting through this one unscathed and without getting the one-finger wave is simple. As you approach the intersection, take notice which vehicle is the last to reach its respective stop sign. If you're the last one up to the plate, go after all the other drivers have gone.

ROUND AND ROUND

Now there are three of them. Rotaries, roundabouts, what's the difference. They're all round and challenging to drive through. Actually, the one in 'Sconset is more of a roundabout that is pretty much self-explanatory. And the Milestone Rotary, although daunting, is easy if you realize drivers in the rotary have the right of way.

This also applies to the new roundabout at the intersection of Sparks Avenue, Hooper Farm Road and Pleasant Street that is capped with a Belgian block center you can drive over if you need to.

INTERSECTIONS 101

No one likes a citizen crossing guard behind the wheel of an SUV. But that's what you'll see every day at the intersection of Sparks and Atlantic avenues, Surfside Road and Prospect Street. The same navigational logic used for Five Corners should be applied to this offset four-way stop, arguably, the center of all infuriating vehicular activity on Nantucket. Ignore the wannabe traffic cops as they drive down from Prospect Street, stop mid-traverse and start directing traffic, and just go when your turn comes up. When coming from Prospect Street, drive all the way through and resist the urge to wave other drivers through.

LIVING THE PAST FOR A REASON

Christine Silverstein authored an article for 1997 Annual Town Meeting to prevent the town from performing anymore improvements that erode the rural character of the island. Adopting Article 75, the voters spoke for Silverstein by prohibiting traffic lights, road widenings for more cars, vehicle turning travel lanes, construction of new public streets and paving on unimproved town roads for the entire island until the Comprehensive Community Plan was adopted. At the 2001 Annual Town Meeting through Article 42, Silverstein replaced the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan with the expiration date of Dec. 31, 2004. And that year, as she promised to do, she successfully amended her original article with Article 61 so these restrictions applied only outside the Town Overlay District with the caveat that the traffic light prohibition remain for the town district.