Westport's Beach Avenue needs to slim down

New guardrails exceed 20-foot state-ordered width

By Bruce Burdett
Posted 3/8/18

All had been strangely silent down at contentious Beach Avenue for months but that lull ended abruptly late last week.

Town Highway Department crews began installing a wooden guardrail along the …

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Westport's Beach Avenue needs to slim down

New guardrails exceed 20-foot state-ordered width

Posted

All had been strangely silent down at hotly debated Beach Avenue for months but that lull ended abruptly late last week.

Town Highway Department crews began installing a wooden guardrail along the road’s south side and almost immediately residents reported that something was amiss. Now it appears that the most recently installed guardrail sections will have to be dug up and moved to give the road the correct width.

Armed with measures and cameras, several people found that the road is now 21 to 22 feet wide, not the 20 feet the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had said it is supposed to be.

After a resident provided her with photos, resident Constance Gee emailed, “The Town of Westport is widening Beach Ave to between 21 and 22 feet, wider than the already too generous 20’ allowed by the DEP ruling. PLEASE contact the town immediately and make them cease. Also, please order them to move the guardrails to comply with state orders.”

DEP initially called for an 18-foot width, then “after the town pushed and pushed and pushed, went to 20 feet … Now the town is going 22,” she said.

“It is a big deal that the town keeps thumbing its nose at DEP and taking advantage,” Ms. Gee said. “This is par for the course of how the town has treated Beach Avenue all along.”

One of those who took measurements and photos said she did so in part because one side of guardrail appeared to have gone in beyond what she believed was the road’s actual side.

“I was skeptical and sure enough — 22 feet. Just business as usual in Westport, said the woman who asked not to be identified.

The guardrail project is part of a plan intended to maintain a public roadway access out to the Knubble while keeping vehicles from driving onto and over the fragile dunes that protect the barrier beach.

The town Highway Department installed a heavy wooden guardrail along the road’s north side several months ago and just began installing the south (ocean) side guardrail last week. It was then that observers noticed that the road was two feet wider than the 20 feet the state DEP had dictated.

“I’ve had about enough of this road,” said Highway Surveyor Chris Gonsalves when he was asked by Westport Shorelines Friday morning about the road width just as the coastal storm was rolling in.

“I’ve had more emails and calls about Beach Avenue in the last 24 hours than about the storm,” he said, adding that he, too, heard complaints overnight that the road is too wide.

Mr. Gonsalves said he worked from a plan provided to him by the Conservation Commission. That plan, he said, shows sections of Beach Avenue with three widths.

Section A, he said, the one done first, is supposed to be 22 feet according to his plan, section B is 20 feet, and the outermost section C (closest to the Knubble at the road’s east end) is supposed to be 28 feet to allow space for handicapped beachgoers to park.

“If they want it to be something else we can pull out the posts and do it differently … they are only in sand.

“But I just want to be done with it — we have more important things to do right now,” Mr. Gonsalves said.

Guardrail must move

Beach Committee member Woody Underwood, who also monitors Land Trust property alongside Beach Avenue for the Trust, said that the plan from which the Highway Department was working was indeed incorrect since the critical measurement is guardrail to guardrail. He said he subsequently was included in a Friday email from engineer Sean Leach notifying Mr. Gonsalves that, despite what the plan shows, the measurement from guardrail to guardrail must be 20 feet as the state ordered (see below).

“If we don’t get that right, the state can come down and slap a cease and desist order on us” which would effectively kill efforts to provide handicapped beach access there for another year, Mr. Underwood said.

Time is short, he added, since state regulations forbid any work on that stretch of beach after April 1 to protect endangered shorebirds.

A letter from the state last fall states that Beach Avenue should be no wider than 20 feet — guardrail to guardrail:

• Oct 5, 2017 letter from Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife to the Westport Conservation Commission states, “ 2)  To protect the dunes and barrier beach system from vehicular and pedestrian degradation, the following shall be implemented: a. The width of the travelled way shall not exceed 18 feet wide. The post and rail barrier system shall be installed at 20 feet on center (excepting the handicap parking area as show on the Site Plan).

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