Community Update

"Residents safety, a
tradeoff"



I had to watch the July 9 Selectmen
meeting on MVTV several times, even
though I had attended it and pled my
case to restore the original parallel
to curb parking instead of the angled
parking now present on Sea View ave
ext.














Listening to members of the
board, you would think that the
residents finally have parking there,
as if none existed. "I
have had dozens of calls from
residents that just love it, they call
it pizza hill" said Selectmen Santoro.















Parking on that road is
nothing new, long before the lookout
bar was there, residents parked and
ate their
evening meal watching the water. The
timeline on this whole mess started in the Spring of
2012 when the board met to discuss
angled parking in other areas of the
town - none of
which, after public discussion, was
found suitable, due to safety issues
for residents.














In the beginning of June, the road crews
paved Sea View ave ext, and then put
down new angled parking lines. This
was never brought up in any Selectmen
meeting in the past several years,
there are no minutes on such a
discussion, nor are there any minutes
from any Streets and Byways meetings
on this change. Someone basically told
the road crew to do it, and they
followed orders.














The residents went to several
Selectmen meetings, and a Streets and
Byways meeting
to get it restored. At the August,2012
meeting, we presented national
statistics on the safety hazards on
this small road with heavy traffic.
The selectmen decided to review the
info and get it back on agenda for a
vote.This did not happen until last
week, July 2013.














To compare this stretch of
road to any other area in town, is
truly apple's to orange's This is a
major transportation hub, with
passenger ferries arriving daily,
bike, moped and car rentals starting
at the bottom of the hill, tour
buses.  One of the highest pedestrian
areas on the Island!
















Just like last year, the OB
officer in charge was asked if there 
had been any accidents.
"No" was the reply. Well just because
there have been no drownings on the
Steam Ship ferry, does not mean you
can now take more passengers than life
jackets now does it?

















A  more realistic Mr. Combra said, " I
think we are lucky that we haven't had
anything happen". No one wants luck to be
the deciding factor in one's
safety!

















Chairman Vail's bottom line was
that he was all for the angled
parking. "We have a tradeoff here
(15 additional parking spaces vs
our safety)..we can't have it all
ways..there's always a certain
amount of danger in this town and
it worries me but I can't change
the town".














That is true, but you
have no problem making changes to
parking that has been agreed by
all, to put us in a less safe
environment. That is not right.
Why was angled parking put around
the harbor on New York ave? The
street is wider, longer, and has a
buffer zone to the sidewalk. The
town could have picked up four
times the amount of spaces, and 
maintained some sense of safety!
When the fishing pier is
completed, you will have kids
riding their bikes to go fishing,
tackle bucket hanging off a
handlebar, rod clutched in the
other hand, oblivious to the
dangers created by our Selectmen!