Not All Happy with New Traffic Features on Jericho Turnpike

The new modifications to Jericho Turnpike by New York State have some mixed reactions in New Hyde Park; while everyone generally agrees the repaved surface of Route 25 was much-needed, most are scratching their heads about the decisions which were made around the New Hyde Park Fire Department headquarters and many of the new traffic light stantons along the thoroughfare.

During the Aug. 20 meeting of the New Hyde Park Village Board at the village hall, Peter Kuczinski of Millers Lane, who is also a chauffeur from New Hyde Park hook and ladder, said the area around the department headquarters “looks like there’s a turning lane turning into the fire house going eastbound.”

One of the new changes to Jericho Turnpike was to make all everything that was not a median into a turning lane.

“I’m not even sure why the light configuration is the way it is,” mayor Robert Lofaro said during the meeting, describing the situation as “not like a continuous turning lane” and noting the pedestrian crossing there as well.

The mayor added that the village was aware that the state would be moving the light from South 16th Street over to South 15th Street, “but we thought it was going to between 15th and 16th, not exactly on 16th and 17th, so the configuration you see now is all new to us as well.”

Further east, the Garden City Park Fire House has solid yellow lines which are striped in the middle so the median can be used for vehicles to turn either east or west.

“By us, it’s almost inviting for people to go onto the left lane and make a left right into the fire house,” Kuczinski said, adding that they would have a hard time making a right if traffic stops to close to the light.

Village superintendent of public works Tom Gannon said the village would bring the situation to the state’s attention.

The fire lines where vehicles are required to stop while fire engines enter and exit the headquarters “doesn’t even cover the far bays,” Lofaro said. “It looks like they didn’t even make an allowances for where 171 is and any other vehicle that is further down.”

The new brick paved medians are also not as advertised as the village was under the initial impression that they were to run in front of Miller’s Lane and force a right turn onto Jericho Turnpike. Lofaro said he thought the state would impose a no left turn situation on North Sixth Street as well.

“I’ve seen some configurations on the medians that doesn’t seem to be consistent with what we thought was going to be there,” he said.

Trustee Donald Barbieri attempted to offer an explanation, saying that “I think part of what happened.. from their perspective was to make openings where emergency service vehicles could access different streets and that we might be an overkill by limiting access by as much as we would have if all those medians blocked those left turns as much as they would have.”

Pointing to the areas located between Ingraham Lane and South 12th St., Kuczinski said people are “running through” those double lights and come down Millers Lane to beat other traffic signals. Lofaro said that the state had proposed eliminating the double lights at Ingraham Lane as well as at North Sixth Street and Covert Avenue. Barbieri said that North Sixth is going to be removed and Gannon added that the plan is to only have vehicles make a right turn coming out of that location.

“If they remove that light and they didn’t build that median all the way then it’s an invitation for disaster,” Gannon said, also pointing out that Ingraham has a crosswalk on the wrong side.

“The crosswalk should really be on the east side if it’s right-turn only,” he said. “It’s all the state but there’s three different angles that are happening right now with lights... and there’s different portions of the project going on and A isn’t talking to B so they’re having their own coordination problems as well.”

According to Gannon the village is still waiting on several handicapped ramps yet to be installed, but which will be coming under a different portion of the project. The village has said in writing that they wanted the light at North 6th Street to stay and expressed that they are concerned about having no median to Covert Avenue. Barbieri said that there would be two crosswalks at Covert Avenue at both the east and west side.

“Part of the reason why we’re putting plantings in the center medians is so people don’t walk to the middle of the median and think that they have safe crossing,” Lofaro said, “because there’s a place that they can stand like in Floral Park where virtually anyplace in Floral Park you can cross mid-block and you can stop.”

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