For decades, St. John’s only traffic light was the one mounted on the wall of the old Public Works Department’s maintenance building on Gifft Hill Road (Rt. 104). It didn’t work, of course. It was put there in the late 1990s as a wry joke by Ira Wade, then DPW deputy commissioner for St. John.
In recent weeks, some sharp-eyed residents passing the now-derelict building have noticed that the traffic light is missing. One of them, Cid Hamling, decided to investigate.
Hamling remembers well the spontaneous uprising in October 1996 that led to the traffic light’s functional demise. “Tyrone Martin, Department of Public Works special assistant, came to St. John and announced we were going to have traffic lights,” she said. “He had federal money, and he was hyped up about it.”
The idea of a traffic light in (what was then) sleepy Cruz Bay seemed absurd. During the fall of 1996, St. John was still recovering from the ravages of Hurricane Marilyn. Community and business leaders had formed the St. John Action Committee to brainstorm ways to improve the island’s infrastructure and stimulate tourism. There were many items on their wish list, but a traffic light was not among them.
“The St. John community got wind of it and said, ‘We don’t want traffic lights,’” said Hamling, then owner of Connections, a mail service center. She offered the use of phones and fax machines to anyone who wanted to contact senators and other officials. Dozens of people used them to register their opposition.
Local officials held a town-hall meeting to discuss the matter on Monday, Sept. 30, 1996, and an overflow crowd attended. Hamling recalls that when one resident called out, “Who doesn’t want it? Stand up!” all but a few stood up.
But Martin had already identified a place for the light: near the Creek in Cruz Bay, where Boulon Center Road made a T at the Northshore Road. (According to Google Maps, Boulon Center Rd. has been officially renamed Edward Moorhead Boulevard.) Martin was determined to move forward in spite of the public’s protest.
The day after the town meeting, Martin arrived with a crew in Cruz Bay and began marking the intersection with a can of spray paint; the coconut telegraph immediately went into high alert. “A large group of people went out to physically block them from proceeding,” said activist Pam Gaffin, who was on the scene.
“My understanding was the V.I. government had already indicated the traffic lights had been installed as part of a grant with an expiration date of the fiscal year end — September 30,” said Gaffin.
“They realized just days ahead of the deadline that they had one set of lights unused and decided to dump them on St. John. The lights were for a 4-way intersection — but St John does not have any 4-way intersections — not one. The First Bank corner is the closest, but since there is a one-way street that could not use the light, it counts as a 3-way intersection,” she continued.
Gaffin also said the lights were doomed to fail if they ever were installed. “These were the new, fancy computerized lights – with multiple lights on each direction. When WAPA goes out, they would not have been able to start back up again by themselves. Someone from St. Thomas would have had to come over to reset them.”
Gov. Roy L. Schneider was out of the territory at the time, according to a front-page story in the Daily News on Wed. Oct. 2, so Lt. Gov. Kenneth Mapp intervened by issuing a stop-work order. Schneider terminated the project upon his return.
Following that incident, Gaffin said that Ira Wade, who served as deputy commissioner of Public Works for St. John, ”Swore he would never, ever install a traffic light on St. John, no matter what, and hung one of the lights up on the Public Works building.”
Ironically, the island’s recovery was faster than most people anticipated. Growth boomed over the next few years, and traffic congestion at the intersection near the Creek became a big problem. Barge companies began offering multiple trips throughout the day, and when vehicles lined up to get on or off, traffic often came to a standstill.
Wade went into high gear to deal with traffic woes and planned a roundabout to allow traffic to flow around the five-way intersection near O’Connor’s Texaco gas station. Five years later, construction on the roundabout still hadn’t begun.
It was an enormous undertaking that involved moving countless truckloads of earth to change the elevation of the site, forcing the Texaco Station to close down. The Theovald E. Moorehead Marine Terminal in Enighed Pond was completed in 2006, and barge services relocated from the Creek in Cruz Bay. When work on the roundabout was completed several years later, it was deemed a success. Gaffin said, “Boy, I miss Ira Wade; he really knew how to get things done.”
And what happened to the traffic light that Ira Wade put up on the wall of the Public Works maintenance building?
Two weeks ago, Hamling found it lying on the ground on Public Works property. The traffic light was removed in preparation for pending demolition of the building and remains in DPW’s custody.
Hamling wants to see the traffic light preserved as a reminder of a unique moment in St. John’s history. Members of the St. John Historical Society hope to display it as part of their collection so that this almost-forgotten pistarckle will live on in history.
