Williamstown Selectmen Mull Bee Hill Truck Ban
 Paul Harsch showed the Selectmen pictures he took of SUVs trying to squeeze by each other on Bee Hill Road to support his suggestion to prevent through traffic. |
The board had a lengthy discussion about the merits of the proposal after a presentation by Paul Harsch, who built a house on the dirt road two years ago. Harsch, who said he was speaking "for the road and the trees," gave a slideshow to illustrate the difficulty of two-way traffic on the scenic road and the damage being done to the trees that hug the lane.
"This is the scenic road we are losing," said Harsch, who added if the town didn't want to preserve the wooded road, "let's just open it up and make it like any other highway ... either shut down the road or chop all the trees."
After photographing sport-utility vehicles trying to squeeze by each other, scarred trees and deep culverts, and speaking with residents and travelers along the road, the local Realtor said he believed that the use of the road as a "shortcut" between the Taconic Trail and Routes 2 and 7 farther north was part of the problem. In one case, he said, an 18-wheeler had tried to take the farm lane as a shortcut because his global positioning system device suggested it.
The town had done this at least once before, said Harsch, when it closed off Hopper Road from Route 7. Plus, he added, residents on the road hadn't expressed "strong reservations" about limiting access. The road would be blocked so the upper end would be accessed at the Taconic Trail; the lower end at north entrance on Routes 2 and 7.
However, Chairman Ronald Turbin, another Bee Hill resident, said he wasn't convinced that those along the road wanted it closed off or that it would be a good thing for the town.
"That's not my experience," he said of talking to his neighbors, but did think a heavy truck exclusion "would be palatable." "I think it's in the interest of the town to have another through road," Turbin continued. If trees or lines came down, it would block not only residents' access but that of emergency and public service vehicles, he said.
Selectman Tom Costley pointed out that if the road were blocked in the middle, it would require carving out turnarounds that could accommodate town snowplows and fire trucks. Finding any land for that would be just as difficult as widening the road, said Tree Warden Robert McCarthy, because it would mean going onto private land, including Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation.
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"When that road was originally built, it was built for horses and buggies, it wasn't built for the type of traffic or the size of the equipment we have today," said McCarthy. "But when you look at the size of the houses that have been built up there — and some of these houses are in the millions of dollars — they have to have tremendous pieces of equipment to get up there to build the house ... and when the house is built 18-wheelers to move the furniture. Then the Highway Department gets criticized for cutting into the roots — and absolutely it's killing those trees no question about it — but what alternative to do they have?"
Town Manager Peter Fohlin said the board could find that night that the road was "less than adequate," as Costley put it, and have it blocked by noon. It also could begin the process to ban heavy truck traffic, which would require input from the state Department of Transportation.
However, there was also the matter of what the town wants, since town meeting had accepted the road as a throughway, he said. Town meeting would have to be "definitive resolution to the situation."
The board put the issue on the backburner until it could determine if it really was an issue; Fohlin said he would look into the process of banning truck traffic.
Harsch repeated he'd come to represent the trees and what could be done for them. McCarthy said if someone were farsighted enough, they'd plant trees 30 feet from the road in the field areas in the hopes of replicating today's view a 100 years from now. But as for the current trees, "there's nothing you can do to bring those trees back; we're going to lose them."
In other business, the board:
♦ Approved an application from Nancy Nguyen for Saigon Vietnamese Cuisine opening at 66 Spring St. for a wine and malt beverage license, a common victualer license and a background music permit. Nguyen had opened the restaurant at Valley Park Lanes in North Adams just this past January.
♦ Authorized the chairman to sign the town's Green Communities application prior to the Nov. 19 deadline. Fohlin said the town's application is nearly complete but the Selectmen would not meet in time for the deadline. The application requires the town to adopt a stretch building code (approved at town meeting); right to siting of renewable energy and expedited permitting process. The town's fuel efficient vehicle policy needs to be completed before the application can be submitted.
♦ Alcohol compliance checks were recently made at the town's 21 restaurants and pouring establishments and all 21 passed, giving the town 100 percent compliance.
♦ Heard from Deborah Rothschild, a member of Concerned Citizens of Williamstown, on the biomass plant being proposed next door in Pownal, Vt. Rothschild read a long list of violations and fines the owners of Beaver Wood Energy LLC had incurred over the years and said her group is joining with the Concerned Citizens of Pownal to ensure they had a voice in the proceedings before the Vermont Public Service Board. The new group, Bennington-Berkshire Concerned Citizens, has begun fund raising and retained an attorney to represent them in Montpelier, Vt. Look for more on this story later Tuesday.
