Two young boys were rescued after their inflatable raft drifted offshore near the big bridge on Beach Road Monday, prompting a flurry of response from public safety officials.
Robert (Hawkeye) Jacobs, 64, of Oak Bluffs received a hero’s greeting from a few of his friends at the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Jacobs was honored for saving the life of a 22-year-old woman who was driving a car that went off the Big Bridge in Oak Bluffs in the wee hours of Friday morning.
Mr. Jacobs was presented with his first Vineyard cell phone at derby headquarters, on the Edgartown waterfront as he posed for pictures with representatives from the derby, state police and Edgartown police.
After a long winter of trying to beat the red lights between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, Islanders can look forward to a summer without traffic signals on Beach Road. On Tuesday highway department supervisor Richard Combra confirmed that stoplights at the two bridges on Sengekontacket would be gone for Memorial Day weekend as work wraps up on their reconstruction this week.
With summer fast approaching and the time-honored tradition of jumping off the big bridge at Sengekontacket set to resume, town and county officials are once again calling on the state to remedy what has become a dangerous situation along the rebuilt bridge walkway.
“If there’s a kid sitting down on that railing any truck mirror that comes by is going to take their head off,” county manager Russell Smith said on Wednesday.
Although it was completed and opened to motorists just last week, the new Big Bridge spanning Oak Bluffs and Edgartown at Joseph Sylvia State Beach has already caused concern among county officials, who worry the back railing of the wooden platform is too close to Beach Road, leaving pedestrians and sunbathers at risk of injury by oncoming traffic this summer.
Revised plans to replace the storied Big and Little Bridges along Beach Road in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs were unveiled this week, and Massachusetts highway officials say they are confident the design will fit the character of the Vineyard.
County engineer Steve Berlucchi presented the plans to Edgartown selectmen at their regular meeting Tuesday afternoon.
"I think we have a much better design that Island residents will appreciate," Mr. Berlucchi said. "Everybody who has seen it so far is on board."
The state wants to spend $3.25 million replacing the Big and Little Bridges on Beach Road along Sengekontacket Pond with concrete structures, but last week at a public hearing in the Oak Bluffs School, a handful of Islanders tried convincing state engineers to tread lightly because these are no ordinary bridges.
The two bridges built of wood are as beloved as the covered bridges of Vermont, said Thea Hansen, a resident of Oak Bluffs who handles seasonal real estate rentals.
They're recreational destinations for fishermen and children, said Kenneth Abbott of Edgartown.
