March 25, 2003 – Two dozen Scott Free residents unanimously agreed Tuesday night on the need for safety improvements to the winding, steep and narrow road they live on and travel regularly. Unfortunately, they were told, those improvements are two, three or even more years away.
Scott Free Road, known to the Federal Highway Administration and map-reading tourists as Route 405, has long been a thorn in the side of highway and traffic planners. At least two such planners have been employed to help consulting engineers from HTA Caribbean, a subsidiary of the mainland engineering firm Hoyle, Tanner & Associates, to develop a feasibility study for the 6,000 feet of roadway.
Leo Francis, former Public Works commissioner, and Tyrone Martin, former Public Works traffic planner and spokesman, were on hand at the meeting Tuesday, held at the Small Business Development Center offices in Nisky Center. The public hearing was billed as the first of several to get input from residents for use in developing a viable plan to improve safety and relieve congestion on the road, a popular shortcut between Crown Mountain Road on the west and Solberg Road on the East.
Robert E. Duval, consulting engineer for HTA Caribbean, said the road was designed — "to the extent that it was designed at all" — for the use of residents living along it. At its lower reaches, homes and their driveways lie snug against the roadbed and two-way traffic is all but impossible.
However, the shortcut can shave upwards of four minutes off the Crown Mountain Road route from the Nisky-Sub Base intersection west of downtown to what is known as The Crossroads and also as Four Corners. Hence, despite being narrow, steep and dangerous, it is used widely not only by commuters but by water trucks, taxi vans and other large vehicles which are prohibited by clearly posted signs.
Area resident Jeff Chandler expressed concern that road improvements would attract even more unwanted traffic. "People who live in Scott Free know how to drive on Scott Free," he said. "We don't really want everybody passing through."
But Duval said that "every silver lining has a cloud." Plenty of people who don't live in the area already use the road, he said, and the aim of the study is to see how the route can be improved to make it safer.
An alternative to completely reconstructing the road would be to make partial improvements while also developing alternate routes from Scott Free to Solberg on the east and Crown Mountain on the west. Residents testifying Tuesday showed little enthusiam for this idea.
At the major hairpin turn toward the bottom of Scott Free there already exists a narrow, pot-holed road that connects to the east with the wide concrete "Boschulte Road" to the east, also known as Route 332. Improvements to that narrow stretch would provide an alternate eastern route.
As another option, Duval said extension of the road from Crown Mountain up to Plantation Manor could provide an alternate route to the west. That road would come out onto Scott Free across from the infamous bridge — called by Duval "a one-of -kind-structure" — which connects Scott Free Road to four or five residences on the other side of a deep culvert.
The improvement plan may call for replacing the bridge with a pile of graded dirt and retaining walls, rather than replacing the structure itself, which is showing serious signs of age. Planners also expect to widen Scott Free Road to a standard 20 feet with a two-foot shoulder on each side, include swales where required, construct retaining walls, pitch roadways toward hillsides and install catch basins and culverts to control runoff and erosion.
The only Public Works official at the hearing was Wystan D. Benjamin, design/construction program manager for its Office of Highway Engineering. He said the department is committed to obtaining feedback at the beginning stage of the project, which also includes an environmental impact study.
Some 50 to 60 residences now line the roadway, but more will come soon if the subdivision planned by real estate broker Roger Minkoff comes to pass.
Minkoff said he is planning to subdivide and develop a substantial area at the top on the southeastern side of Scott Free Road. With him at the meeting was general contractor Marmion Carty, who Minkoff said would be building the roads in the subdivision.
One government official in attendance, Attorney General Iver Stridiron, said he had a personal interest in the road. His wife, he said, "rolled her car three times" while climbing the steep grade in the rain.
Several years ago, a motorist died when his car went over an embankment adjacent to the road. Shortly after that, guardrails were installed. Benjamin said they had already been planned before the fatal accident.
Several speakers agreed the worst part of the road is at the bottom where it meets Crown Mountain Road. There, it is 14 feet wide or less at some points, making it daunting, if not impossible, for cars coming from opposite directions to pass.
One person asked that a speed bump (which Benjamin said is now called a speed hump) be installed there as a temporary measure. However, Benjamin said Scott Free Road is part of the federal highway system and speed bumps are not allowed on such roadways. But he said the department can sometimes get around the regulation — as it did recently in Smith Bay — in areas where numerous accidents have been documented.
For now, however, Scott Free Road remains in limbo. No work will begin until at least two more public meetings are held, tentatively in the summer and fall, and approval is obtained for funding of whatever plan is adopted.
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