Lido Boulevard sinkhole fixed this weekend?

Drivers headed into and out of the east end of Long Beach and the west end of Lido Beach have faced a challenge — to put it mildly — for the past two weeks. But the culprit hasn’t been crowds of beachgoers or a popular event. It’s been a sinkhole.

Finally, though, the small crater on Lido Boulevard, in Lido Beach, is expected to be repaired in the next few days, bringing an end, barrier island motorists fervently hope, to the often nightmarish traffic delays.

“A complete excavation and identification of and repair to the manhole has been completed,” Lauren Sternberg, a spokeswoman for Veolia North America, which manages Nassau County sewers and wastewaters treatment plants, said on Monday. “Street restoration is currently underway, and is expected to be completed by the weekend.”

The 20-foot-deep sinkhole opened up near Lido Boulevard’s intersection with Regent Drive, right in front of Lido Elementary School and Long Beach Middle School, on May 31, the result of a manhole failure. It forced the Point Lookout Lido Fire Department to initially evacuate its headquarters nearby, and necessitated the closure of multiple lanes of the only roadway in and out of Long Beach to and from the Loop Parkway.

Sternberg explained that Veolia, in conjunction with Nassau County and its contractors, first had to excavate the sinkhole, which involved bypass pumping of both groundwater and wastewater. Workers had to determine the cause of the problem, which turned out to be the manhole failure 20 feet deep, before contractors could repair it. Crews even worked while the air quality reached dangerous levels last week, when the smoke from wildfires in Canada darkened the skies over Long Island.

“While the air quality issues made things unpleasant,” Sternberg said, “we took proper precautions for those working on the repair, but there were no known delays as a result.”

Long Beach schools were closed on June due to the hazardous air, and Schools Superintendent Jennifer Gallagher noted that the sinkhole repairs were a factor as well.

“By closing school, we are eliminating a situation where students are exposed to harmful air quality while riding their bikes, walking, waiting at bus stops, or traveling on buses or in parents’ cars,” Gallagher wrote in a letter to district families last week. “This is especially true right now because of the travel delays caused by the sinkhole.”

Four of Lido Boulevard’s six lanes have been closed, with one staying open in each direction. Because of a backup of vehicles headed west on the roadway on the afternoon of June 2, the southbound Loop Parkway was closed to non-residents for several hours. That reduced the traffic making its way past the sinkhole repairs, but increased traffic on Long Beach Road and Austin Boulevard in Oceanside and Island Park, the other main route into Long Beach.

Residents of the city and all of its neighboring communities felt the impact of the lane closures. “There was one crazy day where it took Jackie an hour and four minutes to get home from Garden City,” Dr. David Fagan, of Long Beach, said of his wife. “And that wasn’t the day the Loop Parkway was closed.”

Fagan, a doctor at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park — typically a 35-minute commute — said he had dealt with delays as well, and had to alter his route home a few times. But, he added, at least the problem wasn’t a permanent one.

“It’s an inconvenience, but my mindset is that it’s temporary,” Fagan said. “We have aging infrastructure. This stuff has a lifespan, and then it breaks, and we live on a barrier island that’s sand. I’ve had to make some adjustments, but you have to roll with it.”

Rich Rothberg, also of Long Beach, also had to make some changes, though not for work. The Saturday after the sinkhole appeared, Rothberg planned to go to Point Lookout with some friends for lunch. Some were coming from out of town, but given the closures and delays, he decided it would be better not to even attempt the get-together.

“I’ve had friends tell me it’s taken them an hour and a half to get here from Rockville Centre,” he said. “Numerous people have told me it’s taken so long because they went through Oceanside and Island Park to get here to avoid the sinkhole, and they said it was not a pleasant experience.”

Additional reporting by Sean Kennedy.