Lights remain out on 878

Atlantic Beach resident Barry Ringelheim interrupted his drive home at 10 p.m. on June 25, got out of his car on the Nassau Expressway between Rock Hall Road, in the Village of Lawrence, and the Atlantic Beach Bridge, and counted the non-working streetlights. There were 27, he said. Three weeks later, the Herald counted nearly 30 along the thoroughfare, also known as State Route 878.

“I have sent letters to the town supervisor, to the state [Department of Transportation] and the Village of Lawrence,” Ringelheim said. Those letters date back to 2014, and since then a number of the streetlights along the expressway have had new bulbs installed, and those repairs have been documented.

The battle against the eroded wires that short out the lights is complicated by jurisdictional challenges. According to a Jan. 3 letter this year from Margaret Conklin, the state regional transportation director, to Ringelheim, the streetlights along Route 878 “are both owned and operated by the Town of Hempstead and the Village of Lawrence.” The lights from the Long Island Rail Road bridge to Rockaway Turnpike belong to the town, Conklin explained, while the lights from the LIRR bridge to the toll booths for the Atlantic Beach Bridge belong to the village.

“That is our understanding,” town spokesman Michael Fricchione acknowledged. “We’re north of the Inwood station overpass. Any complaints we’ve received about the streetlights that are south of that we direct to the Village of Lawrence.”

Speaking on behalf of Lawrence Mayor Alex Edelman, Village Administrator Ron Goldman said the issue was pushing the state DOT to realize that this is an ongoing problem that needs to be state-funded. “[Hurricane] Sandy did a job like you can’t imagine, and turned this into a capital project,” Goldman said, adding that the village takes its responsibility for maintaining the lights seriously, but needs help to fix the problem because electrical wires continue to erode.

In October 2015, the town replaced 83 streetlights — from Route 878’s intersection with Rockaway Turnpike to the intersection with Bayview Avenue — with new fixtures and more efficient, money-saving, light-emitting diode, or LED, bulbs. Lawrence village spent nearly $100,000 in 2016 to repair 70 streetlights.

“What happened went further than operational,” said State Assemblywoman Melissa Miller, a Republican from Atlantic Beach. “This is really damage from Sandy that didn’t show up until 18 months or two years later, below, underground.” Miller added that the state should bear responsibility for helping to fix the streetlight wires, corroded from saltwater intrusion. “I’ve defended the Village of Lawrence — they laid out money that they should be getting back,” she said. “They’ve been bitten, and are reluctant to repair the next phase.”

State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a Democrat from Long Beach who also represents the Five Towns, said it was “not acceptable for people we are relying on to be pointing fingers,” referring to all the government entities. Kaminsky noted that it was also unacceptable, nearly seven years after Sandy, that a solution to the wiring issue had not yet been found. “I know that in the first week of August, we’ll be convening a meeting with both the village and DOT,” he said, adding that the discussion would focus on a needed study, its cost and where to find the money to fund it.

Stephen Canzoneri, DOT’s spokesman for Long Island, echoed Conklin’s statement that the Village of Lawrence was responsible for its portion of the expressway’s lighting. “At the request of Nassau County, the state Department of Transportation last year assisted the county in providing temporary street lights to the Village of Lawrence when a circuit breaker went out,” Canzoneri said.

He was referring to an incident on Thanksgiving Day last year, when a car struck the streetlight pole that houses the controls for all of the lights along 878. Officials from Lawrence, the town, the county and Kaminsky’s office collaborated to have the lights repaired within a week.

Pressed on whether the DOT would consider discussing whether replacing the corroded wiring could be a state capital project, Canzoneri said, “Yes we are.”

Have an opinion about the streetlights along the Nassau Expressway? Send your letter to the editor to jbessen@liherald.com.