By Jeff Lipton
The village board voted to approve $20,000 on Wednesday, March 13 to commission a study from the Sam Schwartz Company to determine the impact.
We will be working with the other municipalities involved to see if they want to help out, said Lawrence Village Administrator Peter Overs. He added that the study is underway, but does not know how long it will take.
The firm will review the Environmental Assessment Document submitted by the builder, study the existing volume of traffic and identify causes of congestion. In addition, the study will develop alternatives to improve traffic, Overs said. Everything is on the table, he added.
One of the proposals that has been discussed is construction of an overpass on Rockaway Boulevard, which would allow traffic arriving in the Five Towns to bypass traffic lights that will be installed for motorists making a left turn into the facility.
As soon as the study is complete, community and elected officials will be pressing for improvements, Overs said.
Most troublesome for Five Towners is the plan to increase truck traffic, as well as accommodating an additional 1,000 employees who will be working on the office buildings spread out among 500,000 square feet of space.
Overs said even though the Village of Lawrence fronted the $20,000 for the study, village officials will ask surrounding municipalities to help offset the costs.
But thus far the request has received a lukewarm response. I don't think in my small budge I could do it, said Stephen Mahler, Village of Atlantic Beach mayor, who has been outspoken about the impact of the air cargo project on the surrounding communities. I would love to do it and, yeah, there's interest in doing it.
Mahler said the Town of Hempstead should chip in since the project would directly affect the unincorporated areas of Inwood, North Lawrence and North Woodmere, as well as Woodmere and Hewlett. A town spokesperson said the town is working with Sen. Skelos on finding solutions.
Village of Cedarhurst Mayor Andrew Parise said he has not been approached or brought into talks about the plans. I haven't been a part of that at all, he said. Of course, I'm against added traffic in the Five Towns.
He said he would be happy to bring it up before the village board.
Meanwhile, State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) organized a meeting with city officials and the developer on Thursday, March 14, which was attended by Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach) and local mayors and civic leaders.
The meeting, an attempt to get some traffic amelioration from the city, proved fruitless, said Martin Oliner, a member of the Lawrence Association, in charge of the committee to study the project and its impact.
This is outrageous, said Oliner, who contributed $5,000 to the Lawrence Village study. This is for our safety. If this is allowed to happen, people will get killed. Then, what is the responsibility of the City of New York?
Oliner called the city the culprit for approving the plans without doing a complete study of the impact on surrounding areas. It's going to be an unmitigated disaster there, a total disaster, he said.
He added that city officials probably envisioned a traffic nightmare and okayed the plans anyhow. For me, the city totally abdicated a public trust and fiduciary responsibility as a city government.
Oliner has circulated a petition, calling for even more united opposition to the project until concerns are addressed. The petition also calls for help from local, state and federal elected officials, to send a strong message to the city.
Work is continuing on an underground project unrelated to the cargo facility, that has tied up traffic. A Woodmere man who uses Rockaway Boulevard to drive to his job in Brooklyn complained that the workers have taken too many days off, stretching the job out longer than it has to be, while concrete barriers and orange cones remain a constant, closing off one lane of traffic in each direction.
If they are going to screw up traffic, they should get in there, do what they have to do and get out of there, the man said. They are taking their sweet time and their philosophy is they will get done when they get done.
