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Mostly Cloudy Shore Road residents say they’re not safe
Kristin Vandamia moved to Glen Cove’s Shore Road two years ago, because the “quiet little beach town,” as she described it, reminded her of home. But 24 hours after she signed her lease, Vandamia, an Erie, Pennsylvania, transplant, discovered that the peace and quiet she expected in her new neighborhood wasn’t what she experienced.
“Every time I pull out of this driveway, I can’t see, because there’s cars,” Vandamia, said. “If they’re coming through and they’re speeding, they’re going to hit the end of my car. I’ve almost come close to people, and they don’t stop for you — they just keep speeding. Even when we’re walking the dog or walking on the street, you have to be careful.”
Shore Road begins in Glen Cove, coming off Glen Cove Avenue, running along City Stadium Park and turning into the Boulevard at Sea Cliff Beach. Numerous restaurants, homes and businesses line both sides of the road.
For decades, the thoroughfare has been the object of complaints about speeding. The situation became so bad that in 2018, Shore Road resident Lora Cusumano founded the Shore Road Neighbors Group, a Facebook page comprising like-minded residents who came together to effect what they said were desperately needed changes.
But the group has had limited success. Although Shore Road is officially monitored by both the Nassau County and Glen Cove police departments, and had its speed limit reduced from 30 miles per hour to 25, Cusumano says that speeding vehicles, including delivery trucks and other large vehicles, remain a serious problem.
She has held many meetings since the group first formed, but a forum on June 1 at Glen Cove City Hall gave residents the chance to talk directly with rep
resentatives of both departments.
“We know everything in government takes time to happen, but right now we still have a problem,” Cusumano said at the forum. “We know we’re going to get some streetscaping and repaving in the future, and part of the goal of that project is to do some calming traffic techniques to help slow down speeders in the future, but up until the point where we get that done, we need enforcement now to keep things under control, because it’s very out of control down here on our street.”
The intersection of Albin Street and Shore Road sees many vehicles rushing to get through. Every day, Cusumano said, she sees near-collisions involving cars that don’t come to a full stop. She believes that part of the problem is that some of the motorists are driving down a steep hill.
At the beginning of Shore Road, near Glen Cove Avenue, there are a number of signs stating that trucks are not allowed in the area, and in the summer months there is no outlet near Sea Cliff Beach, when it is designated a seasonal one-way street.
During a typical week, over 15,000 cars travel through the neighborhood. Glen Cove Deputy Chief Chris Ortiz said at the forum, describing that number as a tremendous amount of traffic.
“We’re going to put some enforcement out there to try and ease some of the issues that you guys are having,” Ortiz said. “Hopefully that will make the neighborhood a little better.”
Since the forum, the Glen Cove P.D. has increased its presence on Shore Road with both marked and unmarked patrols, and, the department reports traffic summonses are up as a result.
In the weeks following the forum, some residents expressed an interest in assisting the department by allowing the use of their property to set up radar enforcement.
According to city code, Shore Road and Albin Street qualify as an arterial highway, which residents like Patricia Tracey see as an inaccurate designation, given the close proximity of the area’s homes to one another. Informing Google about the traffic would help ease many of the neighborhood’s issues by deterring drivers from taking their street. Tracey said she hoped that informing Google Maps of the condition of the street resulting from the high traffic would help ease some of the high traffic but was told an official from the municipality would need to contact them to verify the findings.
Ortiz contacted Google after the forum to discuss changes to their maps, but Google has yet to respond.
