Grand Avenue plan is an opportunity to advance Baldwin’s future

Let’s face it. Grand Avenue ain’t so grand.

It has hundreds of accidents a year. Just two months ago, a ninth-grade girl was struck by a car while crossing Grand at Baldwin High School. Small businesses struggle because there’s so little foot traffic, and too many leave town or close, pocking our main street with empty storefronts. Empty buildings have languished for years on three of the four corners at the intersection in the heart of our hamlet, where Grand meets Merrick Road.

For the first time in a generation, we have a real opportunity to make Grand Avenue safer and more attractive for private investment – while making traffic flow more smoothly.

The Complete Streets traffic study of the 1.4-mile stretch between Stanton Avenue and Merrick Road remains a work in progress. Nothing is set in stone, and adjustments are constantly being made, based on community input and further study.

For now, the plan includes signalized left-turn lanes at Seaman Avenue and St. Luke’s Place to get rid of the bottlenecks that clog those intersections. Features for pedestrians, such as enhanced crosswalks, better traffic signal timing, and curb bump-outs at some crossings, will make it safer to walk and shop. And when people walk, businesses make money. The plan also helps link the assets we do have in town, like the high school, the train station, and our fabulous library.

The biggest bone of contention is the “road diet” between Merrick Road and Sunrise Highway, which tapers to one lane in each direction with a dedicated turning lane down the center. Most of the corridor would keep the current two lanes in each direction. Merrick Avenue in Merrick has had great success with this model, and it handles slightly more traffic than Grand.

According to the experts, who collected and studied vast amounts of data over the better part of a year, the wait times during rush hour at Merrick and at Sunrise would remain the same because the number of lanes at both intersections would not be reduced. The plan includes adding sufficient turning lanes and improving traffic-light synchronization to accommodate the current flow of traffic. In fact, traffic engineers say, if we do nothing, it will continue to get worse.