By Jeff Lipton
Now a New York City Department of Environmental Protection sewer project on Rockaway Boulevard and Guy Brewer Boulevard in Queens has put drivers in an even more sour mood. New sewers are being built to accommodate the massive, 500,000-plus-square-foot air cargo facility. The construction has made it nearly impossible for Five Towners to get in and out of the area in a short time.
Martin Oliner, a trustee for the Village of Lawrence, continued to field complaints last week from residents about the seemingly unending gridlock. He said he was told residents could expect another month or two of traffic delays due to the sewer project.
City officials closed off one lane in each direction on Rockaway Boulevard in order to get the project finished. But heavy rain during the summer has delayed construction, forcing motorists to endure increased traffic even longer and making them constantly maneuver around orange cones.
Sure, I've gotten a lot of complaints, said Oliner. I was very concerned about the sewer construction. It was our biggest problem over there.
He explained that the infrastructure is antiquated, and the city required new sewer lines to be installed to support the new development of four air cargo buildings, the last of which won't be completed until next spring. As many as 1,000 employees are expected to occupy the buildings.
Oliner led a contingent of protesters who tried to stop construction of the facility, which was seven years in the making, but they found out about it too late. However, opponents managed to win major concessions, including forcing the city to put in turn lanes and widen local streets such as Brookville Boulevard. The concessions also included adding a holding pen for tractor trailers so that traffic would not be backed up onto Rockaway Boulevard if too many trucks enter at the same time.
If we had known about it earlier, we would have stopped it, Oliner said of the plans to construct the airport centers. It was an uphill battle. Given where we were, we did get major concessions. Turn lanes, wider roads Ñ we got all those things. We got about 15 to 20 different things.
But much of the construction has taken place during the summer, when traffic is at its peak, with many motorists headed to the beaches in Far Rockaway, Atlantic Beach and Long Beach. When should they be doing this? Not in the middle of the summer, Oliner said. They should have done it a month or more before that.
The concessions, he said, have definitely made a difference in traffic flow, but it's not noticeable because of the sewer work going on now. A traffic light was also installed at the entrance of the airport centers, and the light has an automatic turn signal that will not turn red unless a car is waiting there.
Rabbi Rafael Saffra, the new president of the Lawrence Association, said he too has received many complaints about traffic congestion on Rockaway Turnpike and on Rockaway Boulevard. Oh, yeah, people are complaining, he said. It's a pain in the neck. All I know is that forever they have been putting concrete barriers up and forever they have been tearing up the street and closing one lane on and off. It's been a great inconvenience to our residents.
One resident even [jokingly] suggested building a bridge from Copper Beach Lane [in Lawrence] to the Van Wyck Expressway, and then we'll be able to get through it, Saffra said. It just goes to show you how upset the residents are about it. I find it to be personally a tremendous inconvenience. Our focus has been finding the egress into the Village of Lawrence.
Saffra said it seems like the construction is always taking place at the height of morning or afternoon traffic, when drivers have to get to and from work.
We also hear it from our merchants all the time, Sy Glass, president of the Woodmere Merchants Association, said about shopkeepers who travel through the area. Everyone is up in arms about the new [cargo] warehouse ... We've been asking for a bypass. Now traffic has been diverted all over the place.
Tracy Lloyd, a spokesman for state Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), said Five Towns leaders have held quarterly meetings with city and state transportation officials and representatives of the cargo facility to get construction updates. The next meeting is scheduled for next month. We continue to monitor it, Lloyd said. We certainly hope that the congestion and the other traffic problems die down as soon as the project is completed.
Emergency sewer work on Brookville Boulevard and Rockaway Boulevard on Tuesday, Aug. 19, cut off the right lane of traffic, making for delays of almost an hour for anyone traveling to the Five Towns Shopping Center from Central Avenue in Lawrence.
Some nights are worse than others, Saffra said. Why can't they work later at night on the construction?
Residents of the Five Towns and surrounding communities got some relief from development on Rockaway Boulevard when a proposal to build a 150,000-square-foot shopping center at Brookville Boulevard was scrapped for the time being. The city's Department of Transportation has set aside the site for a possible overpass portion of a new Route 878. Construction of the overpass could start in two to three years if it is approved as part of a federal highway funding package. The bill is pending in Congress. The plan would make 878 an elevated highway connecting to the Van Wyck or the Belt Parkway, which would alleviate much of the congestion on Rockaway Boulevard and Rockaway Turnpike.
