Who owns North Shore’s roads?

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In April of 2017, as Yvette Rannou drove down Glen Cove Road, on her way to her Sea Cliff home from an appointment in Hempstead, she noticed something strange. When she crossed the road’s intersection with Northern Boulevard in Greenvale, she noted that the section of Glen Cove Road south of the intersection was in good condition, while north of it, the road was a “terrible mess.”

“Everything north of Northern Boulevard was unpaved, and there was quite a difference between the newly paved asphalt from Hempstead to Greenvale,” Rannou said. “It was never continued.”

Her confusion led her to make a number of calls over the course of several months to public works officials in bordering municipalities, local and state government representatives, as well as Nassau County’s Planning Department, which encompasses transportation improvements, all to answer one simple question: Who owns the roads?

“Some roads belong to the village, the town, the state, the county, but we don’t know who’s responsible for their upkeep and maintenance,” she said.

Since last year Rannou, 71, has left several messages with the county, but has yet to receive a response. Last summer she raised her grievances with then county executive candidate Laura Curran, and asked her to look into the issue if she took office. She also made repeated calls to her elected officials, but to no avail.

“I’m beside myself,” Rannou said. “These roads are very dangerous, and have been an issue for a long time. It has to be brought up, because it’s very confusing for citizens to understand.”

North of the North Hempstead-Oyster Bay town line, at Helen Street, Glen Cove Road falls under state jurisdiction, according to Stephen Canzoneri, a spokesman for NYSDOT. From Helen Street south, it is designated a county road.

The state recently completed resurfacing of NYS Route 107, between Hempstead Turnpike, in Bethpage, and Northern Boulevard, in Old Brookville to enhance safety and improve traffic flow. The route runs parallel to Glen Cove Road, beginning in Glen Head. Given the close vicinity of the two highways, Rannou wondered why NYSDOT couldn’t complete the paving job the county had started. “Why did the state neglect [Glen Cove Road]?” she asked.

Grant Newburger, constituent liaison for State Assemblyman Charles Lavine, whose district encompasses communitiues in northern Nassau County, said the office sometimes fields calls from people asking which entities own which roads, but that the county receives a greater volume of calls.

He offered a helpful hint for residents who are unsure of whom to contact when reporting needed road repairs. “The way you can tell who owns which roads is by the color of the traffic lights,” Newburger said. “The state roads have dark green traffic lights, and the county roads have orange-yellow traffic lights.”

“The Department of Public Works has not received any complaints of the condition on Glen Cove Road owned by the county nor the portion owned by New York State,” said Mary Studdert, a spokesperson for Nassau County.

Rannou said she was also frustrated by the intersection of Sea Cliff and Glen Cove avenues in Sea Cliff, which is riddled with ditches and cracks, as well Prospect Avenue in Sea Cliff, which she compared to “a roller coaster.”

The intersection at Sea Cliff and Glen Cove avenues is under the county’s purview. “All roads in the Village of Sea Cliff belong to the village, except Sea Cliff Avenue, Glen Avenue, Glen Cove Avenue, Cliff Way, The Boulevard, and Prospect Avenue from Cliff Way to the Glen Head line,” explained Village Administrator Bruce Kennedy. “Those are all county roads.” He added that the county plans to repair Prospect Avenue within the next year or two.

Rannou suggested the intersection be repaved and restriped to include a left-turn lane in both directions. She said she was concerned that the current infrastructure would be unequipped to handle additional residents who would move to the North Shore as a result of the Garvies Point Waterfront development, a mixed-use community located in Glen Cove.

“How are our roads going to handle all these people that are coming in?” she said.

Earlier this year, civic groups in Glen Head and Glenwood Landing lobbied with the Town of Oyster Bay for multiple road re-pavements. They, too, described aging roads as a problem that required a long-term solution.

“Regardless of who owns them, the roads are terrible, and the mixed bag of jurisdictions makes it hard to pin blame,” said Joseph Lopes, of Glen Head.

“Planned resurfacing for Glen Cove Road between Route 107 and Helen Street is tentatively scheduled for late 2020 [to] early 2021, sooner than originally projected,” Canzoneri said.