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Route 6

    HOUSING

    Truro Select Board Postpones Taking of Truro Motor Inn

    It is unclear who should receive $1.6 million in ‘just compensation’

    By

    TRURO — The select board decided at its Aug. 27 meeting to table a motion that would have executed the taking by eminent domain of the now-empty Truro Motor Inn at 296 Route 6.

    Town meeting voters authorized the taking of the Truro Motor Inn by eminent domain last spring, but the process has been delayed by questions about who legally owns the property since the death of owner Daniel Delgizzi in August 2020. (Photos by Sophie Mann-Shafir)

    Town meeting voters had approved the taking by a large majority on May 5, and the select board’s printed motion would have allowed the payment of $1.6 million from the town’s Dennis Family Gift Account to compensate the owners of the 36-room motel.

    Town officials said it is still unclear exactly who should receive compensation for the property, however — the cause of the current delay.

    “We’ve heard from town counsel that there are some issues with the ownership of the property — that there are legal issues that need to be researched,” said select board chair Sue Areson. “So, we’re not quite ready to go forward with this.”

    “If we don’t know the owner, we don’t know who to hand the check to,” said Town Manager Darrin Tangeman.

    The property is part of the estate of the late Daniel Delgizzi, who in 2019 controlled about 100 units of housing on the Outer Cape, including the 36 rooms at the Truro Motor Inn. Delgizzi died in August 2020, and the current ownership of the inn, which he started building in 1959, is apparently still unclear.

    Fifty people lived at the motel at one point, but the last tenants were forced out in July 2023.

    Tangeman told the Independent on Aug. 27 that the question of who should be paid for the property would need to be settled in probate court. As of that date, however, there was no case in probate court to resolve the beneficiary status of Delgizzi’s estate.

    “The personal representative named in a will or an heir-at-law would initiate probate,” Tangeman said on Sept. 3. “As of right now, town counsel and I are discussing the next steps.”

    Daniel’s son, David, and David’s wife, Carolyn Delgizzi, of Weston had been operating the property, renting it out long-term to tenants starting in 2015.

    A series of failed inspections in 2018 initiated a slew of repair orders from the town. The Delgizzis did not make those repairs, and the town took the owners to housing court in 2019 to seek a court-appointed receiver to manage the property. The motel rooms were not of legal size for permanent lodgings, however, and between 2020 and 2023, the 50 or so tenants who had occupied the property were forced to leave.

    ON THE FARM

    Orleans Partners With Growers to Preserve Its Agricultural Heritage

    The town’s program fits into the state’s new Farmland Action Plan

    By

    ORLEANS — Farmers tilling the soil on large plots of town-owned land at Putnam Farm, just off the Route 6 rotary, range from enthusiastic first-timers interested in producing their own organic vegetables and herbs to experienced gardeners who are frequently tapped by those newcomers for advice.

    Mae Wilder, daughter of plot owner Molly Tsongas and her partner Ames Wilder, harvests potatoes. (Photos by Edward Boches)

    The farm provides a way to sustain the town’s long agricultural heritage at a time when farmland is being lost to development at a frightening pace. According to the Mass. Dept. of Agricultural Resources, the state lost almost 60,000 acres of farmland between 1997 and 2017. Another 78,000 acres are expected to be lost by 2040. Barnstable County’s farmland is already under 2 percent of its total land area.

    The state’s Farmland Action Plan, published in January, includes recommendations for permanently protecting farmland over the next 25 years. Among those is the use of state and municipally owned land for farming.

    While Putnam’s growers are all ages, most are younger than Barnstable County’s median of 55 years. “If you’re looking for 30-somethings on Cape Cod, they’re right here,” said Rick Francolini, an active volunteer at Putnam Farm.

    Putnam is unique in a few ways. Generally, when towns purchase conservation land, agriculture isn’t on the list of allowed uses, but the primary driver behind the purchase of Putnam was to permanently preserve a portion of the historic farm for agriculture. The purchase was approved unanimously at a town meeting in 2010.

    Bonnie Bartolini-Trott waters her son-in-law Silas Watkins’s plot.

    Drusy Henson, chair of the Orleans Conservation Commission, which oversees the property, said that leasing large plots to growers is a good way to support local agriculture. “Farmers don’t have a lot of money,” she said. “They can’t afford to buy land.”

    She couldn’t think of another town in the state with a similar arrangement.

    It recently caught the attention of Ashley Randle, commissioner of the Dept. of Agriculture Resources, who plans to tour the farm with local officials next month. “MDAR is interested in learning more about this innovative collaboration between the town and the farming community,” a spokesperson said.

    Putnam’s Growers

    While a typical community garden offers small plots to hobby farmers at a nominal fee, which Orleans does at two other locations, Putnam provides opportunities for more ambitious ventures.

    Rick Francolini is a volunteer who has been instrumental in the development of Putnam Farm.

    The plots, each 50 by 70 feet, are available by lottery to anyone living in the state for an annual fee of $500. Opening it up to all Mass. residents was a requirement of the state’s Local Acquisitions for Natural Diversity (LAND) grant, which helped cover the purchase. Several of Putnam’s growers sell their produce at farmers markets and to local restaurants. They also supply community-supported agriculture programs, according to Francolini, providing them with an important source of income and the region with locally grown produce.

    The town is an active partner. This year, eight new plots were ready for cultivation, bringing the total to 20, and an irrigation well went online with piping to all the plots. When it came time to assign the new plots, 30 hopefuls entered the lottery. Currently lessees come from communities stretching from Truro to West Barnstable, Francolini said.

    Paige Sullivan, a teacher at Orleans Elementary School, entered the lottery but didn’t win. That’s for the best, said Sullivan. As a first-time grower, she would probably have found she wasn’t equal to the challenge of cultivating 3,500 square feet. The conservation commission stipulates that 75 percent of a plot must be in use for a lease holder to keep it.

    Sullivan and her husband, Brendan St. Peter, were able to join a group of local teachers and their friends led by Rand Burkert, who was awarded a plot this summer after the previous lessee moved from the area. Sullivan said she is learning a great deal from Burkert, an experienced grower who teaches at Nauset Middle School, and Tom Farkas of the Master Gardener Association of Cape Cod. In one area, the group is using the traditional Wampanoag “three sisters” method of growing corn, beans, and squash set up in mounds, guided by Burkert.

    Cape Cod native Jessica Rempel grew up gardening with her mother. Her husband, Dave, did a lot of farming growing up in Canada. The couple now lives in Wellfleet and was awarded a Putnam plot in the recent lottery. This season, they planted a long list of vegetables as well as some herbs.

    “We went with what we knew, taking it as a learning experience, but it’s going great,” Rempel said. With an eye toward the future, they planted one area with a “cover crop” of partridge peas, a wildflower that Rempel called “a nitrogen fixer,” which will improve soil quality.

    The 20 farmers who lease the plots agree not to use pesticides and to grow organically.

    While most growers lay out their crops in rows, a plot leased by Molly Tsongas and Natalia Redyk was designed in concentric circles that emanate from a central gathering area. Tsongas designed the plot, while Redyk had the farming know-how. This marks their third year growing.

    “I wanted it to feel like a sacred space where people felt included — a place to rest and integrate and learn,” said Tsongas, who was there with some of this year’s growers one day last week. “This year, we’re almost entirely LGBTQ growers.”

    Their lush plot is a visual feast, with the greens of the vegetables and herbs contrasting with patches of brightly colored flowers sown to draw pollinators. The harvest is shared with friends and family members. Surplus food is donated to Food Not Bombs, said Tsongas.

    The land was cleared by volunteers and the town’s public works dept. The DPW has provided hundreds of truckloads of organic compost, which it heats to get rid of weed seeds and soil contaminants. The department also provides wood chips that the gardeners use between rows to discourage weeds.

    A substantial donation from residents Hardie and Marcie Truesdale helped pay for the restoration of two wetlands adjacent to the farm plots.

    The town has tapped the expertise of Mass Audubon, the Natural Resource Conservation Service of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, the Xerces Society, and the Association to Preserve Cape Cod. Experts helped with the design of the irrigation system and development of a planting plan for the new wetlands.

    New Rule for Dogs

    Recently it became evident that farming and free-running dogs are not a good mix. In addition to the agricultural lots, Putnam has about eight acres of open land with a network of trails.

    Protection of wetlands is a priority, and the conservation commission has been overseeing the restoration of two dried-out and overgrown areas.

    The town’s regulations allow dogs at Putnam if they are under the control of their owners, but a couple of farmers complained that their crops had been trampled by dogs running loose.

    Growers can fence in their plots, but because of the cost only three have done so.

    At the conservation commission’s June 18 hearing, members discussed options from maintaining the current rules but beefing up the signs to banning dogs. Members also considered a requirement that dogs be on leashes in the growing and new wetlands areas.

    Peter Jensen, chair of the agricultural advisory council, told the commission that several of Putnam’s growers sell their produce commercially and invest significant money in their ventures. A dog racing through a plot can quickly cause a great deal of damage. While there are several places in town where owners can take their dogs, said Jensen, there aren’t a lot of places to do commercial growing.

    When the final vote was taken, members agreed that dogs visiting Putnam Farm must be on a leash at all times. Signs stating the new rules were expected to go up last weekend.

    PATHBREAKING

    Revisions on Path to Cove Don’t Sway Eastham Commission

    Board sees erosion and runoff as problems with a new path through marshland

    By

    EASTHAM — Steven and Cathy Sanders’s deed to 75 South Eastham St. includes a right-of-way allowing them access to Town Cove on the other side of Route 6. The couple’s plan to improve that right-of-way — overgrown for lack of use over decades — has gone from the town’s conservation commission to court and back again since 2021.

    The foundation of the old fish shack, where the fox den is located, peeks out from the overgrown vegetation. (Photos by Nancy Bloom)

    This spring, the commission decided to stand by its original determination that the improvements proposed would damage the coastal bank, salt marsh, and related protected areas. Without the commission’s approval, the debate will resume in Barnstable Superior Court.

    The 12-foot-wide right-of-way runs through two waterfront properties, one at 670 State Hwy. owned by Maryann and Richard Rossignol and the other belonging to Gary and Anne Boudreau at 690 State Hwy.

    Three years ago, the Sanderses proposed to clear a swath and create a gravel driveway that would run 280 feet from Route 6 to the cove; build a storage shed for their kayaks and other equipment on the foundation of an old collapsed fish shack on the Rossignol property; and construct a 75-foot-long raised wooden walkway through the salt marsh.

    The Boudreaus and Rossignols were vehemently opposed to these improvements.

    Flags mark the area proposed for the path to a planned new boat shed.

    The right-of-way dates to 1918, and the Sanders deed isn’t the only one that conveys it. Deeds for five or six other properties on South Eastham Street also include that right, although the owners of those properties so far have not indicated an interest in exercising theirs.

    During the 2021 hearings, the proposed driveway was trimmed to a four-foot-wide walkway, but other elements of the plan remained the same. The conservation commission in November 2021 denied permission for the work in wetlands and buffer zones.

    The Sanderses appealed that denial in Barnstable Superior Court. The case was put on hold last fall and sent back to the commission to see whether a modified plan could win its approval.

    The new plan calls for a four-foot-wide walking path from the highway to the marsh; construction of a storage shed to be placed on the fish shack foundation; and creating a meandering foot path, instead of the raised walkway, through the marsh to the cove.

    A plan submitted to the town by Steven and Cathy Sanders shows the layout of their proposed path beginning at Route 6 on the Boudreau property and continuing onto the Rossignol property to the location of an old fish shack foundation.

    After a series of hearings, the commission again denied the proposal, but not without debate.

    At an April 23 hearing, when the Sanderses’ attorney, Ben Zehnder, laid out the new proposal, the pushback was stiff. Commission chair Karen Strauss said there was a fox den under the fish shack’s foundation. “We can’t really allow wildlife to be disturbed,” she said.

    Zehnder said his clients could simply allow the foxes to “kit out” before working there.

    Commissioner Janet Benjamins expressed concern over erosion and stormwater runoff from the pathway and the need for people to cross four lanes of Route 6 traffic to get from South Eastham Street to the right-of-way. She asked whether an overpass was planned or whether police would be hired to halt traffic so pedestrians could cross.

    Scene from neighboring property looking out over Town Cove where the Sanderses kayak.

    Referring to Route 6 as a “street,” Zehnder said he didn’t believe many people would try to cross the highway to get to the path. “I can see Steve and Cathy Sanders walking across the street and going kayaking or clamming,” he said. “But it’s not where I would go or take my kids if I lived across the street.”

    Maryann Rossignol said the Sanderses were proposing “to remove trees and plantings and build a structure without our permission.”

    The picture she painted did not match Zehnder’s: Rossignol worried about what would happen if a property owner were to rent out a house as an Airbnb, advertising private waterfront access. There could be 25 to 30 people using the path every day, she said, which would displace wildlife and have other effects on a sensitive area.

    “Approval of this proposal would be tipping the first domino,” she said. “The precedent will be set to build similar structures and clear pathways in protected buffer zones and coastal wetlands throughout town.”

    Markers for a proposed path to a planned new boat shed follow a coastal bank.

    Attorney Bruce Bierhans, representing the Rossignols and Boudreaus, argued the right-of-way had not been used for several decades and was therefore abandoned.

    The validity of the easement and public safety concerns were outside the authority of the conservation commission and could not be factored into their deliberation, however.

    In the end, the commission’s denial was based on findings that the foot traffic on the proposed walking path, which would be constructed on a slope, would have negative effects on the coastal bank. The plan would also affect the salt marsh and protected resource areas and buffer zones.

    “The applicant failed to provide details on how erosion and runoff would be mitigated,” wrote the commission.

    DEVELOPMENT

    Two Town Parcels Along Route 6 Are Eyed for Housing

    Experts recommend ‘road diets’ to make room for parking but reject paving of Old Colony trail

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The Route 6 right-of-way, a long corridor that belongs to the town, could someday hold two housing developments and up to 110 parking spaces, according to two recent presentations by municipal consultants.

    A three-acre town-owned site on Route 6 just north of Howland Street is almost entirely developable, according to a report by Environmental Partners that was funded by voters at Provincetown’s 2022 town meeting. (Photos by Paul Benson)

    Scott Turner of Environmental Partners told the select board at its March 11 meeting that there were two developable tracts within the town-owned roadbed: one west of the intersection of Route 6 and Shank Painter Road, between the Pilgrim Bark Park and Patrick Patrick’s proposed “Barracks” dormitory project, and another just north of the intersection of Route 6 and Howland Street.

    Both tracts would have to be surveyed and separated into parcels The western tract has about 1.4 acres of developable land, and the eastern tract has about 3 acres, according to Turner’s report.

    A team of presenters from SLR Consulting then held a public forum on March 18 to display several options for reconfiguring the highway between Shank Painter Road and Conwell Street to add 60 parking spaces and a “multi-use path” for cyclists and pedestrians.

    The consultants had been tasked with replacing the 60 spaces at the town-owned lot near MacMillan Pier that will be lost to the construction of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Visitor Center. They found room in the right-of-way for 110 parking spaces, but their detailed renditions focused on plans for just 60.

    All their plans involved a “road diet” that would narrow parts of the highway that currently have two lanes of travel in the same direction down to one lane. The consultants proposed removing lanes from the section that connects Shank Painter Road and Conwell Street. Another “road diet” is already planned for the part of Route 6 that runs from Shank Painter Road west to Herring Cove.

    What’s Buildable

    The Environmental Partners study was funded by town meeting voters in April 2022 as Article 20, which called for a consultant to assess the wetlands, habitat rules, and engineering restrictions in the Route 6 right-of-way.

    From left, open space committee chair Dennis Minsky, transportation planner David Sullivan, and Community Development Director Tim Famulare discuss parking options along Route 6 after a public forum on March 18.

    There are several large “bump-outs” where the right-of-way expands beyond its standard width, all of which are close to intersections. One of them, which encompasses about 3 acres just west of Conwell Street, has too many wetlands and buffer areas to be developable, the report concluded.

    The study determined that the 4-acre area west of Shank Painter Road, which includes the Pilgrim Bark Park and two small wetlands, has 1.4 developable acres, while the 3-acre site north of Howland Street is almost entirely developable, with only a small part of its northern edge falling within a 50-foot wetlands buffer.

    Community Development Director Tim Famulare said it’s hard to know what the state Dept. of Transportation had in mind when these areas were included in the right-of-way. “They might have thought they needed a cloverleaf or some other complex intersection, or even space for an equipment depot,” he said.

    Two of the sites were later used for leaching fields for the town’s wastewater treatment plant: the area under the dog park and a half-acre just north of Howland Street.

    Those leaching fields can all be moved to Motta Field as part of the town’s $75-million sewer program that was approved at fall town meeting in 2022, Famulare said, which means the Howland Street site would be free of infrastructure for the first time in decades.

    That area is included in the state’s priority habitat for rare and endangered species. Almost the entire region north of Route 6 is priority habitat, according to the state’s maps, and until a remapping in 2017 so was much of the town’s West End, Famulare said.

    “The state doesn’t tell you what species are found where, because they don’t want people trying to relocate or destroy endangered species,” Famulare said. “Typically, they will put in certain construction controls or limit work to certain times — but I’ve never seen a project have to change its footprint.”

    A rough analysis of the developable areas indicated that about 50 units could be built at the Shank Painter site and between 100 and 150 units at the Howland Street site, Famulare said. “That would be for a larger, more dense development than the 3 Jerome Smith project,” he said.

    Select board members were happy to learn about the Shank Painter site but less sure about the Howland Street site. “I imagine the conversation will be very different between these two parcels,” said board member Leslie Sandberg.

    “I cringe at the thought of development on the other side of Route 6,” said John Golden.

    “I just never thought we owned it,” said Sandberg. “I thought it was all National Seashore.”

    Road Diets and Parking Spots

    On March 18, the town’s consultants presented three concepts for the redesign of the highway between Shank Painter Road and Conwell Street.

    Only one of three plans for parking along Route 6 does not require those who’ve parked to walk across the highway to get into town.

    That area is eligible for a “road diet,” said transportation planner David Sullivan, because the federal threshold for a change from two lanes to one is 875 vehicles per hour and that stretch of Route 6 averages 520. “Based on that, by dropping a lane there will not be a massive queuing of vehicles into the Conwell or Shank Painter intersections,” Sullivan said.

    All three plans removed a lane from the southern, or Shank Painter-to-Conwell, side of Route 6, while two of the three plans also removed a lane from the northern, or Conwell-to-Shank Painter, side of the highway.

    The plans differed primarily in the circulation of vehicles and how the consultants envision people exiting those vehicles. Two options put the parking in the median, forcing people who’ve parked to cross Route 6 to reach town. The third option put the parking spaces along the southernmost edge of the roadway, alongside the multi-use path for pedestrians and cyclists.

    The consultants also discussed the town’s transportation and multi-use path survey, which had raised the possibility of replacing the Old Colony Nature Pathway with a paved bicycle trail.

    Fifty-five percent of the more than 800 people who responded to the survey were against that plan, and Sullivan said his firm opposed it as well.

    “I came up here with one of our wetland scientists and we walked this trail, which is an old railbed,” Sullivan said. “It would be similar in design to bike trails in other Cape Cod towns, but at the end of it, you still have to put your riders back onto Route 6. So, we said no to the Old Colony Nature Trail.”

    About 40 people were at the forum, and most of them erupted in applause at that point.

    “Thank goodness — now I can go home!” exclaimed someone from a back row.

    FIGHTING BLIGHT

    A Once Grand Property, Now Condemned, May Finally Get a Cleanup

    Wellfleet turns to a state program to get owner to bring house up to code

    By

    WELLFLEET — A 19th-century Queen Anne-style house just off Route 6 once numbered among a cluster of grand properties owned by wealthy members of the local business community in a neighborhood called Money Hill.

    ROADKILL

    The Unseen Toll of Traffic on the Outer Cape’s Animals

    Closures, crossing signs, culverts, and just slowing down can prevent squishings

    By

    EASTHAM — Eight downy ducklings tried to cross Route 6 near Nauset Road in Eastham on Aug. 1, led by a streaked brown hen. Sometime before 7:30 a.m., a car tore down the road and collided with the ducks, killing the mother hen. The car, according to the Eastham police, sped away.

    The ducklings, leaderless in the middle of the highway, started panicking and running around frantically. When officers arrived on the scene, they rounded up the chicks and took them to Wild Care, the wildlife rehabilitation center in Eastham.

    At first, the ducklings seemed to perk up with hydration. They were placed alongside Wild Care’s resident female mallard, Mallory, according to Stephanie Ellis, the organization’s director. But the incident proved too stressful for some of the young birds. After a few days, four of the eight ducklings had died. The four that survived were released into the wild after a few weeks of care.

    It’s easy to become desensitized to roadkill here. Route 6 is littered with the bodies of animals that tried crossing at the wrong moment, and some back roads are no less lethal. But roadkill and road injuries can affect our wild species’ populations. And with the right precautions, many collisions with animals can be prevented.

    Turtles, Toads, and Mammals

    There are no formal data on how many animals are struck by cars on the Outer Cape. But the number of road-injured animals at Wild Care suggests it is a significant problem: last year, the organization took in 152 animals that had been struck by cars. That is nearly 10 percent of the animals brought in for care — from all over the Cape.

    A map of the Outer Cape showing the places where animals brought to Wild Care in Eastham were injured by cars between 2019 and 2023. An additional 91 sightings were not localized enough to be shown on this map. (Map by William von Herff)

    Even in the late fall, the center is full of road-injured animals being rehabilitated. A Canada goose found with a head injury on Chequessett Neck Road in Wellfleet. A snapping turtle run over by a car in East Falmouth. A sharp-shinned hawk found sitting on a roadway in Dennis.

    Many of the road-injured animals that arrive at Wild Care die from shock and other immediate effects of the collision. But if they survive the initial incident, they stand a decent chance of being successfully rehabilitated. Ellis reported that approximately 60 percent of road-injured animals brought to Wild Care that survive the first 24 hours are later released into the wild.

    For some species in particular, roadways present an existential threat.

    Turtles, for instance, are slow-moving and often need to travel away from their usual habitats to lay their eggs. This behavior can force them to cross roads, and 40 percent of all reptiles at Wild Care — mostly turtles — were struck by cars.

    For diamondback terrapins and Eastern box turtles, these injuries and deaths are especially problematic because both species are threatened, and nearly all the turtles that are struck are females that are traveling to lay eggs, according to Ellis. She called the back roads of Eastham a “danger zone” for terrapins.

    One problem, according to Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet (W.W. Norton, 2023), is that roads are often built close to water and in flat low-lying areas. “Those are also the same places that wild animals like,” he told the Independent.

    These roads are especially dangerous for amphibians like toads and frogs. Many amphibian species migrate — and cross roads — in large numbers to reach vernal pools and upland breeding sites, which can lead to what Goldfarb calls “mass squishing events.” One such event happened on the Outer Cape in 2005, when 1,200 Fowler’s toads were killed on a 1.5-mile stretch of road in North Truro in a single night. The mass squishing was reported in the Journal of Herpetology.

    When larger carnivores like coyotes, foxes, and bobcats become roadkill, their populations also suffer because these animals take a long time to mature and reproduce, Goldfarb said.

    The bobcat found dead on the side of Chequessett Neck Road in Wellfleet last winter was the first sighting in town in centuries. The autopsy revealed that it was a female.

    “These mortality events aren’t just inconveniences,” Goldfarb said. “There’s literally nothing that we do on this planet that kills more wild animals on land than drive.”

    Gardens, Tunnels, and Speed

    Despite an apparent abundance of road injuries and mortalities on the Outer Cape, there are measures that can prevent these incidents. Ellis recommends putting up more signs to slow drivers at places known to be wildlife crossings.

    A barred owl at Wild Care that was hit by a car but recovered and was released last week. (Photo courtesy Stephanie Ellis)

    Goldfarb advocates constructing wildlife crossings, which are essentially large bridges of habitat paired with road fencing that allow wildlife to pass over dangerous roadways. While their effectiveness depends on their placement and design, at least one assessment suggests they can reduce roadkill significantly, according to a National Public Radio story on the problem.

    The construction of “turtle gardens” is helping diamondback terrapins in Wellfleet. These are patches of sand between the roadway and the salt marsh that present terrapins with perfect nesting habitat, encouraging them to lay their eggs without crossing roadways. Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary staff and volunteers have constructed a number of these gardens as part of its terrapin protection program and are seeing this species rebound here.

    “Amphibian culverts” are another solution. Because frogs and toads migrate along predictable paths each year, a well-placed series of passages can allow these creatures to cross underneath roads safely. A collection of tunnels like this was installed in Amherst in 1987 to help spotted salamanders cross roads, and at least one study has found that the strategy worked.

    Another study on Fowler’s toads on the Outer Cape suggested periodically closing some roads in the National Seashore at night during peak migration season to avoid road mortalities. The towns of Keene, N.H. and Brunswick, N.J. have instituted closures of this kind during the first warm rainy spring nights to ensure their amphibians can safely cross the road.

    On an individual level, Ellis said, the best mitigation measure is simply driving more slowly and carefully, especially at night when animals tend to be more active. Goldfarb, too, recommends driving cautiously on warm, rainy spring nights when amphibians are apt to be out and about.

    “Cape Cod is a place that is just teeming with wildlife,” Ellis said. “So slow down.”

    FATAL ACCIDENT

    Teacher Is Killed in Apparent Hit and Run on Route 6 in Wellfleet

    Police seek information in the death of Jeffrey Richardson, 59

    By

    WELLFLEET — Jeffrey Richardson, 59, of Brookfield, Conn. died on July 11 at Cape Cod Hospital after what the Wellfleet police called “a possible hit and run accident” on Route 6 the night before.

    Jeffrey Richardson conducting the band at John Jay High School in Cross River, N.Y. (Photo courtesy Melissa Richardson)

    A report by Officer Laecio De Oliveira said police were called at 9:41 on the rainy evening of July 10 and found Richardson “lying unresponsive on Route 6 with visible severe head injuries.” CPR was administered by police and rescue personnel “within minutes of the call,” and police requested a med flight to Boston, which was “unavailable due to weather conditions.”

    Richardson was taken to the hospital in Hyannis by the Wellfleet ambulance squad.

    Police said the incident happened “near Joshua Lane,” a small road on the east side of the highway just north of Cove Road. Their report states that police are “specifically looking for any vehicle with damage to the passenger side, including the passenger side mirror.” The suspected hit-and-run driver was apparently traveling north toward Provincetown.

    The accident is under active investigation, the report stated, and “the public is urged to report any information they may have regarding this case to the department.”

    Richardson taught music at John Jay High School in Cross River, N.Y. from 1987 to his retirement in 2019, said his wife, Melissa, a music teacher at Meadow Pond Elementary School in South Salem, N.Y. The couple has two children, Liam, 24, and Mariel, 21.

    Melissa said they have vacationed in Wellfleet for over 30 years. “The first place we went on vacation was Wellfleet,” she said. “We just fell in love with it.”

    Melissa said her husband was walking back to the house where they were staying after a meeting in town when he was struck by a car. That night, she said, “I watched TV and went to bed. The next thing I know, the police are calling me from Jeff’s phone.”

    She was alone, with her daughter planning to arrive the next day. She drove herself to the hospital, she said, where she found her husband on life support. His organs were donated before he was taken off life support, she said.

    She criticized the police report. “There were not many details, and they spelled his name wrong,” she said. “Two people called the cops, and one said that they saw him stagger. And then the next call, which came within 15 seconds, said they saw him on the ground,” she said. “If those two people saw him, then there had to be somebody else who saw it.”

    The Wellfleet police declined a request for further information about the incident, citing the ongoing investigation.

    Melissa said her husband was extraordinarily generous and dedicated to his students. “He always gave students extra help,” she said.

    “He was the consummate master teacher,” said Stephen Morse, a former colleague of Jeffrey’s at John Jay. “Whenever students had a difficult time, his room was always a place of comfort.”

    Sam Kuhn, a 2010 John Jay graduate and saxophone player in the school band, described Jeffrey as “incredibly compassionate, fun, and intelligent. Everyone loved him. He was an inspiration to a lot of kids who might have been having a tough time in school. He made them feel like they had a place to go and feel welcomed, safe, and creative.”

    Melissa said there will be a celebration of life for Jeffrey at a time to be announced but for now she is hoping her family will get some answers.

    “It’s just so ironic that we would be in that place that makes us so happy with so many memories attached,” she said, “and somebody would just clip him on the side of the road and drive away.”

    TRAFFIC SAFETY

    Three Route 6 Incidents Highlight Summer’s Risks

    But much-desired safety improvements may be years away

    By

    WELLFLEET — It seems nobody and nothing is truly safe on Route 6 — not even the utility poles.

    A snapped utility pole on Route 6 at M.A. Frazier Enterprises. (Photo courtesy Matt Frazier)

    At about 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 7, Philip Zimmerman, 38, of South Dennis was driving north on Route 6 when he “struck and snapped” a utility pole in front of the Even’tide Motel, according to the Wellfleet police. Zimmerman continued driving the 2016 Chevrolet van, belonging to Aboody Electric of Dennis, for about a quarter mile before hitting and snapping a second utility pole in front of M.A. Frazier Enterprises. The vehicle came to rest near Bob’s Sub and Cone against a third pole, which was unharmed.

    Kendra Lindberg of Wellfleet, driving to her job at Bay Sales Marine, was behind Zimmerman’s van when it suddenly “jerked to the right and kicked up a bunch of dirt,” she said. She backed off and saw the van swerve right again, hitting the pole near the Even’tide.

    “The next thing you know, he jerks back onto the road and keeps going,” Lindberg said. “I thought, is this a movie? You stop when you hit the pole. You don’t keep going.”

    The police reported that Zimmerman was taken to Cape Cod Hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening and no one else was injured. He is being charged with three counts, including negligent operation of a motor vehicle and leaving the scene of property damage, according to Wellfleet Deputy Police Chief Kevin LaRocco.

    Neither Zimmerman nor Matt Aboody of Aboody Electric responded to requests for comment.

    Electric wires were lying across the highway when police arrived at the scene. Matt Frazier said the second snapped pole “did significant damage” to three of his employees’ vehicles. He said the impact uprooted underground wires and pulled them out of his meter box. William Hinkle of Eversource Energy said the crash caused nearly 250 customers to lose power. All had power restored by 5:30 that afternoon, said Hinkle.

    Frazier told the Independent he has seen several accidents on this stretch of road. He noted that because there are no easy detours off Route 6, some accidents can shut down traffic for hours.

    “Route 6 became a parking lot,” he said.

    A String of Incidents

    The Wellfleet crash followed two other cases of unsafe driving on Route 6 on June 5 and 6. All three, on three consecutive days, illustrate the highway’s safety risks.

    A fallen pole damaged three of Frazier’s employees’ vehicles. (Photo courtesy Matt Frazier)

    It is Cape Cod’s central artery, carrying steady traffic from the Sagamore Bridge to Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown. With few traffic lights, no left-turn lanes, and little provision for sidewalks or bike lanes, Route 6 on the Outer Cape can be hair-raising for drivers, bikers, and pedestrians alike.

    “An undivided two-lane road is not the safest thing in the world,” said former Wellfleet Fire Chief Dan Silverman. “People just need to learn patience.”

    “Massachusetts drivers are notoriously undisciplined,” he added. The highway “was not really built to handle the volume of traffic it has to deal with,” said Silverman.

    “With the drastic increase in traffic each spring and summer comes crashes and aggressive driving,” wrote Eastham Police Chief Adam Bohannon in an email.

    Just one day before the Zimmerman incident, at about 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 6, Truro, Wellfleet, and Eastham police responded to multiple 911 calls about two motorcycles “being operated in a highly erratic manner,” according to a press release from Wellfleet police.

    Two men, identified as Danilo Vasquez-Jimenez and Luis Fernando Gil Mejia, were reportedly going more than 100 miles per hour. Heading north in Truro, they were intercepted by Truro police and turned back toward Wellfleet, the release said.

    “Vasquez-Jimenez and Gil Mejia were seen by witnesses weaving in and out of traffic, passing against pavement marking in areas where passing is not permitted and failing to maintain marked lanes,” the police reported.

    The two men, both 26 and from Revere, were arrested by Eastham and Wellfleet police in the parking lot of the 7-11 in Eastham and will each face five charges, including negligent operation of a motor vehicle and speeding, police said.

    Route 6 was also the site of a four-vehicle crash in Eastham at Massasoit Road on Monday, June 5. Three people were transported to the hospital with “serious but non-life-threatening injuries,” Daniel Deschamps, Eastham’s deputy chief of police, wrote in an email. Five others were uninjured.

    Deschamps confirmed that one of the vehicles was attempting to make a left turn from the highway, a maneuver that is particularly problematic in Eastham, which has a high concentration of curb cuts on Route 6. Without a left-turn lane, cars must come to a complete stop in the middle of the highway and wait for a lull in oncoming traffic.

    Plans for Improvements

    Though efforts to improve Route 6 safety are underway in both Wellfleet and Eastham, Outer Cape residents will likely not see a reworked roadway for several years.

    Eastham presents a uniquely tricky case because Route 6 cuts directly through its town center. Despite a lower speed limit of 40 miles per hour in Eastham, frequent turns and fast-moving vehicles in the town center have been a scourge for years, Eastham Select Board member Aimee Eckman said.

    “It’s so dangerous that we’ve been talking for years about things to try to help alleviate some of the pressure out there,” she said.

    “It’s my pet peeve,” said the select board’s Arthur Autorino. “It has been since I’ve lived here. I personally drive 40 miles an hour on Route 6, and they’re zipping by me left and right.”

    Eastham’s efforts culminated in a town-initiated proposal to redesign Route 6 in North Eastham, part of the town’s five-year strategic plan. Assembled by engineering firm Environmental Partners, it was presented to the select board in January.

    The proposal suggests a “road diet” in places that would narrow the two lanes on each side to one and add a turning lane in the middle. These could be implemented at the intersections with Brackett and Massasoit roads, though Autorino said the locations for turning lanes are not finalized. The plan also includes a concrete median and separate lanes shared by pedestrians and cyclists.

    The design still needs approval from the Mass. Department of Transportation. Once MassDOT signs off, Eastham officials will have to assemble financing for construction, which will likely involve securing federal Transportation Improvement Program funds through the Cape Cod Commission, Eckman said.

    It may be five years before Outer Cape residents see the redesign happen, Eckman guessed.

    Route 6 in Wellfleet is also due for improvements. As part of a plan to repave the roadway, the state will be redoing traffic markings, including for bike lanes, and constructing “modified sidewalks” between the Eastham town line and Main Street, according to Wellfleet DPW Director Jay Norton.

    The town and MassDOT are also pursuing a substantial redesign of the intersection of Route 6 and Main Street. The plan includes sidewalks on each side of Route 6 and the north side of Main Street, five-foot bike lanes with a two-foot painted buffer on each side, updated signal equipment, and a left-turn lane into the Outer Cape Health Services pharmacy, Norton said.

    Norton said that bids for both projects will be advertised on either June 24 or July 1, though a MassDOT moratorium on summer work prevents construction from starting until the fall at the earliest. Though Norton said he did not know the duration of the repaving work, he anticipates construction on the Main Street project lasting between six and seven years.

    In the meantime, officials in both towns said they wish reckless motorists on Route 6 would simply slow down.

    “It’s kind of like we’re sitting on the sidelines of the Indianapolis 500, watching these cars zipping by at 50, 60 miles an hour,” Autorino said. Especially now that the town is redeveloping its town center, he said, “we want Eastham to be an end destination, not some place you pass through.”

    CYCLING

    Small Improvements Presage Bigger Trail Projects

    Pieces of an Outer Cape bicycle network fall into place, but progress is slow

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Turning disparate stretches of bike trail into a connected network can be like carpentry: the junctions and joinery require just as much attention as the long boards.

    One such piece of joinery is currently under construction in the Cape Cod National Seashore. A pre-existing one-third-mile stretch of bike trail running alongside Race Point Road from just north of Route 6 until it reaches the Beech Forest Trail is being resurfaced and widened and will be open to bicycle traffic by late May, according to National Seashore planner Lauren McKean.

    Construction is underway on the Beech Forest Bike Trail spur. (Photo by Amelia Roth-Dishy)

    Thick with tree roots, the spur had “just degraded to a point where it’s not really usable,” said Max Cliggott-Perlt, treasurer of the Provincetown Bicycle Committee.

    According to bicycle committee chair Rik Ahlberg, the repaved spur is only one part of a broader plan to create a continuous route from MacMillan Pier to the Beech Forest, which runs along Standish Street, Cemetery Street, and Conwell Street using a “not-very-obvious routing.”

    “The final piece of this puzzle is adding bike lanes along the town’s portion of Race Point Road,” Ahlberg said. This idea is on the town’s radar and has been discussed at various meetings, but a formal plan has not yet emerged, according to Provincetown Dept. of Public Works Director Jim Vincent.

    After Labor Day, work will begin on another bike trail project in the Seashore: the new Route 6 Bike Trail Connector, which will follow the easternmost 800 feet of Route 6 and then veer north along Province Lands Road to Herring Cove Beach, where it will meet that section of the Province Lands Bike Trail.

    McKean said that the connector project should be finished by early November. Both projects include widening trails to a standard 10 feet, restriping center lines, and improving drainage in low-lying sections.

    These short trails fill key gaps in a continuous path for cyclists from Commercial Street to the open Atlantic. Provincetown was recently named America’s “most bikeable small city” in an analysis by PeopleforBikes.

    Shank Painter Road Project

    The Route 6 connector being built this fall will eventually link up with a longer bicycle and pedestrian trail that will replace the two southern lanes of Route 6 between Shank Painter Road and Herring Cove. That multimodal path is part of the state-and-federal-funded Shank Painter Road Project, which aims to make that street a more vibrant, accessible, and safe gateway to and through town.

    According to a design plan by Environmental Partners and submitted to MassDOT in 2019, the project will set aside dedicated space for sidewalks, bike lanes, and new trees, and will install a roundabout at the Route 6 intersection in 2019, applying a “Complete Streets” design along the Shank Painter corridor. The final segment of the plan is a “road diet” for the stretch of Route 6 between Shank Painter Road and Herring Cove that would merge vehicular traffic onto the two northern or Seashore-side lanes and create a shared path for bicycles and pedestrians on the two southern or town-side lanes.

    That places the bike trail on the southern side of the newly narrowed Route 6, while the 800-foot connector to Herring Cove will be on the northern side. The town just received a $400,000 Federal Lands Access Program (FLAP) grant to fund a road crossing between the two trails.

    “That’s always a tricky part of any type of project: who owns the land?” Vincent said. “Is it the state, the feds, or the town? The [FLAP] grant will help us do the work right at that boundary and take care of some of those complications.” The exact details of the crossing are still being worked out, he said.

    The Route 6 Bike Trail Connector will connect the planned multiuse path in the town-side lanes of Route 6 to the Province Lands Bike Trail at Herring Cove Beach. (Image courtesy Provincetown Bicycle Committee)

    The select board saw the design for the Shank Painter Road project nearly four years ago, and conversations about redoing the road began as early as 2016. The construction timeline has now been pushed back from the upcoming fiscal year, which starts in July, to the fiscal year after that.

    At the Feb. 10 meeting of the Cape Cod Joint Transportation Committee, state officials said that a final design justification workbook for the project was required before a public design hearing could happen. Jim Fitzgerald, the Environmental Partners consultant on the project, also mentioned the proposed Court Street stormwater pump station project as another reason for the delay.

    Vincent agreed that the pump station, added to the Environmental Partners plan for the town in 2021 to mitigate extreme flooding on Court Street, may have prolonged the process. “It does involve all three agencies, and different agencies have different requirements, and it just takes longer to review,” he said.

    On March 27, the Cape Cod Metropolitan Planning Organization voted to spread the funding for Shank Painter Road — to the tune of just over $16.3 million — over three years of Transportation Improvement Program ledgers from 2025 to 2027.

    The 2019 design, which in industry parlance was a “25-percent design,” will go to a public hearing in Provincetown this June, Vincent confirmed. Usually, a 75-percent design can be expected within six months of the hearing, and a 100-percent design six months later.

    Once completed, cyclists will be able to ride designated multi-use paths from Bradford Street to Herring Cove, passing through town, state, and federal land along the way. Seeing the project through is a priority for the bicycle committee, Cliggott-Perlt said. “Two or three years ago, it was off to a good start, and since then it has fizzled a bit,” he noted.

    Safety Is Still an Issue

    While the Beech Forest spur, Route 6 Connector, and Shank Painter Road project will all help cyclists get from Provincetown to the Province Lands, the bike infrastructure connecting Provincetown to Truro and Wellfleet is a thornier problem. In 2017, the Cape Cod Commission prepared an Outer Cape Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan for the National Park Service, which recommended a separated multi-use path along stretches of Route 6 to complete a 10-mile route from the Cape Cod Rail Trail extension in South Wellfleet to Provincetown.

    At present, while bikeable back roads abound in Wellfleet and Shore Road provides a relatively safe route for cyclists entering Truro from Provincetown, it is impossible for a commuting cyclist to avoid travel along Route 6 while traversing the entire middle section of Truro. A new state bicycle safety law mandating a “safe passing distance” of four feet or more for motorists went into effect on April 1, though it’s unclear what enforcement of the statute might look like on the Outer Cape.

    More detailed plans are now emerging for a Route 6 bike path. At a Truro Bike & Walkways Committee meeting on March 13, state officials and consultants offered two preliminary designs for Project 61540, a 7.8-mile 12-foot-wide path with a planted buffer and stretches of sidewalk that would run along a to-be-determined side of Route 6 from Main Street in Wellfleet to Shore Road in Truro.

    “We’re also making more progress on the march towards P’town, if you will,” MassDOT planner Michael Trepanier said. Trepanier told the Truro committee that they were the first stakeholders to see these plans, and that the state had a lot of “municipal coordination to start working through.”

    TRAFFIC CALMING

    Route 6 May Go on a ‘Road Diet’ in North Eastham

    Select board likes a plan to reduce highway lanes from 4 to 2

    By

    EASTHAM — Imagine making a left turn on Route 6 without taking your life in your hands and being able to ride a bike or walk along the highway on a path free from vehicular traffic.

    That is the vision that Jim Fitzgerald, director of transportation for the Quincy engineering firm Environmental Partners, presented to the select board on Jan. 23.

    From Brackett Road to Orleans: Keep all four lanes but put a median strip in the middle and provide left-turn pockets. The plan includes a shared-use bike and pedestrian path on the opposite side of the highway from the Cape Cod Rail Trail.

    The town hired the company for $86,300 to study ways to improve safety, slow travel speeds, and make Eastham friendlier to cyclists and pedestrians. The six miles of Route 6 in Eastham are hair-raising because of multiple curb cuts along four lanes of traffic. In just a 2.5-mile stretch, the Cape Cod Commission counted 100 curb cuts. That means drivers are constantly stopping the flow of traffic to make left turns. It also means motorists can pull onto the highway at dozens of places, though the wait can be frustratingly long.

    Impatient motorists sometimes attempt to take advantage of a narrow gap in traffic, and “that can be unsafe,” Fitzgerald said.

    In North Eastham alone, 111 car accidents were reported on Route 6 between 2015 and 2019, said Fitzgerald. There have been three fatalities since 2015. A pedestrian was struck and killed one night in August 2015 near the Brackett Road intersection. That same year, a car struck a cyclist. The third death occurred in 2021 when a car pulled onto Route 6 and hit a southbound vehicle near the Brickhouse Restaurant, according to the Cape Cod Commission.

    From Wellfleet town line to Brackett Road: The select board liked the concept of reducing the highway to two lanes with a traffic island in the middle and a shared-use bike and pedestrian path on the ocean side of the highway. (Graphics courtesy Environmental Partners)

    That was one of 40 “angle crashes” that usually occur when a vehicle pulls in front of another, causing the two cars to hit each other at an angle. Angle collisions are “some of the most severe crashes that happen on our roadways,” according to the commission.

    Though the speed limit on Route 6 in Eastham is 40 miles per hour, the four-lane highway design encourages drivers to go much faster.

    “Traffic-calming treatments” involve narrowing the roadway, Fitzgerald said. “Four lanes of asphalt feels pretty wide open, so they do tend to fly.”

    After several months of work by Environmental Partners and years of previous studies and reports, Fitzgerald presented his new Route 6 design to the select board last week.

    The most radical change in the plan is reducing the number of lanes from four to two from the Wellfleet town line to Brackett Road. Reducing the number of lanes is known as a “road diet,” Fitzgerald said. The plan calls for putting a landscaped median between two lanes, one in each direction, with left-turn pockets so that people cannot make left turns from the highway wherever they want.

    Drivers pulling onto the highway would be forced to go one way and then use a turn lane should they wish to cross the highway or reverse direction. Though this is slightly inconvenient, Fitzgerald said, it will accomplish three major objectives. Left turners will no longer stop the flow of traffic; there will be plenty of room for a dedicated shared-use bike and pedestrian lane, with a grass median separating them from the cars. It will also slow traffic.

    The lane reduction won’t work all the way to the Orleans Rotary, however, because the traffic volume is too high to make a road diet feasible, Fitzgerald said. He explained that there are 33,800 vehicles per day on average in South Eastham and 24,300 once you get to the Wellfleet town line.

    So, the design south of Brackett Road calls for four lanes, with a narrow grass median and pockets for turning left. The plan calls for the same shared bike and pedestrian pathway on the side of the highway opposite the Cape Cod Rail Trail. (It would switch sides where the bike path tunnel funnels cyclists under the highway.)

    Design elements that ended up in the scrap heap included rotaries. One was considered at the entrance to what may one day be a bustling T-Time plaza.

    “Roundabouts create a disruption where none exists,” Fitzgerald said. “It could slow down traffic even more.”

    Though this Route 6 plan is years from implementation — it must be fine-tuned and approved by the state Dept. of Transportation (DOT), which would pay for construction — the select board liked it.

    “This is very exciting,” said board member Aimee Eckman. “I have been banging this drum for a lot of years. I really like the median idea.”

    Board member Art Autorino asked if the DOT’s plan scheduled for 2024 to taper the four lanes to two lanes on Route 6 shortly before the Wellfleet town line had been considered in the road diet. Fitzgerald said those designs could work together.

    Autorino asked if the DOT will actually go for the Environmental Partners plan.

    “They will really want to be sure that what is designed and constructed is the optimum solution,” Fitzgerald replied. While separated bike and pedestrian lanes are not cheap, “we want the DOT to understand the gravity of the situation,” Fitzgerald added.

    “I think the median is more rural,” Autorino said. “It encourages people to slow down and aesthetically it is significantly better.”

    “The median is great as long as they don’t become Jersey barriers,” said board member Gerald Cerasale.

    Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe said the next step is to get this plan approved by the DOT and put into the funding pipeline. Fitzgerald suggested that the town proceed in phases, with Phase 1 being the road diet in North Eastham.

    GROUNDWORK

    Life in the Slow Lane on Route 6 in Eastham

    ‘Community’ is the operative word as plans are laid for the town’s future

    By

    EASTHAM — If you hadn’t been paying such close attention, you might not know how much has changed on Route 6 in Eastham this year. The cars still barrel along, and the various projects underway on the main drag can seem to trail behind.

    In the time that elapsed between the closure of the T-Time driving range in 2013 and last month’s announcement that it would become a mixed-use town center, I got my driver’s license, graduated from high school, then college. I’ve voted in two presidential elections.

    It will likely be at least two more years before the town breaks ground on the project, which also includes the recently purchased Town Center Plaza. The word “T-Time” won’t appear in the news as much in 2022, as the North Eastham Town Center enters the master planning phase, which is expected to last the whole year.

    A final town meeting vote on the site’s particulars will follow completion of the master plan. When all is said and done, Eastham is expected to have something more like a town center, including a community center and more housing that working people can afford. We don’t yet know how many new apartments the town center plan will create, but we do know that, according to its 2021 housing production plan, Eastham currently has a deficit of 195 affordable rental units and 380 home ownership units.

    A number of aging motels along Route 6 may end up helping the town address that need. This year, Eastham got serious about the possibility of converting old, out-of-business motor inns like the Atlantic Breeze, owned since 2007 by real estate investor Bruce MacGregor of Brewster and Provincetown. How? The town’s Zoning Bylaw Task Force is working on warrant articles to make inclusionary zoning for motel conversions legal.

    At the most recent select board meeting on Dec. 20, Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe said that these bylaws will likely come before voters at the 2022 Annual Town Meeting. They would then go into effect a year from now, after receiving the OK from the state attorney general’s office.

    MacGregor has said that, before any Atlantic Breeze conversion happens, he plans to redevelop the former Nickerson service station, across the highway from Cumberland Farms. He bought it in a 2015 foreclosure auction for $275,000.

    For years, a decrepit pickup truck has sat outside the old garage, the firewood in its bed slowly rotting. But new retail spaces could soon potentially replace the abandoned service station. Beanstock Coffee owner John Simonian said this week that he and MacGregor have talked about opening a location at 4515 State Hwy. Beanstock’s headquarters is nearby on Holmes Road. MacGregor said he thinks there will be two storefronts when the redevelopment is finished, but also that he’s still in the early stages of planning.

    The Eastham Superette, famous for staying open 365 days a year, closed twice in 2021: once when a nor’easter took out power across the Outer Cape in October, and again when the Wilcoxes spent a day handing the store over to its new owners, the Patels. (Photo Cam Blair)

    After nearly a year of discussion and steady encouragement from select board chair Art Autorino, the town this fall purchased several flashing speed signs to be strategically placed on Route 6. But because the Mass. Dept. of Transportation has jurisdiction over the road, the signs will not be installed and activated until sometime in 2022.

    Emerald Grove and Salty Farmers, Eastham’s first and second recreational marijuana dispensaries, opened in 2021. To do so, they faced down a legal challenge about their locations, then both had long waits for state permits and inspections. Those hoping to have their marijuana delivered by a driver — the better to keep customers off Eastham’s superhighway — have more waiting to do. The planning board delayed issuing delivery company Kush Kart’s special permit until January because the police dept. needed more time to approve the company’s security plan.

    Some things did happen quickly. In August, Sarah and Eddie Wilcox announced they were selling the Eastham Superette after running the business for nine years. As of last month, they have handed over the reins to convenience store business partners Jigar and Manny Patel of Boston and New York. Enjoy life in Maine, Sarah and Eddie.

    SPEED

    Eastham Wants a Main Street, Not a Highway

    The town’s long-term plan would involve structural changes to Route 6

    By

    EASTHAM — Every driver who enters Eastham via Route 6 is greeted by an orange sign warning that the next 6.2 miles of highway are a “High Traffic Enforcement Area.” Most local drivers already know this. But when it comes to actually slowing the cars on the town’s main drag, said select board chair Art Autorino, the signs “are absolutely worthless.

    “I like to say we live in the grandstands of the Indianapolis 500,” he added. “Route 6 is horrible.”

    For many Eastham residents, Route 6 feels like too much highway and not enough Main Street. “It is one of the number-one frustrations we hear,” said Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe.

    The town’s five-year strategic plan calls for that to change. That’s why, Beebe said, the town has “bitten the bullet” and hired a traffic engineer, Jim Fitzgerald of Environmental Partners, to analyze four years of data collected by the Mass. Dept. of Transportation (DOT). But any changes to the road would require approval from the state. According to Beebe, the timeline for a project like that is roughly six years.

    A flashing radar sign on Route 6 at Governor Prence Road in Eastham tells an approaching driver that he’s going 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. (Photo Teresa Parker)

    In the meantime, for motorists entering Eastham, the speed limit dips to 40 miles per hour (from 45 in Wellfleet and 50 on the Mid-Cape Highway). Despite that drop and the warnings of a higher police presence, speeders going 50 and 60 mph are not unusual, according to a letter the select board sent to the state police and to the DOT in April.

    It’s not that the local police are ignoring the problem. “I’m always telling officers that one of their top priorities is traffic enforcement on Route 6,” said Eastham Police Chief Adam Bohannon.

    The Eastham Police Dept.’s reputation for making more traffic stops than those in neighboring towns is borne out by statistics. From 2018 to 2020, Eastham police made 8,663 traffic stops. During that same period, Wellfleet officers made 4,071 stops and Orleans police made 6,092.

    There is also a structural issue at play: Route 6 is four lanes wide through Eastham, allowing drivers to pass others freely. In the summer, up to 30,000 motorists per day cross the town on Route 6, many of them passing through with no other available route. Meanwhile, unlike in neighboring communities, Route 6 serves as Eastham’s main street. For those who live, work, or visit shops here, traversing the busy roadway is a daily struggle.

    “The road cleaves the town in half,” said Beebe, “and we don’t have a left turn into a quaint little town like Wellfleet.”

    In its April letter, the select board requested an increased presence of state troopers on Route 6 to help with traffic enforcement, as well as permission from the DOT to put up flashing radar speeding signs along the roadway.

    Bohannon said that in the spring the state police did send more officers to assist with traffic patrol, but the help waned during summer. “We’re hoping that it comes back this fall,” said Bohannon. He also said the town has replaced an unmarked patrol car and recently received a grant of roughly $8,000 to help pay for additional traffic enforcement patrols.

    Outside the Eastham Public Library last Sunday afternoon, a reporter from the Independent asked seven passers-by for their thoughts about the idea of increased traffic enforcement. All seven thought Eastham has a significant speeding problem on Route 6.

    “I don’t want to blame people from Truro and Provincetown,” said Debbie Abbott, who lives in town and is president of the Friends of the Eastham Public Library. “People in Eastham speed, too. But some people just fly through town. What, are you trying to win the race to the rotary?”

    But, she added, “Speed patrol isn’t a 24/7 solution.”

    Bohannon said that, at a minimum, he wants to install two flashing speed signs near the Orleans and Wellfleet town lines, to say “Here’s the speed limit” as one enters Eastham. The town has received permission to put up six signs along Route 6, though there is no timetable for their installation, he said.

    The Eastham police also have one pop-up flashing radar sign set up on a grass island at Route 6 and Governor Prence Road that tells drivers their speed. Outside the police station, where in the past a portable programmable sign has reminded residents about an important town meeting or vote, the flashing orange lights read: “Please observe speed limit. 40 MPH.”

    Any plan to smooth and slow Route 6 traffic from the Orleans rotary to the Wellfleet town line will be “enormously” expensive, according to Beebe. After Fitzgerald submits an initial plan, the community will have opportunities to give opinions. Assuming residents support the project, town officials would bring it to the state for further approval and help with funding.

    The creation of a walkable town center along Route 6 is a top priority for creating a sense of town identity and maximizing economic opportunities, according to the strategic plan. Town planners want to give both residents and visitors an easier way to stop at this future town center, because right now, said Beebe, “Mostly, you’re just driving through Eastham.”

    INTERSECTIONALITY

    After 7 Years, the Plan to Fix Route 6 at Main St. Is One-Fourth Done

    Negotiating easements on Wellfleet’s Main Street won’t be easy

    By

    WELLFLEET — Adding a sidewalk and bike paths along East Main Street is, in theory, a dream come true for many townspeople. But not everyone is thrilled about the plans.

    Some property owners on Main Street say they do not like the idea of a sidewalk encroaching on their land. The town will need to buy portions of nine properties and obtain 12 permanent easements and 13 temporary ones to complete plans to make the treacherous intersection of Route 6 and Main Street safer, said Jay Norton, the director of Wellfleet’s dept. of public works. Norton said the list of easements may change as the project progresses.

    The intersection of Route 6 and Wellfleet’s Main Street is dangerous. It’s especially risky for southbound drivers on Route 6 trying to turn left into the Outer Cape Health Services Pharmacy. (Photo Nancy Bloom)

    That crossroads has been flagged as one of the most dangerous intersections in the county. Plans to renovate it have been in the works since 2014. The cost of the $11-million project will mostly be covered by state and federal funds. The work, however, has been held up for years because of its being entangled with the unpopular — and now scuttled — Cape Cod Rail Trail extension. The pandemic did not help either effort.

    The project is still only at the 25-percent design phase, where it has lingered for three years, said Wellfleet Police Chief Mike Hurley. The plan must be approved by 2022 to stay in the state and federal budget cycle, Norton said.

    “It’s a very competitive process, as there are many projects waiting to be programed, so it’s in the town’s best interest to maintain positive momentum,” Norton told the Independent.

    Also, Norton said, the state is planning to repave the entire length of Route 6 from Eastham to Truro in 2023, making it “that much more critical for the two projects to remain on a concurrent path.”

    On Sept. 22, the state Dept. of Transportation (DOT) held a public hearing on the 25-percent plans. The design includes sidewalks and painted bike lanes on both sides of the highway as well as five-foot-wide bike lanes on both sides of Main Street. It also calls for a sidewalk on the north side of Main Street from the Wicked Oyster restaurant to Route 6.

    During the hearing, officials revealed the need to negotiate one “fee acquisition” for an area along Route 6 that is currently private property. The state must also get three permanent easements and 23 temporary easements along the highway, Norton said.

    Meanwhile, the town must negotiate and pay for nine acquisitions and facilitate 12 permanent and 13 temporary easements on Main Street. The select board plans to discuss cost, budgeting, and strategies for obtaining these easements on Oct. 12. Board chair Ryan Curley did not want to say if there is money budgeted, or the political will, to pursue the plan until that Oct. 12 meeting.

    Zachary Ment, manager of the Piping Plover marijuana shop at the corner of Main Street and Route 6, said he is no fan of a sidewalk going over his property. The town will have to pursue the taking by eminent domain, he said. It will have to pay fair market value for the taking, and Ment plans to pursue aggressive price negotiations, he said.

    Municipal takings cannot be halted by property owners’ objections. The DOT states that owners may petition the courts if they believe the price is not fair, but “this action does not stop or delay the acquisition.”

    The proposed sidewalk would cross Ment’s new lawn. The construction will probably kill his cherry trees, Ment added.

    Another affected property owner, Ment’s neighbor Nancy Cook, said that she preferred not to comment. Wicked Oyster owner Ken Kozak said he had not seen plans and was awaiting a proposal with trepidation. Kozak fears he could lose his parking lot in the front of the restaurant.

    “Why can’t they put it on the other side?” he asked.

    Ment said he, too, would prefer a sidewalk on the other side of the street, where pedestrians and cyclists have made a well-worn dirt path. The path allows people traveling toward Route 6 to continue south on the highway without having to cross it.

    Adding a sidewalk and bike paths along Main Street will be a tight squeeze. (Photo K.C. Myers)

    To accommodate Ment and others, the select board has formally requested that the state reduce the proposed five-foot bike lanes on Main Street to three-foot-wide paths.

    At the public hearing, criticisms of and questions about the proposed improvements along Route 6 surfaced as well.

    That plan begins near Way 68 and extends a third of a mile north to the intersection with Main Street and just beyond the Outer Cape Health Services Pharmacy. It includes adding southbound left turn lanes at the pharmacy and at Cahoon Hollow Road. Hurley said it could make sense to extend the Cahoon Hollow turn lane farther down the highway, to make turning safer at Cumberland Farms.

    This turning lane would be similar to the one alongside the strip mall that houses Dunkin Donuts, the Terps Wellfleet dispensary, the post office, and Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater.

    Hurley said the Dunkin turn lane has improved safety.

    Although people are questioning some details, in general, Norton said, the plan appears to be moving toward the 75-percent design phase, which will be presented to the public in December, according to the DOT’s announcement.

    A full description of the project is available on the DOT website: mass.gov/doc/massdot-hearing-handout-wellfleet-092221/download.

    Editor’s note: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article published in print on Oct. 7 erroneously identified Jay Norton as acting director of the Wellfleet DPW. He has been named permanent director of the department.

    HOUSING

    Mixed-Use Developments Planned for Route 6 in Eastham

    Neighbors want to prevent access via Wiley Lane cul-de-sac

    By

    EASTHAM — Two projects have been proposed for the Transition Commercial District, designed for small-scale commercial and residential development on Route 6 outside the Core Commercial Area. But neighbors have raised objections to allowing access via nearby Wiley Lane.

    CEO Tim Klink of Coastal Companies wants to develop two properties south of his 4665 Route 6 office. First, he would demolish two dilapidated buildings immediately to the south and build a mixed-use retail and residential building with four one-bedroom apartments on the second floor and a possible coffee shop on the first.

    Residential project
    Coastal Companies, with offices at right on southbound Route 6 in Eastham, wants to develop an adjacent property (the boarded-up building at left) as a mixed-use commercial-residential project and another property further south as a townhouse development. (Photos Ed Maroney)

    South of that, on a heavily wooded lot at 4615 Route 6, Klink wants to build 16 townhouse units in eight buildings. The one- and two-bedroom units would be condominiums, priced from the high $300,000s to high $400,000s.

    The developer is proposing that the homes be accessed from Route 6 southbound via a single curb cut shared with his 4655 property. To limit left-hand turns in or out by northbound traffic, the development would open at its southwest corner into a cul-de-sac at the end of Wiley Lane, which feeds into Massasoit Road.

    “We have rights to develop Wiley Lane all the way out to Route 6 … but it’s not in the best interests of the neighbors or of the town,” Klink said by telephone at a planning board hearing on March 18. Still, he said, “people living in this development should have the right to come and go with an access not on Route 6.”

    Also on the telephone for the remote meeting were representatives of 8 of the 12 households on Wiley Lane. All were opposed to use of the cul-de-sac.

    “I think housing is important, but to open up Wiley Lane for traffic, to a shortcut away from Route 6, would be an inconvenience for any of us living here,” Evelyn Mullen said.

    Debbie Canyock, who said her house is “right next to the property to be developed,” protested the introduction of “a significant amount of traffic, more than double what we have. It’s a quiet residential street. Most people bought their property for that reason. We have a daughter in a wheelchair we like to bring on street walks.”

    “The development in and of itself seems appropriate and appealing for the area,” said Mike McCarthy, but access through Wiley Lane “will change the character of the neighborhood drastically.”

    Driveway in Wiley Lane
    A proposed driveway in the Wiley Lane cul-de-sac would provide access to Massasoit Road for townhouse residents.

    Jane Whitney said she wouldn’t have bought her corner lot on Wiley and Massasoit if Wiley were not a cul-de-sac. “In the summer, Massasoit is backed up all the way to Route 6 by the Wellfleet movie theater,” she said. “There’s not a possibility this driveway will not be used as a cut-through.”

    Klink said alternatives had been explored, but it’s important “that people in the neighborhood have a safe way to get to Massasoit Road without going to Route 6.”

    Stephen Woodard said he couldn’t imagine why “anybody on the board would think this is a good idea. We started out with a representation that it would be senior housing [via age restrictions that were later dropped]. Then it’s not 100-percent owner-occupied; [they] encourage summer rentals.”

    Before hearing from the public, planning board members had praised the project and questioned some elements of it. Noting attractions such as Ben & Jerry’s and Dunkin Donuts down the street, Board Member Jim Kivlehan suggested “extending the sidewalk down to the traffic light” for pedestrians. Klink said he would consider a sidewalk connection to the proposed coffee shop.

    Vice Chair Lauren Barker said the development “accomplishes what we’re looking for overall: infill of empty spaces. The landscaping and architecture are really top-notch.” She approved the absence of age restrictions. “With our housing needs, there are single people of all ages,” she said. “These would be perfect for working people on the Outer Cape.”

    Asked by Barker how he would “prevent use of these as summer rentals,” Klink countered, “We would encourage it…. Some rentals are critical to our economic environment.”

    Chair Art Autorino asked Klink to “seriously consider” testimony regarding this “through way on Wiley Lane. If you eliminated that, most of the abutter dissent would go away.”

    “We’ll take a look at it,” Klink said. Both projects were continued to the board’s April 15 meeting.

    LAND USE

    T-Time Panel Revisits Old Plan for N. Eastham

    Group will walk the site of a ‘potential town center’

    By

    EASTHAM — The documents that the T-Time Development Committee collected for its second meeting on Jan. 28 included the North Eastham Village Center plan created back in 2007. The 11 members of the new committee have been tasked with recommending uses for the 11-acre former driving range on Route 6, now owned by the town.

    “It’s what that group thought was important 10 to 12 years ago,” Chair Scott Kerry said. “It’s not based on T-Time, but it’s in that region. At the time, it included the Purcell project and up on Holmes Road.” The Purcell project is now the Village at Nauset Green affordable housing development.

    Kerry ticked off the 2007 plan’s priorities: a vibrant economic center, mixed-use development, smooth traffic flow, affordable housing, senior rental housing, and road-front improvements. “There are many of the same themes 12 years later,” he said.

    T-time map
    The T-Time property abuts the Cape Cod Rail Trail, to the east, and Willy’s World, to the south. (Map courtesy Paul Lagg)

    “A lot of those concepts were incorporated into zoning when we did the DCPC [District of Critical Planning Concern] and rezoned that district,” said Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe.

    The old Village Center plan had the former Purcell land as “kind of the keystone property,” Town Planner Paul Lagg said. “There was a potential town center there,” possibly including a relocated post office. Conceptually, Lagg said, the size of the T-Time and Nauset Green properties “is close. T-Time is actually better terrain.”

    The committee agreed that the next step was to take a walk.

    The members will walk the T-Time site at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 24. “I’d love everyone to see the same thing,” Kerry told his colleagues. “I might see something different than you.” Beebe and Lagg will come along to answer questions.

    “I’ve been around Eastham a long time and there were certain areas I didn’t know were there,” Kerry said of the site. “Paul will provide us with a really nice overlay map of the adjacent parcels. For myself, I’m interested in the parcels from this parcel to Brackett Road and along that property in back. I think it’s the backbone of the potential use of the property. If you look from Route 6, it’s behind Ponderosa [Landscaping]; it’s a pretty good chunk.” Committee Vice Chair Karen Strauss suggested looking north toward Nauset Road as well.

    The committee is planning for months of studying documents and listening to the public before bringing its preferred options to the select board.

    “The earliest we’ll have something is 15 months out,” Kerry said. “Nothing for this town meeting.”

    In the stack of reading was the town’s recently completed five-year strategic plan. “Did you eye any particular action steps that this parcel could be used for?” member Suzanne Bryan asked those at the table who had worked on the document. Strauss said the plan didn’t focus on particular parcels, and Beebe said the idea was to lay out the town’s priorities in a way that “a group of people could ask, does this fit or doesn’t it, in yearone or year five.”

    Whatever the site becomes, it won’t be a nature preserve. “This is very unlikely to be a good place for habitat,” Strauss said. “It’s been developed.” She said it contained no wetland and was not home to any of the state’s species of concern.

    Scott Kerry of T-Time Development Committee
    Chair Scott Kerry conducts the second meeting of the T-Time Development Committee on Jan. 28 as Eastham Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe listens. (Photo Ed Maroney)

    Also among the documents was a report from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) that Kerry said “covered a lot of the same themes we continue to talk about — how to make Route 6 the best it can be.” Member Jacqueline O’Rourke said that the ULI recommended that the town hire an economic development coordinator, and Beebe noted that the budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 includes a planner and economic development specialist working under Lagg who “will be very helpful to T-Time. We will bring that person right into your group as soon as we have him or her.”

    Lagg asked members to bear with him on a subject that might be “a little into the weeds” in discussing a document from the Cape Cod Commission on “form-based zoning,” which “gets to regulating the form, the look, and the layout of buildings as opposed to the uses.” The study looked at sites in Eastham and other towns to see how to develop mixed-use, higher-density housing that fits in with the aesthetics of the town, “so it looks like Eastham,” he said.

    Homework in hand, members prepared to leave as Kerry said, “There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t have somebody telling me, ‘Don’t rush. Don’t just jump at something.’ This is an opportunity to really think outside the box. What is it we want to do for our community with this parcel? There’s an opportunity for everyone to learn along the way.”

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