Deal Road, the well-known, well-traveled, and well-worn road in Island Park that is adjacent to the Francis X. Hegarty School, received funding to be repaved. The project was originally scheduled to take place during this year, but the Village Board decided to appeal to State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos for more money. In November, the village received the money, and funds for the project now total $375,000. The project will expand to include not just the street, but also the severely-damaged curbs and part of Suffolk Road, as well.
In October, after hundreds of accidents and more than its fair share of deaths, the first steps were taken to make Austin Boulevard, which runs the entire length of Island Park, a safer road. Nassau County Legislators Denise Ford and Jeff Toback, at a meeting of the Island Park Civic Association, told residents that they would do their best to make sure Austin Boulevard became safer to navigate for drivers and pedestrians. They pledged to make sure that a traffic study for the road is tagged onto the county’s budget for 2009. The study is needed to survey the traffic on the road so officials from the Nassau County Department of Public Works can determine the traffic flow patterns and how to improve the roadway.
Another big project for Island Park was the installation of new pollution-reducing devices in the village's catch basins (the drains on the side of the street). Island Park received a grant of about $400,000 from the county to purchase and install catch basin inserts, which will catch large pollutants (bottles, cans, etc.) as they enter the drains and stop them from going into the surrounding waters. In addition to installing the catch basin collectors, some of the more damaged catch basins themselves will be repaired.
Island Park also bumped up public safety this year by installing three security cameras along roadways. The cameras, mounted on LIPA utility poles, are intended to be a crime deterrent. One is pointed at the Long Island Rail Road station in Island Park, and the other two are mounted to observe parts of Long Beach Road. They were purchased and installed with a $15,000 grant secured by Toback. The cameras can be accessed remotely by the Nassau County Police Department, and are already in use.
In the hopes of easing traffic on Waukena Avenue in Oceanside, the Nassau County Department of Public Works installed a detector device to activate the traffic light at the intersection of Waukena and Ocean Avenues in the spring. The stop signs that the Town of Hempstead installed at the intersection in 2006, which county officials say just made the traffic problem worse, were covered up, but not entirely removed. From the time the stop signs were originally installed in 2006 to the time the Herald reported the story in late April 2008, there were nine accidents at the Ocean/Waukena intersection, as opposed to six from 2001-2005. From May, when the signs were covered, to Nov. 30, there has only been one accident at the intersection. The town has yet to take down the stop signs because they are waiting to see how, if at all, the detector improves the traffic conditions on the road.
Towards the end of the year, it came to light that some residents of Oceanside were having trouble crossing Oceanside Road to get to the Young Israel. County Legislators Denise Ford and Jeff Toback were made aware of the issue, and have pledged to help correct it. The solution could be as simple as repairing and widening the sidewalks.
