DATE: Friday, May 2, 1997                   TAG: 9705020621

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: ONANCOCK                          LENGTH:   95 lines

IN ONANCOCK, THE PAST COLLIDES WITH REALITIES OF TODAY THE STATE PLANS TO CORRECT MARKET STREET, BUT SOME TOWNSPEOPLE WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE.

The road running into town narrows just as the neighborhood gets pretty. Big, gingerbready houses, wide lawns, massive trees, gardens and 60-year-old box bushes line the street.

But the road is a mess.

There's no curb or gutter, and the sidewalks are flush with the street. in rainstorms, water runs off the hump-backed road and pools on the sidewalks, eventually cracking the concrete.

The intersections aren't wide enough. Turning can be dangerous. When people want to park for church, or for any other reason, they have to pull onto the sidewalk.

The state plans to spend more than $1.5 million to correct that four-block stretch of Market Street. But a passionate group of townspeople - many of whom live along the road - want the taxpayers to keep their money and leave them alone.

``This is a historic, quaint, charming town, and this is just going to mess it up,'' said Maphis Oswald.

Oswald moved from Maywood, N.J., and bought the Colonial Manor Inn on Market Street about three years ago. Oswald and friends put stacks of memos in local businesses to collect signatures protesting the project. She has faxed the lot of them to Gov. George Allen and Secretary of Transportation Robert Martinez. One night alone, Oswald sent 52 memos to Allen.

Protesters held a candlelight vigil in the rain, huddled around the single tree that might be killed by the project. They've lined the road with tiny American flags and signs.

``No Thinking Zone'' reads one sign. ``Welcome VDOT To Naziland,'' reads another. ``The Town Council Approved This Project Against The Wishes Of The Residents,'' says a third.

The local media have covered the controversy closely, and the protesters have raised a tremendous stink in a town where fights can divide neighbors for life.

Meanwhile, Will Cumming is frankly mystified by the outcry. Cumming is VDOT's resident engineer on the Eastern Shore. He has been planning the Market Street upgrades with input from the townspeople for nearly eight years, he said.

``We've tried harder to meet with the citizens and deal with their concerns than any project I'm aware of in the state,'' Cumming said.

Onancock officials have repeatedly asked the state to replace the sidewalk, add curbs and gutters, and correct the road's faulty drainage. Recently, Cumming said, the town also asked VDOT to add a parking lane.

``We met early with them before we designed anything,'' he said.

After engineers designed the project, Cumming met with the townspeople again. Then they returned to the drawing board and re-designed the proposed road in response to concerns voiced at the public hearing.

The new plan narrows the proposed parking lane from 10 to 8 feet. It reduces the new sidewalk from 5 to 4 feet wide and reduces the proposed radius of intersections from 25 to 15 feet.

Most of the flags marking the project's right-of-way are barely two feet from the existing sidewalk. And that's a foot outside the construction limits, said Cumming.

``It's not a whole lot of land. It's not about that,'' Oswald said. ``Once the history and esthetics are gone, you can't put it back. You can't say `Oops, I'm sorry.' ''

Oswald fears for the survival of her 60-year-old box bushes, and for a stately old sycamore nearby. She worries that people will use the parking lane as a passing lane. She sees the road repairs as a first-wave assault on Onancock's traditional beauties.

``I know what happens,'' she said. ``My grandson will never see a tree.''

Fixing the road isn't the only thing the Market Street project will accomplish, however. Water and sewer lines in Onancock leak, and the town is under a consent order from the Department of Environmental Quality to fix the problem.

``Rather than have the road built, then dig it up again, we put those two projects together,'' Cumming said. ``It will save the town the cost of repairing the road, which would be 100 percent town cost. And the road restoration could be as much or more than the actual sewer line.''

Trenching for the pipes is what might kill the old sycamore, said Cumming, not the road.

VDOT has offered to move significant bushes or trees, or replace them with something similar.

``I don't understand why people are upset,'' said Cumming. ``I think the project will make the town more scenic.''

For Onancock Mayor Starr Mason, the whole subject is a sore point. The town council unanimously approved Market Street's restoration, and, as far as she knows, the town council still supports it.

``It's something we need,'' said Mason. ``We need the whole works.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot

Maphis Oswald, left, is leading a protest against a highway project

in Onancock. Her supporters display letters sent to Gov. George F.

Allen.

VP MAP

ACCOMACK COUNTY

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