Residents say rough road spells trouble

It’s inevitable that there will be a head-on collision on Woodfield Road soon if Nassau County does nothing to repair its poor condition. That is the consensus of many Lakeview and West Hempstead residents who drive on the thoroughfare, and often see southbound motorists veering into the northbound lane to avoid large bumps in the road.

“The manhole covers are staying stationary, but the pavement around them is sinking,” said Marshall Myers, a West Hempstead resident who travels up and down Woodfield Road every day. “So now you’ve got a double whammy: You’ve got something sticking up with a depression at the same time. If you hit it right, it will tear the transmission out of your car.”

The bumps appear every few yards, in the pavement surrounding manhole covers, along the road’s southbound lane, from Laurel Court in West Hempstead to Lakeview Avenue in Lakeview. Lakeview Council President Viberta Caesar said that the problem arose in the 1990s, when the county hired a contractor to repair sewers in the area. In order to reach the sewers, Caesar explained, the contractor, whom she did not identify, dug up the pavement around the manholes, did his work and then repaired the pavement. While he met his obligation to repave those areas, local residents assert that he did a poor job of it, because the pavement began to deteriorate. “It was gradual,” Caesar said, “but today all you can do is notice it.”

Caesar and others complained to County Executive Ed Mangano and Public Works Commissioner Shila Shah-Gavnoudias about the rugged road in April, when the two officials visited the Lakeview Public Library. Residents were told that the county was aware of the problem, and that it resulted in part from the contractor’s failure to remove concrete he had used during construction to hold up the manholes. Caesar said that Mangano and Shah-Gavnoudias promised to investigate the matter, report back to the community and repair the road by the end of the summer.

“Here we are, the end of the summer and nothing,” Caesar said. “They make these promises so that we wouldn’t be the angry mob at their door. They hold us off with promises and they give us nothing in the end.”

County spokeswoman Katie Grilli-Robles said that the county Department of Public Works is “constantly working to improve the county’s infrastructure,” and that plans for a project to repair the road are expected to be finalized in October. Work on the road would begin next spring.

“The road was done almost 20 years ago,” Grilli-Robles said. “Time, weather and nature have had an impact on the materials used, which has resulted in the road’s current condition.”

It is imperative that the county address the matter immediately, said Myers, added that he is concerned about the safety of drivers, pedestrians and residents on Woodfield Road. “What’s going to happen is someone’s going to be swerving at the wrong time … and you’re going to have a head-on collision,” he said. What’s worse, he added, is the problem of speeding on that 1.5-mile stretch of road, which has only three traffic lights between Laurel Court and Lakeview Avenue.

“Throw into the mix that people coming down Woodfield are banging 60 miles an hour, who go, ‘Oh, the hell with it, no lights, nothing, let me just bang 60.’ So that’s what they do,” Myers said. “So now, if you’re going 60 and you’re swerving and somebody, God forbid, is coming in the other lane, it’s just too late then at that point.”

While Caesar agreed that the county must take immediate action to prevent the inevitable, she said she wants to make sure the work is done right. “If it’s sinking now, if they only cover it with asphalt, then it’s going to end up sinking again,” she said. “They need to strip and regrade it, and then they can actually cover over. If they just patch, patch, we’re going to be in the same mess. Once this winter comes, snow comes, the salt rips up the road, with the sanitation trucks clearing the snow, next summer we’ll see it will be in a worse state than what it is now.”