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Shallow Fog Finally fixing West Broadway; work to begin in 2023
A Nassau County roadway project that was introduced in 2015 and is expected to cost $30 million is beginning its final stages of design and planning, and is expected to get under way in the spring of 2023, with an anticipated completion date of Dec. 31, 2024.
Information on what is called the West Broadway Reconstruction and Drainage Improvement Project was presented at a meeting hosted by Republican County Legislators Denise Ford and Howard Kopel at the Lawrence Yacht & Country Club in Lawrence on Dec. 7. The meeting’s theme was “We’re Here to Listen To You!”
Representatives of the Brookhaven-based engineering firm L.K. McLean Associates showed a multi-slide presentation on the work that is planned for a 2.15-mile stretch of West Broadway, from Mill Road in Hewlett to Rockaway Turnpike in Cedarhurst.
Ford and Kopel noted that they have been working on this project for years, and that funding issues at the county level have held the work hostage. “We’re trying to get this done,” Kopel said of what he called a “complete rebuild of West Broadway.” He added, “It’s going to be a big mess.”
Accentuating the positive, Ford said, “It will provide better roads, better drainage and safer roads.”
Gil Anderson, senior project director for L. K. McLean Associates; Ken Masseri, an associate engineer; and Ken Arnold, commissioner of the Nassau County Department of Public Works, presented the project’s goals and the work it will entail, and stressed that the work would be complex.
“So, this is a very complicated project,” Arnold said. “It requires a lot of community outreach and input that’s the beginning of that today,” he said, referring to the meeting. “ [We] plan on having numerous meetings to make sure we get everyone’s input. Drainage-wise, we haven’t seen a project of this size probably since Rockaway was done back in the late 1990s.”
The project covers 679 acres of land and will impact 30,000 residents. Anderson said that there are “a lot of moving parts.”
“The work will include new curbs, access ramps, apron markings, sidewalks, tree replacements where needed,” he said. “We developed a new design for the draianage system for a 10-year, 24-hour storm.” In other words, the system should be able to withstand the volume of rain that a decade’s worst storm drops in a 24-hour period.
Anderson said that the project would also include updating the dozen traffic signals along West Broadway; new pavement from curb to curb; American with Disabilities Act-compliant access ramps; relining and replacing existing sanitary sewers; and New York American Water plans to install a 16-inch water main for the length of the project. “The road pavement is worn with age … joints are separating, the existing curbs are cracked, they’re displaced,” Anderson said.
Throughout the presentation, representatives of the villages of Cedarhurst and Lawrence, as well as residents, asked questions.
“I’m hesitant to show any optimism,” said Aaron Weinrib, of Woodmere, noting that the project was supposed to have started a number of times but has not. “We want to see the work done to make the area safe for pedestrians,” he added.
Weinrib founded the West Broadway Committee seven years ago. It is a grass-roots group of residents that have advocated for roadway safety improvements along West Broadway, and for this project.
Have an opinion on the West Broadway project? Send a letter to jbessen@liherald.com.
