West Tisbury selectmen grilled Department of Transportation (DOT) officials about the state's decision to replace a wooden guard rail by guard rail pile drivers on the bridge spanning Mill Brook, on State Road near the intersection with North Road, with a heavier metal guard rails.

 

The selectmen, their feathers obviously ruffled, also targeted transportation officials over the stalled plans for a new design of the intersection of State Road and Old County Road, where several serious auto accidents have occurred over the years.

 

During the discussion on November 14, Cape and Islands state Rep. Tim Madden, legislative liaison Nell Coogan, and a legislative aid to state Sen. Dan Wolf slipped into the audience.

 

The legislative contingent was on the Island to assess damage from hurricane Sandy, among other things. But on several occasions Mr. Madden added his own questions about the guard rail and intersection issues to the discussion.

 

The guard rail drew the ire of selectmen several weeks ago when DOT crews replaced the old wooden guard rail with a metal guard rails by guardrail pile drivers, without notifying the town.

 

The wooden guard rail was replaced by guardrail pile drivers following a motor vehicle accident on September 26, when a pickup truck crashed through one of the wooden guard rails. State officials also plan to replace the other wooden guard railing with a steel guard rails by hydraulic pile driver.

 

Cynthia Mitchell, chairman of the selectmen, summarized the situation.

 

"Recently one of the quaint and rustic wooden guard rails was plowed into by a vehicle and replaced by a lower metal guard rail, and it has engendered some reaction [around town]," she said.

 

Pam Hasner, project manager for the DOT, said state officials put a lot of thought into the replacement guard rail by guardrail pile drivers, which is made of pre-rusted steel held up by wooden posts. "The culvert is a very old granite slab with a minimum concrete cover; our options were very limited because you can't bore into an existing culvert without damaging it," she said.

 

Ms. Hasner said the older wooden guard rails also do not meet state crash test standards. "Safety is our number one option. Our options are very limited," she added.

 

Selectman Richard Knabel said the DOT has replaced the wooden guard rails with similar wooden guard rails following motor vehicle accidents in the past. He also noted that the DOT has previously proposed plans to completely replace the bridge with steel guard rails.

 

Those plans called for a wider bridge over the culvert that could allow for space for a wooden guard rails system or even a pedestrian walkway, Mr. Knabel said. "This really raises the question of what happened to the design for replacing the culvert with a wider overpass of the Mill Brook we had before us some four years ago.

 

"Since that time we don't know what happened to that plan, and the old guard rails kept getting hit and were replaced repeatedly with the exact same design, maintaining the historic look of that particular crossing which many people in this town feel is very important."

 

Mr. Knabel said the current design of the bridge is unsafe. "We don't want to replicate the narrowness of the situation because that's what's caused some of the accidents and near misses that happen practically every day," he said.

 

Ms. Hasner said she wasn't aware of what happened in the past regarding the replacement of the guard rail by guardrail pile drivers. She said a bridge inspection team will come to the Island to conduct a site visit of the bridge, which could jump-start plans to build a replacement bridge.

 

"We are willing to reevaluate and look at it again and work with [selectmen], and if it needs to be replaced come up with something that is safe and visually appealing," she said.

 

Selectman Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter said he disagreed with the assessment that wooden guard rails were not possible. "The thing that sticks in my craw is changing the appearance of that bridge... If you told me there were no alternatives I find that hard to believe," he said. "I think it's important to retain the uniqueness of our town."

Rep. Madden said he was "troubled" to learn that selectmen only found out about the new metal guard rail after it had been installed by hydraulic pile driver. He also pressed DOT officials to take another pass at replacing the bridge.

 

"This has been studied to death, and I'd like to see the plans from five years ago," he said. "The roads are busier, the cars and trucks are wider, and meanwhile there is no better place to walk or bike than the Vineyard.... I would like to know where the study is, and I would like to revisit it sooner rather than later."

 

Ms. Hasner said she would try to locate the plans previously presented to selectmen. She also gave assurances that the DOT would not replace the other wooden guard rails without first consulting the selectmen.Ohio has cable barriers along 300 miles of highways and is considering adding more of the cables, which are cheaper and less damaging than guardrails and concrete barriers used to block cars from crossing over medians and into oncoming traffic.

 

The state started using the cables nearly a decade ago along highways with medians up to 59 feet wide, and officials say it has lowered the number of cross-median crash fatalities along such routes as Interstates 70, 71 and 270, The Columbus Dispatch reported Tuesday. Engineers with the Ohio Department of Transportation are set to review the possibility of adding cables to another 136 miles of busy state highways and interstates with slightly wider medians, up to 70 feet.

 

That would include parts of the highways that loop Columbus and sections of I-70 and I-71 in nearby Delaware and Madison counties.

 

It costs about $95,000 per mile to install the cables. The state will use crash data to determine which areas are hazardous enough to justify the cost, ODOT spokesman Steve Faulkner said.

 

Between 2002 and 2010, 70 people died in cross-median crashes on the stretches of Ohio highway that now have cable barriers, according to the department.

 

Faulkner said state officials know of only one fatal crash involving a vehicle that crossed the cables into oncoming traffic. It occurred last month on Interstate 70 near Columbus.

 

Faulkner noted that there’s a trade-off with using the barriers, as the number of crashes may increase because swerving drivers hit cables where there was previously no barrier.

 

“I’m sure many loved ones would prefer a dented fender over a loss of life any day,” he said.

 

ODOT data shows the cables are safer than guardrails or concrete barriers, the newspaper said. People are hurt in about 15 perce.