Officials: State needs to move on 878 plans

After more than a year of campaigning by local elected officials to have repair work done on the Nassau Expressway, also known as state route 878, the New York State Department of Transportation began a $6 million repaving and drainage improvement project on July 8.
Work will be done between the Rockaway Turnpike and Burnside Avenue, and also include the adjacent portions of Peninsula Boulevard and Bay Boulevard. It is expected to take about three weeks to complete. The work does not include addressing anything long term, such as adding extra lanes onto the expressway.
Local leaders are grateful for the work to be done, but describe it as patchwork, saying it is only a short term solution for a transportation problem that has affected the Five Towns for decades. They are also upset that the Nassau Expressway is not included in the state’s Department of Transportation recent allocation of $75 million for repaving 428 miles of New York State roadway.
Traffic backups and road conditions are the primary problems Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach) hears from his constituents. “The first problem is that the traffic lights are not synchronized properly,” he said. “We are dealing with different governments trying to work together. You have people sitting in traffic backed up to Kennedy Airport, trying to get into the Five Towns and Atlantic Beach area. The second issue is with flooding. When it rains, it’s impassable. Everything slows to a standstill. Just traversing through the community is made extra difficult.”
County Legislator Howard Kopel (R-Lawrence) who initiated a constituent-based letter writing campaign last year to get the state to move on plans for the expressway, called it “like a Third World road.” “It has horrible design and horrible drainage,” he said. “This is maintenance that should have been done years ago. I’d like to see an extra lane added in each direction. We would need to completely bypass Rockaway Boulevard with that road. It seems as though the state doesn’t want to spend their money here.”

Assemblyman Philip Goldfeder (D-Far Rockaway) said that 130,000 people rely on three evacuation routes during emergencies, and the Nassau Expressway, as one of the three, needs far more consideration.
“There are multiple options and multiple proposals,” he said. “In the short term, we worry about drainage and immediate paving, but we need to worry about cars driving safely. In the long term, we need to find some type of expansion mechanism to allow for additional cars. The community is continuing to grow and we need to make sure that our infrastructure can handle it.”
All three elected officials want the state to include the expressway in long term rebuilding plans and provide the funding to get it done. Kaminsky said the work being done now is comparable to moving the football, but a touchdown has yet to be scored. “This current project will get us to the 30-yard line,” he said. “We’ve got 70 more to go, though. This can’t be it or all we’ll get from the state.”