Patrick Murray is a Narragansett Town Council member who wants to begin addressing the issue at the council’s next meeting on Aug. 15. He spoke with South County Bureau Reporter Alex Nunes at the end of Conant Avenue in the Point Judith section of town, one of the rights of way where the road has been narrowed by brush and large stones.
NUNES: Can you just tell people what we’re looking at right here?
MURRAY: This is one of the older access [points]. It does have a little stairway, rock stairway going down to the ocean where surfers access, and saltwater fishermen, they like coming down here and fishing. There was parking. When I was a young lad, I remember parking down here. I used to come down here fishing with my father and my brothers and my uncle. You know, it’s hard to say where things got changed around a little bit, but we’re gonna rectify that. That’s for sure. So we’re just kind of [going to] reinstitute some of the access points for their original intent.
NUNES: The town surveyed five different rights of way in town.
MURRAY: That’s correct.
NUNES: And that revealed that there was encroachment on all of those rights of way.
MURRAY: Correct.
NUNES: What exactly are you going to be proposing later this month in terms of addressing this?
MURRAY: Well, we have BETA Group, which is a company that does a lot of our roads and redesigns and situations like this, parking issues. And they’re going to take a look at it and come up with different plans to address the lack of parking. You know, it’s going to probably widen the road here to make it a little safer for people to get in and out.
NUNES: So that’s what you want to propose?
MURRAY: Correct. Correct. And we want to keep it safe for the neighbors and the people visiting this area.
NUNES: So, I mean, people in these neighborhoods often have a bit of resistance when stuff like this comes up, when you talk about creating more parking in their area.
MURRAY: Well, you know, I can understand that. It’s just that, you know, these are town right of ways. And these are long-term ocean access points that, you know, it’s just not for the neighborhood. It’s for everybody in town. It’s for everybody in Rhode Island. And, you know, it’s something that needs to be addressed. And I think this council has the resolve to do it. It’s important because this is part of Rhode Island. What makes Narragansett great is the access, and somebody can come from Cranston, come down here for a couple hours and have some lunch, and then head back to the city. This is why Narragansett is such a gem.
NUNES: When you hear negative feedback from people about opening up access, like what do they say, property owners in the area?
MURRAY: Well, they complain about the road’s too narrow, which is the case. But then, you know, I tried to get crushed stone to be put in there to widen the road, and they didn’t like that. So, I mean, they complain on one hand that you can’t get a fire truck down here, the road’s too narrow. But on the other hand, they don’t want to add a little crushed stone to get these cars off the road to make the road more accessible to larger vehicles. And they have no problem having a landscape truck with a trailer block the road.
NUNES: The survey the town had done seems to suggest that the roads are narrow because people are encroaching on them, though.
MURRAY: It’s pretty straightforward stuff, and we’re not here to upset, stomp around on anybody’s playground. But we’re just trying to have a nice transition to where people have parking, ocean access, and respectful to the neighbors. That’s the goal. That’s definitely the goal.
NUNES: Patrick Murray, town council member for the town of Narragansett, thanks very much for speaking with me.
MURRAY: Okay, I want to thank you for coming down and hearing us out.
Alex Nunes can be reached at anunes@thepublicsradio.org
