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THE ISLANDS OF WENSCOTT

by FRANK O'DONNELL
March 9, 2008

If you drive out Douglas Pike, after the K of C but before Notte Park, you’ll notice Wenscott Lane on the opposite side.

Be careful when you try to pull into Wenscott.

You want to be sure to avoid the traffic islands you’ll find there at the intersection with Douglas, and again where the lane ends at Meadowview Boulevard.

They’re concrete ovals, maybe five or six feet long, perhaps a couple of feet wide, planted smack dab in the middle of the road. Sometimes they’re filled with soil, other times with sand and gravel.

Mostly, the island surfaces are weather-related. In the spring, summer and fall, you’ll find the soil. In the winter, whatever the roadway is treated with and whatever the plows push up gets deposited on the islands.

The centerpiece of the islands is supposed to be a sign that says No Thru Trucks – something to that effect.

Several years ago, someone in a road-related municipal department decided the islands and their signs would be terrific additions to the neighborhood. This was in response, one presumes, to resident complaints about trucks using Wenscott as a cut-through to Smithfield Road.

But as soon as we have our first slippery wintry day, the signs come down.

Not by design. Usually by accident.

Someone runs them over or they fall victim to a plow, and all of sudden, the islands are nothing more than concrete speed humps.

And the road is open to through-trucking – not that it ever really stopped.

I say, it’s time these traffic islands got the respect they deserve.

In order to help them properly do their job, we need to rebuild them.

We have the technology. We also have the material.

It’s time to grab up some of the cinder blocks lying in the rubble heap at Rizzo Ford.

Why. Can’t. We. Get. That.

Remember? It’s the mayor’s new way of doing things here in North Providence.

Before we throw anything away, we need to figure out if it can serve the town.

I say, let’s reclaim enough cinder blocks from the pre-Lowe’s junk pile to build two four-foot high traffic barriers on the footprints of the existing islands. Reinforce them on the inside with iron poles – there’s got to be some lying around with the cinder blocks.

Fill the interiors with soil and mulch.

Plant the proper signs in the proper spots.

Let some artists from the high school loose for a couple of days to paint murals on the barriers – something in keeping with the neighborhood, the town and the purpose of the structure. I’m sure there’s a senior or two who could use the extra credit.

The islands are now combination traffic barriers and window boxes.

Once complete, turn the maintenance of the islands over to the people of Wenscott – the Wenscottians, as they’re frequently called.

I’m told one gentleman started the practice last year or the year before of planting flowers in one of the islands. A great example of civic pride, of one man making a difference.

But now that we’re talking major architecture here, we need something more.

Sure, flowers are pretty, flowers are nice, but they don’t necessarily invoke the kind of respect needed to keep the trucks away.

What we need to do is plant tomatoes on the Islands of Wenscott.

Can you picture it? A bumper crop of the town’s unofficial official fruit and/or vegetable, growing proudly, for all to see, in the middle of Wenscott Lane.

Brings a tear to your eye – and trucks to a dead stop.

What trucker would dare take those corners, knowing full well he could wreck an official tomato habitat.

Why inspire the wrath of the Wenscottians – indeed, the entire town – when it’s a whole lot easier to cut through Fitzhugh anyway?

And when the tomatoes start coming in later in the year, they could turn the Islands into a little profit center.

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