The traffic’s barely moving

Lots of traffic can mean lots of shoppers, lots of activity and a healthy, prosperous community. But the 20,000 or so vehicles per day that move through the area known as the Hewlett Triangle — the intersections of Broadway, West Broadway, Harris Avenue and Mill Road — also mean congestion and frustrating delays.
And on Rockaway Turnpike, heading into Lawrence from Queens, traffic moves at a snail’s pace.
There is no escaping snarled traffic on Long Island, but once again, officials are evaluating possible solutions. County Legislator Howard Kopel, a Republican from Lawrence, requested that the county Department of Public Works commission a new study of the triangle. That project, costing $180,000, is now under way, and is expected to be completed by late next summer, according to DPW officials.
A study was conducted six years ago. “I don’t think it was sufficient,” Kopel said. “The community didn’t support it, and conditions have changed.”
Previous recommendations included adding left-turn lanes, creating a second eastbound lane on West Broadway between Woodmere Boulevard and Franklin Avenue, and converting Broadway and West Broadway into one-way streets. “The past traffic study was not the same as this current effort,” said Michael Martino, a DPW spokesman. “The past study looked to improve the flow of traffic along Broadway and West Broadway, from the triangle to Woodmere Boulevard. This current study is to look specifically at the operations of the triangle itself, and improve that intersection. The study will be used to finalize a preferred option and as a basis for entering into full design.”

Kopel said that he goes out of his way to avoid the triangle area, and that he is looking for better recommendations from the new study, while thinking that creating a traffic circle could improve things by keeping vehicles moving in one direction. “I always thought that traffic circles are very good and efficient in congested areas,” he said.
Hewlett resident Ben Eilbott, president of the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library, said he strongly supports finding solutions to the area’s traffic problems. Eilbott said that the previous study produced some good suggestions, but they were not acted on. “Nothing is being done,” he said. “Traffic is getting worse and worse. Broadway doesn’t move. The whole area is insane.”
In what he considered a small victory, Eilbott said he persuaded the Town of Hempstead to install a “No left turn” sign on the Harris Avenue side of Trader Joe’s, to reduce traffic on West Broadway and to help ensure that it flows back to Peninsula Boulevard. As for his opinion of traffic circles: “Circles are very, very difficult if traffic is not flowing along,” he said.

Rockaway Turnpike
Traffic doesn’t flow along Rockaway Turnpike because the signals on the two sides of the roadway are not properly synchronized, according to Kopel and Village of Lawrence Mayor Martin Oliner. “The ongoing problems are the lights are not coordinated and the infrastructure is inappropriate, and the road needs to be widened,” Oliner said. Though the section of Rockaway Turnpike closest to New York City isn’t in the village, Oliner said he has taken a strong interest because the resulting traffic congestion continues into Lawrence.
Oliner, who has been working with Kopel and the city’s Department of Transportation officials, said that traffic signals could be sequenced within the next two weeks, but widening the roadway would take money. Funds once targeted for road improvements were canceled as the state reapportioned money due to the downturn in the economy, Oliner said.
Those funds also would have been directed to improving and extending the Nassau Expressway, a state road that, Kopel said, needs to be improved because of its designation as an evacuation route. “This is critical, and I’m determined to get something done,” Kopel said, referring to both projects. “I’m not tilting at windmills.”

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jbessen@liherald.com.