To the editor:
I have sent the following letter to the Lake Mansfield Task Force:
Dear members of the Lake Mansfield Task Force,
After attending a couple of the LMTF presentations, I tried to take the survey offered on the Town website, but found it so hopelessly narrow and one-sided that there was no way I could offer honest input, hence this letter.
While I appreciate the enormous amount of time and energy committed by the GBLC and the LMTF to protecting Lake Mansfield and enhancing our enjoyment of it, my experience of both meetings is that they were attended and driven by a very small number of people, virtually all of whom live adjacent to the lake or in the immediate neighborhood. Unfortunately, this seems to have resulted in a somewhat narrow focus on Lake Mansfield and its users with little regard for the other residents of our town.
Lake Mansfield is, and should continue to be, a true community asset. Much of what has been explored and presented to date by the design team fails to reflect this point of view.
Every one of the road schemes explored involved realignment of the road around the parking area, introducing more roadway to build and maintain, sharp turns, significant grade changes, diminution of protected forest land abutting the trail, and certainly not insignificant costs. While I can understand the desire not to have to cross the road from the parking area to the beach using a crosswalk on a prodigious speed bump already in place, the fact remains that this solution has been working for a number of years. To my knowledge there has been no vehicle / pedestrian accident here. It stands to reason, since swimming and lakes are inherently dangerous to young children that they are, and should be, accompanied by a parent or guardian who can also ensure their safety in crossing the road. If improvements need to be made to the parking area in order to protect the beach area, lake, and/or road from erosion, let that be the focus of the design team’s efforts. The young woman running that part of the discussion at the last meeting admitted that that had not even been considered in their design efforts. As a design professional myself, I would have been seriously embarrassed to admit that failure of vision.
Having just attended the CPR demonstration offered last Saturday at the Fire Station, I learned several interesting facts. One of which was that the chance of a person’s survival from cardiac arrest is diminished by 10 percent every minute. In other words, 10 minutes and you are dead. Another was that the volunteer ambulance squad located at Fairview Hospital has an average response time of a little over 7 minutes in Great Barrington. Obviously, the further one is from the hospital the longer that takes. Closing off Lake Mansfield or even making it one way in either direction would have a major impact on response times, potentially resulting in the loss of life. One life lost as a result of “improvements” to Lake Mansfield is too onerous for me to contemplate. I hope the LMTF will take this into consideration in making its recommendations.
One-way streets are a decidedly urban phenomenon where they are typically paired with streets running in the opposite direction a block away. That is not an option available to us with Division Street or Main Street offering the only alternative paths of travel, both at a significant distance. While the traffic count on Lake Mansfield Road is a relatively modest 500 vehicles per day, there seems to have been no consideration of the impact of adding any of that traffic to other streets.
The survey included three photos of the populated beach area asking which was the desired density. It felt very much to me as if they were asking in a rather clumsy fashion, “Do you want Lake Mansfield to be a private, neighborhood, or a public beach?” I would not be surprised if there was an overwhelming response in favor of the first two, given the constituency in attendance at the meetings. I am not sure how this benefits the design process or the town.
As I indicated at the last meeting, I am not someone who skates, swims, fishes or boats at Lake Mansfield. Nor do I live in the neighborhood. That does not mean that I do not appreciate it as a resource or relish the opportunity to introduce it to newcomers, or enjoy it myself from a moving vehicle. I cannot imagine I am alone in this, though the probability of people of this mindset actually attending these meetings, taking the survey, or even, for that matter, being aware of them, is probably remote. There are few other lakes in the county, and none in Great Barrington, where one can have this experience.
Closing Lake Mansfield Road would effectively ensure that the lake would become a town resource that can only be enjoyed by its neighbors. While this might enhance the property values of a lucky few, it would result in a loss of access for the rest of the town, the cost of which would be borne by our taxpayers. Widening the road or making it one way, two of the options put forward by the design team, would each encourage higher vehicular speeds.
There has been much concern voiced about pedestrian safety. As someone who spends at least an hour a day walking on a narrow country road with considerably more traffic traveling at significantly higher rates of speed than Lake Mansfield Road’s, my experience of the last 10 years has been that waving to drivers as they approach has the salutary effect of calling attention to one’s presence on the roadway as well as triggering in a vast preponderance of drivers a near instinctive reaction to slow down. This should be a highly publicized suggestion to all pedestrians walking on Lake Mansfield Road, or really, any roadway. It works. If a solitary old man walking a 100-pound Akita can get a favorable reaction, imagine the drivers’ responses to hordes of walkers and families with children raising their hands along Lake Mansfield Road. The more people who do it — as demonstrated in our downtown crosswalks — the better it works.
I am very much in favor of stabilizing the banks of Lake Mansfield where necessary, and the reconstruction/repaving of the road in its present two-way configuration without widening or realigning it. I think the boardwalk is a great idea that could offer an enhanced pedestrian experience, unique in Berkshire County, with the added bonus of removing some pedestrians from the roadway — both at moderate cost.
Let’s keep the lake a community-wide resource and let’s keep the cost to taxpayers at a minimum. As a member of the Great Barrington Planning Board for more than 18 years, I firmly believe that we need to maintain at all times a broad vision of what is best for our entire community, especially in considering decisions of this magnitude.
Thank you for distributing this to the rest of the LMTF.
Jonathan Hankin
Great Barrington
The writer is chairman of the Great Barrington Planning Board.
