A regular Source feature, Undercurrents explores issues, ideas and events as they develop beneath the surface in the Virgin Islands community.
“Drive up the long hill to where Judge Thompson used to live and then swing right by the first curve where there’s a tree in the road, and it’s the street just before that, on your left. Go down passed a brown house with a white fence and it’s the next one on the right.”
Such directions may have a certain island charm, but they don’t work very well in times of emergency. Nor do they facilitate home mail delivery or broadband access. So the government, through Lt. Gov. Gregory Francis’s office, has been pushing a massive street designation project that will include new signage throughout the territory.
Currently not only are many roadways poorly marked, some don’t even have names.
Chris George, the government’s Geographic Information Systems coordinator and project manager for the initiative, estimated that 20 percent of the territory’s streets and roads are anonymous. So the first step in the project is to give them formal monikers.
The government began collecting suggestions from community groups a couple years ago, but it still needs many more.
Besides allowing road markings, the project will move the territory into a standardized mode of addressing. Instead of a property being, for example, 8-9 Estate Cotton, it may be 1314 Oleander Road.
While it’s still soliciting recommendations for street names for much of the territory, the office is ready to move ahead with a pilot phase of the project that includes Mon Bijou and Frangipani on St. Croix, downtown Charlotte Amalie (primarily the historic district) on St. Thomas, and Cruz Bay on St. John.
This week field workers began visiting homes in Mon Bijou to alert property owners about the project, to verify the existing property designation as it appears on property tax records and to reveal their new street address. In mid to late April, field workers are expected to begin to tackle the St. John and St. Thomas pilot areas.
George stressed that the office is not changing any existing street names. “That is completely out of our scope of work,” he said. Whether the names are historic or recently imposed by the Legislature, they will remain the same as they are now.
But if a street has no name, the office is both authorized and prepared to give it one, he said. The government would like to get suggestions from people who live on or near a street, rather than making the name choice itself.
The office has already tapped some of the larger community groups, such as the Downtown Revitalization Committee and the Historic Preservation Commission. Now it’s beginning to approach smaller organizations such as neighborhood crime watch groups. And it continues to solicit names from the general public, a move it introduced a couple of years ago.
George listed a few sample suggestions: Crystal Clear Cove, Tamarind Street, Frangipani Way, Mrs. Els’a Court, Cocoloba Trail.
He is urging groups to select names of local plants and animals, or names with cultural or historical significance, including family names that have a real association with a given area. Each such primary name must be combined with an “acceptable” designator, listed on the project website as avenue, boulevard, circle, court, cove, crossing, drive, gade, lane, loop, parkway, path, place, road, rue, street, terrace, trail or way.
No derogatory terms or curse words will be accepted.
Of course, there cannot be two streets of the same name on the same island. In fact, the rules forbid use of similar sounding names, such as Main Street and Mane Street. The government wants names that are easy to read, easy to pronounce and quickly recognized. Full instructions can be found at www.ltg.gov.vi.
There has been talk of modernizing and standardizing Virgin Island addresses for decades. The current project can be traced back to discussions in the 1990s but planning really got started about 2009, George said. He joined the effort in January 2011.
“This is my turn with it,” he said.
The program was officially launched in December 2012, with a target date for completion in three to five years. George said the office is planning to complete the pilot areas on the three main islands by July of this year.
