Friendship neighborhood organizes to combat traffic
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Residents of Pine Knoll plan to form a neighborhood association to combat speeding vehicles and one colossal puddle.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent Navigating through the "lake" that forms at a dip along Friendship Lane when it rains or when snow melts is quite the challenge for drivers.

Leading the association effort are Keith and Andrea Mansfield of 39 Friendship Lane, who live on the north shore of the immense puddle that forms with the slightest amount of precipitation in the dip in Friendship Lane. This fall, Keith Mansfield sent out letters to all 76 property owners in the neighborhood, explaining his desire to solve some of the issues - one of which is the use of Friendship Lane as a shortcut to Somerset Road for traffic trying to avoid the congested intersection of Surfside and Bartlett Roads.

"Everybody's told me that they've been meaning to do this and everybody has the same issues,'' he said. "They're all upset with traffic that goes through here, and the puddle. My goal is to hopefully maybe make it look a little bit what it looks like over in Pine Valley."

Because this part of the island is a subdivision developed before the Planning Board required major residential developments to include homeowners' associations, the Pine Knoll development, with its private roads and sidewalks, is not maintained by the town. Looking over to Pine Valley - Mizzenmast, Topping Lift, Luff and Spinnaker roads, Keel, Halyard, Rudder and Reacher Lanes - Keith Mansfield saw a homeowners' association example he wanted to follow.

Noting that Pine Valley uses its association's dues for street cleaning, and that other island neighborhoods have installed speed bumps, Mansfield is eager to get going on neighborhood improvement projects that could include closing off access to Somerset Road at the north end of Friendship Lane.

But this is not likely to happen, according to Town Manager Libby Gibson, who said a town bylaw prohibits the closing off of existing roads. Gibson did say that Friendship Lane is on the Right of Way Committee's takings list, and that the town is requesting funding for fiscal year 2009 to do some of these takings.

"We have discussed, in various departments in the town, taking that road," said Gibson. "We also encourage homeowners to form homeowners' associations, particularly in the areas where they don't have one."

In the bigger picture of attacking the source of Friendship Lane's traffic woes, Gibson said that the Traffic Safety Advisory Committee is discussing several long-term congestion alleviation scenarios for the intersection of Bartlett and Surfside roads that may or may not become reality.

"We were trying to figure out, in the one-to-two mile radius around the schools, where in that radius could improvements be made where people go who don't necessarily have to go through that intersection, where would they go?" Gibson said. "One of them was opening Nobska [Way] and Salros [Road], one of them was improving Friendship, one of them was improving First Way and one of them was opening up Backus Lane."

Gibson added that eventually she would collate all of these ideas into a selectmen's workshop in the future. If the town took Friendship Lane, Gibson said, it would also take the private, dirt section of Somerset Road that runs from Roberts Lane to the intersection of Somerset Lane and Raceway Drive. Should this happen, paving, drainage and sidewalk improvements might be done.

Currently, one of Mansfield's and his fellow neighbors' main complaints is that during rain storms, sand, gravel and debris wash south down Friendship Lane from the dirt part of Somerset Road, clogging privately-funded catch basins installed to drain the enormous puddle that cannot handle the high volume of water. The puddle itself does little to slow vehicle speeds on Friendship Lane, he said.

"Just by living on the road for the past seven to eight years, the traffic is absolutely terrible," he said. "It's a whole bunch of little things that add up to a big issue for the neighborhood, and, there's lots of kids in the neighborhood."

To date, 25 property owners have responded to Mansfield's letter, enough, he said, to hold an informational meeting

in early January. I