By Andrew Coen
Tracy Lloyd, chief of staff for State Senator Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), said that $50 million from the bond will be earmarked for a study, a design and an updated environmental review of the highway expansion, which was started but never completed. Local officials are hopeful that Congress will set aside some funding from a future federal highway bill for the expansion project, which Lloyd said would cost between $200 million and $300 million, according to the state Department of Transportation.
"The pieces of the puzzle to fund this are there," said Lloyd "[The bond passage] helps to get the study off the ground."
The Nassau Expressway runs from the Atlantic Beach Bridge to the Costco Wholesale store in North Lawrence, and then picks up again in Queens, just before the Van Wyck Expressway junction. An expansion project would include interchange improvements at the corner of Rockaway Turnpike and Burnside Avenue in North Lawrence, which state DOT officials have called a dangerous section of the Five Towns road, Lloyd said.
The original proposal for the expansion of Route 878, which would have turned it into an elevated highway between the Atlantic Beach Bridge and Rockaway Turnpike and expanded it toward the Van Wyck, was made 27 years ago but was halted. An attempt to include funding for a study in the 2004 federal highway bill was not successful.
Local officials have said the project is needed in order to reduce congestion on Rockaway Turnpike by making it easier to commute to New York City, in addition to making the Five Towns and Far Rockaway more accessible. The expansion would also provide residents of those areas an alternative emergency evacuation route, heading west toward the city instead of east -- especially if the highway were elevated.
"I like the idea of it," said Woodmere resident Sidney Katz of the highway's potential expansion. "It will make it more pleasant to come [to the Five Towns] from the city and Queens."
Jose Rodriguez of Cedarhurst said an expanded Nassau Expressway would make it easier to commute to New York City, providing better access to the Belt Parkway and Van Wyck Expressway, but he is concerned about the traffic construction would create, possibly for years. "It could be a positive in the long term but a negative in the short term, with all the construction," said Rodriguez.
Some local officials have pressed the state and federal government to move the project forward, since the Five Towns, eastern Far Rockaway and the western end of Long Beach are in need of an alternative emergency evacuation route. The current evacuation route for the Five Towns area runs to the end of Peninsula Boulevard onto Hempstead Turnpike toward Hofstra, and then into the Nassau Coliseum parking lot in Uniondale.
"The federal and state government have to do something to rescue people from the southwest corner of Nassau County," said Atlantic Beach Mayor Stephen Mahler, who, along with Lawrence Trustee Martin Oliner, has been pushing lawmakers to expand the highway. "It's outrageous that the emergency management people admit that there is really no evacuation route for that part of the county."
Oliner and Mahler have also attempted to halt development where the highway would be built, including a Super Stop and Shop that was proposed at the corner of Rockaway and Brookville boulevards, just across the Queens border.
The approved bond act will provide funding to the state DOT for more than 100 projects around the state to improve highways, bridges, mass transit systems and public transportation. Other projects on the South Shore include $21.5 million for improvements on the Southern State Parkway-Meadowbrook Parkway interchange, $7.6 million for a 13.5-mile bikeway along the Wantagh Parkway and $11 million for an upgrade of the electronic sign system on the Wantagh.
The bond also sets aside $450 million to connect the Long Island Rail Road to Manhattan's Grand Central Station and $200 million for a rail link from the Jamaica LIRR station to lower Manhattan.
"I am encouraged by the funding allocated for the feasibility study of the plan to expand and elevate the Nassau Expressway," said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola) in a prepared statement. "Transportation funding benefits the community in many ways."
"I'm not sure if it will be before 2030, but at some point, God willing, we will have this highway," said Oliner. "This is the beginning."
Comments about this story? ACoen@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 210.
