County to repair Austin Boulevard in Island Park

Austin Boulevard, in Island Park, will soon get the makeover that residents and community leaders have been demanding for years.

Construction on the main road, which runs north and south through Barnum Isle, will begin next spring and take about two years to complete, according to Ken Arnold, commissioner of the Nassau County Department of Public Works.

“It’s about time,” said Gary Steiner, owner of Pancho’s Cantina on Austin Boulevard. “The road is a scary nightmare to watch people drive up and down all day and night.”

About 10 years ago, Steiner was involved in an accident on the street. As he was making a right turn from a side street onto Austin, a vehicle making a U-turn hit his van. “Luckily there were no other cars coming,” he said. “I almost died.”

Steiner said he constantly sees cars driving too fast on the road, resulting in accidents, including vehicles “plowing right into parked cars,” he said.

To remedy the issues, the county will eliminate one southbound lane between Long Beach Road and Traymore Boulevard, reducing the number of lanes from six to five. It will also allow more space and visual clearance for drivers. The county will repair sidewalks and curbs along the road as well.

Two speed-awareness devices will be installed on the road, which will flash drivers’ speeds as they pass. The county will also mount closed-circuit television cameras along the road to “be used for incident management purposes only,” Arnold said.

The county plans to replace the traffic signals and the interconnect on Long Beach Road, from Austin Boulevard to Henrietta Avenue. Once the upgrades are complete, pavement repairs and new roadway surfacing will take place from Emerson Place to Long Beach Road and Empire Boulevard.

In the past, the county has prohibited left turns and U-turns at certain intersections and installed mobile speed limit signs to encourage drivers to slow down, according to a June 2015 Herald column by Barbra Rubin-Perry, who is now the Island Park Chamber of Commerce president.

However, these fixes were not enough to make the road safe, Rubin-Perry wrote. When asked about the county’s new plan to repair the roads, she responded simply, “Finally.”

Renovations of Austin Boulevard are part of Nassau County’s 2020 capital projects initiative, a $2.3 billion plan to improve infrastructure in the county.

“The Capital Improvement Plan continues my commitment to restoring and improving infrastructure while investing in big picture projects that will improve the county for generations to come,” County Executive Laura Curran said. “We must meet the challenges of retaining our tax base by building on transit-oriented development.”