Harbor access road takes step forward

Construction of an access road for the Seaford Harbor Elementary School moved one step closer last week, as attorneys for the school district and Nassau County agreed upon language for an inter-municipal agreement.

The deal must still be approved by the county and the Seaford Board of Education. Superintendent Brian Conboy said he hopes that this latest development will mean the district can go out to bid for construction before the end of the school year, and possibly have the road done in time for the opening of school in September.

“It might be ambitious, but that would be my hope,” Conboy said. “It’s going to be a tremendous help and it’s going to remedy a problem that the community’s been dealing with for decades.”

The only way in and out of the Harbor School property is on Bayview Avenue. If the road were blocked, there would be no access to the school at all, and could prohibit emergency vehicles from reaching the building.

The 24-foot-wide access road would start directly across from the entrance to the back parking lot, and span 320 feet to Cedar Street. It would be gated, and the school district would open up the road during morning drop-off, afternoon dismissal, special events and for emergency vehicles.

Conboy said that in the fall of 2013, officials from the county’s Department of Public Works got to see the traffic problems first hand. During a visit to the school to review traffic flow, landscaping and construction vehicles on Bayview Avenue led to a major traffic jam, he explained. Soon after, County Executive Ed Mangano sent a letter to the school district promising $650,000 for construction of the access road.

It will be built upon a undeveloped piece of land that was once the right-of-way for an unbuilt section of the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway. The county has since acquired that land from the state.

Conboy said the desire for an access road was there soon after the school was built in 1962, but with fewer vehicles and more children walking to school in the 1960s and ’70s, it never came to fruition. Over the past several years, call for the road were renewed.