Finally, a positive start for Austin Boulevard

It’s been years in the making, but it seems that Nassau County finally has a plan to make Austin Boulevard a safer road.

Eileen Kelly, transportation planner for the RBA group, an engineering firm, confirmed at a meeting last week what residents already knew about the street: It is a dangerous place to drive. Kelly said that from 2008 to 2010, there were 309 accidents on the 1½-mile stretch of road, which is double the statewide average for similar roads.

Mayor James Ruzicka said it best when he told the Herald that a plan proposing ways to make the road safer went “three-quarters of the way to where everyone would like it to be.” The main disappointment, it seems, is the proposal’s lack of a raised median.

The Herald echoed the sentiments of the community last fall when we called for a median. Unfortunately, it seems that isn’t in the cards right now.

The unfortunate reality is that a raised median would cost much more than a painted one — money the county simply doesn’t have. When we were calling for a median, the county had not yet reduced its work force to the lowest level in 60 years and County Executive Ed Mangano hadn’t yet announced his plans to consolidate police precincts and rent out our sewage treatment plants to help close the county’s $3 billion deficit.

Along with the other traffic-calming measures that were proposed — wider travel and parking lanes, retimed stoplights, sidewalk “bulbouts” and more visible pedestrian crossings — a painted median could actually help Austin Boulevard.

What Legislator Denise Ford said at the meeting is also true: adding a painted median now does not preclude the construction of a raised median at a later date. It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s better than what residents have now, which is a stretch of road full of potential dangers. Residents should not settle for a traffic-calming plan they’re not happy with, but we hope they will realize that these proposals would be a great change for Austin Boulevard, making it safer for both drivers and pedestrians. And that’s something that should make everyone happy.