By: Jeff Lipton
For months, residents and merchants have complained that county traffic engineers increased traffic jams recently by installing turn lanes and crosswalks in front of the Hewlett Burger King and re-timing the traffic lights. The "improvements" were made to increase safety for Hewlett High School students who walk to get lunch. Almost two years ago, three students were hit by cars near the school on Everit Avenue in separate incidents over a few weeks' span.
Since the improvements were completed, the county reported, there have been no accidents involving pedestrians at Broadway and West Broadway. But residents said the traffic now backs up for several blocks on Broadway, and it takes them five to 10 minutes more to get to their destinations.
Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) inspected the complicated traffic conditions first-hand last Friday afternoon, the busiest time of the week, and invited parent leaders and officials to join him in coming up with possible solutions. Hewlett High School PTA co-presidents Amy Rehs and Teri Stein accompanied him, as well as Gary Sauer and Linda Reed, who were representing Town Councilman Anthony Santino (R-Hewlett). Sauer is also the assistant director of the Town of Hempstead's Traffic Control Division.
"This is one of the most complicated [traffic] areas in the county," said Sauer.
As they examined the traffic conditions, watching the traffic back up, residents who passed by pleaded with them for help in moving traffic along. Jill Krueger, a resident of Hewlett Harbor, said she has never seen the traffic so bad. "I think it's horrible," she said as she tried to cross the street. "The traffic gets backed up on Broadway all the way down to Woodmere. It's never been like this before.
"Please fix it," she told officials when she was finally able to cross the street.
PTA leaders said they believed they could come to "some happy medium" with the community, and that maybe the traffic controls require some "tweaking."
"The safety of the kids is the most important thing," said Stein. "Their safety cannot be compromised. But we don't want residents to be affected by this. We want something that could work for everybody in the community."
Rehs added, "The safety of the students is still a priority, but we need to consider the community as a whole. If residents and people in the community feel it's a serious problem, we should try to make as many people happy as possible. This has to work for the entire community."
Hewlett Harbor Trustee Mark Weiss has been collecting names on petitions, which he intends to send to County Executive Thomas Suozzi to convince him of the severity of the traffic tie-ups. More than 400 names have been collected.
The public outcry and the media coverage of the conditions spurred Toback to call an emergency meeting with town and county traffic engineers, business leaders, police and fire officials and school officials last Wednesday night in the Hewlett law office of Joe Gelb, president of the Hewlett Business Association. They tossed around ideas on how to improve traffic flow while safeguarding students.
According to Howard Weinick, the Hewlett-Woodmere school board president, who attended the meeting, the primary concern of the board is student safety. "People need to exercise a great degree of caution until an adequate solution is available," he said. "All should strictly obey traffic regulations when negotiating the complex intersection, either as a motorist or a pedestrian."
Weinick said that a solution needs to be designed that will allow "our service agencies to get through the intersection quickly in the interest of the school district and the entire community. The temporary solution is to have patience. Patience is needed to allow the engineers to tweak or redesign the system, and patience is needed by motorists and pedestrians in getting to their destinations."
He added that the immediate addition of a crossing guard would certainly help.
"We are optimistic that by continuing communications with all segments of the community, this problem will be resolved as expeditiously as possible," Weinick said.
"Overall, I think it went well," said Gelb of the closed-door Nov. 3 meeting, which included about 25 officials. Business leaders expressed fear that the long waits at traffic lights would scare away consumers, who would shop elsewhere. Merchants such as Leon Boritz, owner of Tios Fine Jewelry, said business was down significantly since the changes were made.
Gelb said county officials were earnest about making improvements to increase pedestrian safety. "They came down here with a serious commitment to make it better," he said. "They tried very hard, and showed all efforts would be put in to move traffic and to allow sufficient time for residents to cross the street. They put in a lot of money and a lot of time."
The complicated intersections of Broadway, Piermont Avenue, West Broadway and Harris Avenue have eight traffic phases or cycles, lasting 20 seconds per cycle, including one 20-second period in which all traffic is stopped so pedestrians can cross the street. By the time all phases have been completed, traffic is backed up for blocks, officials said.
"We got the county engineers to say this is one of the most difficult traffic areas in the county," Toback said. "What is the best solution? We don't know right now."
Suggestions made at last Wednesday's meeting included moving the bus stop from the southwest corner of Broadway and Franklin Avenue to the southeast corner. Another was the installation of pedestrian barriers to prevent students from crossing in the middle of the street, similar to what has been done in Manhattan. In addition, police officials said they could visit schools to conduct programs on pedestrian safety. "This has got to be a multi-faceted approach," said Toback.
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