A stop sign installed less than a year ago at the intersection of Grand and Burtis avenues in Rockville Centre has been removed, reigniting concerns about pedestrian safety and speeding in the area and prompting village officials to pursue alternative traffic-calming measures.
The westbound stop sign on Grand Avenue was removed on May 28 after being installed last July, following complaints from residents about dangerous traffic conditions at the T intersection.
The effort to address safety concerns began after Michael McCarthy, who lives on the corner of Burtis and Grand, wrote a letter to Mayor Francis X. Murray and the village board on Aug. 5, 2024, describing speeding vehicles, heavy pedestrian traffic and the absence of marked crosswalks near the intersection.
Many children living in the area are designated as walkers to South Side Middle School.
The village installed a westbound stop sign on Grand Avenue last July, though no corresponding stop sign was added for eastbound traffic.
Speaking at the village board meeting on June 1, McCarthy said he was surprised to discover that the stop sign had been removed and the stop line painted over without explanation.
“It took a few months, maybe between six months and a year, for a stop sign to go in on Grand, facing west at the intersection,” McCarthy told the board. “Then just last week, Friday, I realized that the stop sign was pulled up and [the line] was painted over without much of an explanation.”
McCarthy added that the intersection is still heavily traveled by students and families heading to nearby schools and activities. “It continues to be a very dangerous area,” he said. “Kids walk with headphones in, and people are speeding to sports practice or to the train.”
Murray said that village officials ultimately determined that the stop sign created an unintended hazard, because only westbound traffic was required to stop. Eastbound traffic on Grand continued through the intersection without stopping.
“The stop sign went in. It actually made it worse,” Murray said. “You can’t put a stop sign going the other way because it’s not an intersection there. It didn’t work.”
Village officials, he said, received complaints that pedestrians, particularly children, were assuming that traffic in both directions was stopping. “We had people calling us to take it out because children thought the stop sign was both sides, and it’s not,” Murray said. “So they walk out thinking they were safe and they weren’t.”
Police Commissioner A. Randy Dodd said that state traffic regulations played a significant role in the decision to remove the sign.
“When you put in a stop sign or any signage, you have to follow New York state guidelines,” Dodd said. “After doing studies and crash analysis over five years, and there’s no crashes there, it’s hard to justify putting a stop sign in if it doesn’t adhere to state code.”
Resident feedback, Dodd added, reinforced the village’s concerns about the stop sign’s effectiveness. “When that stop sign was put in, we got a lot of complaints about it, because it gave a false sense to the kids that this one way is stopping, [as well as] the other side,” he said. “I was probably getting two emails a week about how unsafe people thought it was.”
Village officials now plan to replace the stop sign with a marked crosswalk, intended to improving pedestrian safety and accessibility at the intersection. The proposal includes curb cuts for wheelchairs, strollers and other mobility devices.
Village Trustee Katie Conlon, who responded to McCarthy’s original letter and has pushed for improvements at the intersection, questioned whether a crosswalk alone would adequately address the problem.
“I do think that there could be a way to put a stop sign there as well so that there’s one going in both directions,” Conlon said. “We have to be creative, because something does have to get done there.”
Conlon noted that a traffic study found significant speeding on Grand Avenue, particularly during the early morning hours when school begins, and added that the village should continue to explore stop-sign options.
Dodd acknowledged that additional traffic-calming measures remain under consideration, including speed humps and enhanced pedestrian crossing technology. “We’ve been looking into that,” he said of speed bumps. “We’ve looked into portable ones along with fixed ones.”
He also pointed to neighboring communities, such as Island Park, that use illuminated pedestrian crossing systems that light up on both sides of the roadway.
Finding the right solution, Dodd said, remains challenging because of the intersection’s configuration and underground infrastructure, but village officials are continuing to explore options.
In the meantime, he said, the village will provide additional protection for students who grew accustomed to the stop sign, assigning either a crossing guard or a police officer to the intersection until school ends and a permanent pedestrian-safety solution is installed.
