By: Laura Lane
Twice a day, 13-year-old Alyssa Berusch crosses Sunrise Highway. That's the only way she can get to Merrick Avenue Middle School, where she's a student. Although a crossing guard is there to help her, that's little comfort to her father, Jeffrey, who worries about her safety.
Berusch's concern is so great that he plans to contact his lawyer. He wants to force the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District to provide busing for his daughter. The Central District currently offers buses to middle-school children who live more than a mile from school. Sixty-three percent of Merrick Avenue students are eligible for busing, but Alyssa isn't.
"I'm studying the idea of putting my school taxes in escrow accounts to force the school district to provide more buses for the kids who have to cross Sunrise Highway," Berusch said. "I'd like to even go before a judge."
Berusch and some neighbors plan to create a civic association to solve what they believe is a significant problem. He worries about the increase in traffic deaths on Sunrise. "It's due to excessive speed and volume," Berusch said. "People aren't trained to even look out for the pedestrians."
Michael Ronkin, of the Oregon Pedestrian and Bicycling advocacy group, conducted a five-year study of road conditions when cars hit pedestrians. "The more you strip a road of anything that could tell a driver a pedestrian might be there, like trees, or setting the buildings back away from the roadway, the less drivers look for pedestrians," Ronkin said. "And there is a big jump in accidents when you go from four to six lanes."
Ronkin also found that traffic deaths are most often caused by driver impatience. "A driver will make a turn as soon as there's a break in the traffic," he said. "They aren't looking for pedestrians." Ronkin added, "The more they do to make the driving task easier for drivers, like giving them long sight distances, widening the roads, increasing the speed, the faster drivers feel comfortable driving. The more pedestrian crossings deteriorate."
Traffic calming is a road-safety term that refers to ways of improving conditions for pedestrians by slowing traffic. Michael King, an architect who once ran New York City's traffic-calming program, believes that a tree-lined median in the center of Sunrise Highway would improve conditions.
But the Sunrise medians in Merrick aren't nearly wide enough to include trees or serve as a waiting area for, say, a parent with a baby in a stroller. And they don't meet the crosswalk. The median separating east- and westbound traffic at Merrick Avenue is less than two feet wide. Someone who is unable to cross before the light changes would have to walk about five feet from the crosswalk to the median. The median at Hewlett Avenue is the same width, but even farther from the crosswalk, about 15 feet.
Eileen Peters, a state Department of Transportation spokeswoman, said there are no plans to broaden the medians on Sunrise. Said Peters, "It would require the travel lanes to be shifted. The lanes must be a minimum requirement based on the amount of traffic in the lanes."
Peters added that Sunrise was designed with safety in mind. "In order to put in a center-median barrier, we are certain we'd need to acquire property on either side of the road to maintain proper lane width that would ensure safe passage of trucks," she said. "There are design and engineering requirements, but not a law. The DOT is concerned about safety for residents, businesses and the 50,000-plus vehicles that use Sunrise Highway every day."
In response, King said, "It's clear that this policy trumps any policy to provide a safe waiting area for pedestrians. But they still could get a wider median by removing the parking shoulder or narrowing the sidewalk."
Lois Thibault is a researcher for the U.S. Access Board in Washington, D.C., a federal agency that develops accessibility guidelines. The board makes recommendations to the Federal Highway Administration. Thibault said that Peters's comments show that the DOT is more committed to drivers than pedestrians. "There is no requirement that they better serve pedestrians, though both federal and state policies give lip service to a more balanced relationship. ... Old habits die hard," Thibault said. "Americans have long favored car travel over other modes."
Thibault believed a "road diet" -- changing the width of roadways -- might be effective on Sunrise. "Engineers have discovered that road diets -- narrowing a four-lane roadway to three lanes, for instance, and including a shared left-turn lane -- have little effect on vehicle capacity and speed," she said. "The shorter the crossing for pedestrians, the less delay there will be for drivers."
King believes the community might get the width of the medians changed by insisting that the DOT comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. "A good lawyer could force the state to make medians wider, and make them according to handicapped accessibility," he said.
Other options
Some areas of Long Island, like Long Beach, use "bulbouts," curb extensions built into the crosswalk as far as the width of a car, to shorten crossing time. King said a bulbout gives pedestrians 2 2/3 more seconds to cross a street.
Some municipalities have built pedestrian bridges. That doesn't appear to be an option on Sunrise because, according to Peters, a half-acre to an acre of land would be needed on each side of the highway to satisfy Americans with Disabilities Act requirements that handicapped-accessible ramps accompany any pedestrian bridge.
Elevators have been used as an alternative to ramps. Dan Witcher, an engineer from Virginia who builds pedestrian bridges, said five-story buildings would be needed on either side of Sunrise Highway to house elevators. And the elevators would each cost an estimated $250,000.
Skywalks, enclosed pedestrian bridges without staircases, would cost tens of thousands of dollars, and if they were enclosed by glass or air-conditioned, millions.
Timing the lights
State DOT engineers set the timing of the lights on Sunrise Highway and other state roadways. They base the times on a standard walking pace.
John LaPlante, a transportation-planning engineer, believes the length of time the engineers use as a standard represents only half of pedestrians. He has gathered research on pedestrian crossings to submit to the Access Board to justify an increase in crossing time. If he succeeds, pedestrian crossing time could be increased for all state roadways, including Sunrise Highway.
But even if approved, any changes on Sunrise probably won't happen soon. The DOT must complete a study on Sunrise before any changes can be considered.
Meanwhile, Alyssa Berusch will continue to cross Sunrise. Even though she said she's frightened each time she crosses, she still must get to school. "Sometimes I think I might get hit by a car because the [pedestrian] light doesn't stay green," she said. "When I walk home with my friends after school, we always run across Sunrise Highway. I feel like we have to. And I've been really scared ever since I heard about what happened to Dustin Freda."
Freda, 14, was killed crossing Sunrise in 2001. "The night he died, he was at a party across the street from my house," Alyssa said. "Him dying ... it was so local."
