Community News

Can we design streets that keep cars from speeding in Valley Stream?

Residents voice concerns about pedestrian safety

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A rendering of a roundabout for a residential area in Pasadena, Calif., shows how the design appears to drivers.
A rendering of a roundabout for a residential area in Pasadena, Calif., shows how the design appears to drivers.
Courtesy Urban Advantage/City of Pasadena Transportation

Nassau County has agreed to undertake a traffic study of Merrick Road in Valley Stream, at the village’s request. It will survey the two-mile stretch from Rosedale to Lynbrook, examining traffic patterns and identifying ways to make the roadway safer for pedestrians.

“A traffic study generally consists of the following elements: Collect and analyze vehicular, pedestrian, accident and any other applicable information,” said Mary Studdert, spokeswoman for the Nassau County Department of Public Works.

The village has considered several measures to slow vehicles on its roads, including curb extensions and different kinds of speed bumps, though many solutions don’t involve village-owned roads and could create liability issues. “Your car hits a speed bump and you lose control,” said village consultant Vinny Ang, who served as village clerk for 25 years. “Who’s responsible?”

Those potential problems are a primary reason why such features haven’t been used in problem areas like Mill Road, Ang said. Permanent speed bumps can also be hazardous for snowplow drivers in the winter, he added.
At one time, Ang said, officials toyed with the idea of making Rockaway Avenue a one-way street, widening the sidewalks and creating angled parking, but they ultimately decided that a redesign would cause problems for emergency vehicles.

Mayor Ed Fare said that studies can take as long as a year to complete, and are costly. He said the village has considered a wide variety of traffic-calming techniques, including speed bumps, adding, “Nothing is off the table.”
Ever since 12-year-old Zachary Ranftle was struck and killed by an SUV as he tried to cross West Merrick Road on his way to Memorial Junior High School in December 2014, pedestrian safety and traffic conditions throughout the village have been topics that have frustrated and infuriated residents.

Speed plays a critical role in vehicle crashes. According to the Institute of Transportation Engineers, based in Washington, D.C., if a vehicle crashes while traveling between 20 and 25 mph, the fatality risk is about 5 percent. If the vehicle travels just 10 mph faster, the fatality risk is nine times greater, 45 percent. Crashes involving vehicles traveling 40 miles per hour and faster have an 85 percent fatality risk.

The school zone cameras

Resident Carolyn Torres, whose daughter was struck by a car in Woodmere last year, said that she understood drivers’ frustration with getting tickets for slightly exceeding speed limits in school zones, but she didn’t think that warranted removing the cameras the county installed. Her daughter lost her front teeth, shattered her right clavicle and was out of school for two months.

Torres said she thought the school zone camera program could have been “tweaked,” because it was an effective way of treating the problem, but she doesn’t think it was enough. “You can dress up the sidewalk,” she said, describing brightly painted crosswalks in places other than intersections, such as the mid-block area of West Merrick Road, by the village’s pool.

“We need a couple of effective methods,” Torres added. “Valley Stream is very big. Our kids are all over the place. They’re not only in front of the schools.”

Wheeler Avenue School PTA Co-President Ellen Strojan lives on Rockaway Parkway. She and other parents met with village officials several years ago to discuss the problem, and signs were added that prohibit turns onto Wheeler Avenue from Rockaway Parkway in order to reduce traffic during school hours. Yet Strojan still considers speeding a problem.

“I have a hard time getting out of my driveway sometimes because of the speeding,” she said.

She agreed that the speed cameras worked well, and noted that Public Safety officers helped prohibit double-parking in front of the school at drop-off and dismissal. Stephanie Seltzer, a Wheeler Avenue School parent, said that the double-parking forces drivers to cross into oncoming traffic in order to pass the school, creating dangerous congestion.

“Something has to be done,” Seltzer said. “I’m surprised that more people haven’t died or that more accidents haven’t happened.”

As for the speeding issue, she attributed most of it to the design of Rockaway Parkway, which is owned by the county. “It’s long stretches without stop signs, and long stretches without stop lights,” she said.

Slowing drivers down

According to Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit planning, design and educational organization, traffic calming began in Europe, as a way to improve street design so that drivers don’t feel invited to speed. Traffic-calming techniques often result in more pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, and can create attractive public spaces at a reasonable cost.

Common techniques essentially create obstructions for drivers, and more space for pedestrians and bicyclists, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials. Curb extensions, for example, make streets narrower at intersections or in the middle of a block.

NACTO recommends that speed controllers (speed bumps or rumble strips) be installed in residential areas. Speed humps are typically four inches high, and less jarring than ordinary speed bumps. They can effectively reduce speeds to as low as 15 mph, according to NACTO. Another option is speed tables, which are flat on top and much longer than speed humps. They are often implemented in conjunction with curb extensions to create raised mid-block crossings for pedestrians.

Wide streets can be painted to incorporate bike lanes, which further pinch speeding traffic and makes bikers feel safer. “I wish, on the main roads, they’d put a bike lane,” said Jason Edwards, a Cottage Street resident who works in Brooklyn. “I guess with parking and whatnot they can’t really do the bike lane, but I know they’re doing it a lot in Brooklyn. The biking culture is actually growing now in Brooklyn.”

The closest thing to traffic-calming techniques in Valley Stream are medians like the ones on Cottage Street and Beverly Parkway, or in front of Memorial Junior High School. According to NACTO, in order to be effective, medians should be narrow enough to constrain traffic and shorten pedestrian crossing distances. But some residents along Beverly Parkway say they don’t believe the medians are effective at slowing down cars.

“It’s young people and it’s older people,” said Debbie Palmer, who lives on Beverly Parkway. “It’s not just the young ones that are driving and blowing through stop signs. People have no patience these days.”
Her neighbor, Lisa Singh, said she witnessed an incident on Argyle Street last summer in which a small child was almost hit by a speeding SUV that ran a stop sign.

Because traffic calming can be done with temporary materials, the Project for Public Spaces suggests that communities try different techniques to see what works best. “Traffic calming, along with other small-scale improvements, can enhance a place immediately, while being tested and refined to meet long-term needs,” according to a PPS blog post. “When funds are available, the right combination of devices can be transformed into permanent improvements and extended over a broader area.”

Other traffic calming techniques

  • Roundabouts: Raised circular obstructions at the center of intersections force motorists to slow down as they navigate a turn. Mini-roundabouts can be used to supplement four-way intersections in smaller, more residential areas.
  • Diverters: Divide four-way intersections diagonally, restricting vehicles from speeding through street grids. Diverters allow pedestrian and bicycle traffic to pass through in all four directions, and can include plants and benches.
  • Traffic signal progression: Traffic signals can be adjusted to force traffic to obey the speed limit and to slow vehicles down on a straightaway.
  • Lane shifts: Guide traffic slightly right or left in the middle of the block, replacing a straightaway with a slight curve. They can be designed with striping, curb extensions or on-street parking.
  • Medians: Medians create a pinch point for traffic in the center of the roadway, and can incorporate greenery or benches.
  • Rumble strips: Textured pavement that cues motorists to slow down in concentrated pedestrian areas like shopping centers, schools or entrances to residential neighborhoods.
  • Public plazas: Using low-cost materials like gravel, planters or benches, sections of roadway can be closed off completely to traffic, creating a public plaza.


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