Planners seek citizen solutions to downtown traffic congestion
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Before Nantucket's downtown traffic study gets underway this summer, Transportation Planner Michael Burns and the Planning Department hope the importance of a vital downtown to island living will attract Nantucketers to an afternoon and evening forum next Monday at the Atheneum.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent It is all-too-familiar summer scenes such as this one that planners would like to alleviate

Burns, the Nantucket Planning & Economic Development Commission and the Planning Board are hoping that people who live, work, own businesses or frequent the island's core district will share their concerns about traffic congestion and listen to a presentation on the study's objectives and what changes could come out of it.

"There could be things like street directional changes, street construction, changes where lanes need to be looked at, or parking needs to be looked at, time limits, sidewalk configurations - it could be physical, it could affect policy-level changes - it's quite open at this point," said Senior Planner Andrew Vorce.

For the study, the town's recently hired traffic engineers from Milone & McBroom of Cheshire, Conn., will observe circulation in the downtown area during the summer and attempt to generate solutions for enhancing routes affecting both Straight Wharf and Steamboat Wharf, and all intown destinations for all modes of transportation.

While the Planning Department had been wanting to do such a traffic study of downtown Nantucket for at least the last five years, two large commercial projects in the core area, both already approved and underway, prompted the town to start the study this summer.

"We've had some pretty substantial projects being proposed for the downtown," said Senior Planner Leslie Woodson. "It really is the downtown congestion and these particular projects that brought it to the forefront."

Vorce added that the Dreamland Theater renovation project that includes a restaurant and underground parking on Easy Street, along with the proposed 10-room freestanding addition to the Manor House and the total renovation of the Point Breeze Hotel prompted the immediacy of doing this study sooner rather than later.

"Part of the motivation for this is we had a joint meeting with the Steamship Authority around the time the Point Breeze was being discussed," said Vorce, who added that the Planning Board hearing on the Dreamland's project inspired the Steamship Authority to take a hard look at congestion issues related to the coming and going of its ferries and downtown traffic.

Owners of the Dreamland and Point Breeze Hotel each had to contribute funds for the study as conditions of Planning Board approval, and the Planning Board is likely to require the same of the Manor House.

Vorce and Woodson said that good attendance at Monday's meeting is vital to generating practical fixes for summer congestion and near-gridlock conditions.

"I think the people who are in the downtown that are witnessing this are our best resource, so I hope they will [show up]," Vorce said.

Downtown merchants and the general public are being offered their own times to meet with Burns and the traffic engineers.

The open house for businesses and property owners will be held from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., followed by a meeting and presentation for everyone at 7 p.m. Both get-togethers are on June 4 in the Great Hall on the second floor of the Nantucket Atheneum at 1 India St. For details,

call 228-7237. I