By JOSEPH KELLARD
With restrictions on traffic in neighboring communities playing their part in attracting large volumes of commercial vehicles to Long Beach Road in Oceanside, other roads open to truck traffic within the town have also contributed to this growing problem.
Lawson Boulevard, for example - a double-laned road that permits motorists and truckers driving from Rockville Centre and East Rockaway to bypass Long Beach Road to get to Island Park, Long Beach and beyond - is "underutilized," according to Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback.
Toback cited county traffic studies that indicate the number of vehicles on Lawson Boulevard is less than it was designed to handle when it was built about 40 years ago. Noting that the boulevard's under-utilization attracts speedy motorists, Toback believes the intersection at Lawson Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue is uninviting to other motorists such as trucks and thus avoided when possible.
"My unscientific opinion is that the road is under-used because the intersection at Lawson Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue is very difficult and disjointed," Toback said. "Rockaway Avenue is only one lane, and you have the train tracks and the stops for the train crossings. So I would assume that any driver who has a choice would stay away from that so they wouldn't have to deal with that intersection."
"The purpose of building Lawson Boulevard was to alleviate traffic on Long Beach Road," said Jerry Lamonica, owner of a photography studio on Long Beach Road, who believes the truck traffic there is crippling the business district. "So, now we've come full circle because we're right back to where we started from."
Since Rockaway Avenue is a single-lane residential road, the Village of Rockville Centre bans trucks from using it. If trucks were permitted to use this road that connects to the Atlantic Avenue intersection, more of them would likely use Lawson Boulevard.
Moreover, Atlantic Avenue in East Rockaway, a double-lane road that runs east-west over the railroad crossing, leads straight through Oceanside and ends at Long Beach Road. This direct route invites truckers to use Long Beach Road instead of Lawson Boulevard. At one time, the Village of East Rockaway considered banning truck traffic on Atlantic Avenue.
It is issues like these surrounding the Lawson-Atlantic intersection, along with the effects that bans on truck traffic in neighboring villages have on other towns, which have prompted Toback to propose that villages and the county take a more regional approach toward traffic issues. One effect of this approach, Toback hopes, is to make Lawson Boulevard a more desirable route for trucks.
"I don't know what the solutions are," he said, "but that's what the traffic engineers are looking at. We may have to think out of the box in order to find ways to unclog these arteries."
Toback said he has already talked with the county's public works commissioner about taking a more active role toward incorporated villages that "take their traffic problems and transfer them somewhere else," he said. Toback said he will now talk with a state representative about amending state law to recognize the more regional nature of truck traffic so that perhaps villages "have to make their case to ban truck traffic, why they are doing it and how it will not adversely affect neighboring communities," the legislator proposed.
Ron Wasson, Rockville Centre's village administrator, countered that most major streets where truck traffic is banned come under the jurisdiction of Nassau County.
"The village can't just come out and say: I'm not letting anyone down Lakeview Avenue or Hempstead Avenue," Wesson said. "Really, the county has a lot of control already, and we're kind of powerless over those types of issues. The county is very good in listening and working with us. But the village can't change a street designation and limit trucks without Nassau County."
Wesson explained that to impose restrictions on roads, a village would have to do an extensive traffic study that considers the number of trucks, along with their size and weights, which use certain roads. "If it had a very negative impact, we'd have a hearing about it," Wesson said. "I'd talk to the trustees before making that change. I probably would even speak to the neighboring towns or villages...If it happens to be a RVC road, obviously we'd have more control over it. If it happened to hit on a county road or state highway, then it takes a lot longer and it's a much more involved process."
Ed Sieban, a trustee for the Village of East Rockaway, said that when the village considered a truck ban on Atlantic Avenue in 2002, it held hearings and found residents opposed it for fear of increased congestion in other parts of town. The village has since dropped the idea.
Asked about the regional approach Toback proposes, which potentially could take more autonomy away from the village, Sieban said, "The whole purpose of a village is to have autonomy, to have local control and jurisdiction over issues that effect the area. I wouldn't be in favor of any loss of jurisdiction on a local level on any issue. We have to look at issues for the residents of East Rockaway, not other towns, because that's the constituency that we need to serve."
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