Getting Things Done in a Roundabout Way

The Cruz Bay Texaco station has yet to find a new home in order to make way for a traffic roundabout.

While the opening of the Enighed Pond commercial port is gaining speed, the traffic roundabout planned to alleviate problems with large trucks using the facility remains gridlocked.

The roundabout, a Federal Highway Adminis-tration (FHA) project, is to be built where the Texaco gas station is located to improve the flow of normal Cruz Bay traffic and accommodate vehicles heading to and from Enighed Pond.

The 96-foot-diameter traffic circle is also necessary to make it easier for large trucks and heavy equipment to negotiate the Texaco intersection.

“It is the Public Works commissioner’s intent to get (the project) moving,” said Ira Wade, Public Works Department deputy director. But working with the FHA means that “all I’s have to be dotted and T’s crossed before anything proceeds.”

In this case, it means completing the task of collecting soil-boring samples in the area of the gas station to determine if there is any contamination, according to the PWD official.

Once the soil data are in—which Wade estimated would happen within 30 to 45 days—it will be a matter of awaiting FHA approval, he said.

Still, there is the matter of relocating the Texaco station, which Public Works had promised to facilitate, according to Wade.

“There has been one new location suggested, but not selected,” Wade said.

Potential Nightmare
He would not comment on the whereabouts of the suggested location, and said that he’d rather have acting Public Works Commissioner George Phillips divulge that information at the proper time.

At press time, Robert O’Connor Jr., who leases the station from Texaco, could not be reached by St. John Tradewinds for comment.

In the meantime, motorists in Cruz Bay face a potential nightmare when Enighed Pond opens without the roundabout, which Public Works had expected to have in place in 2004.