Monday, April 21, 2025
Nassau County Legislator Carrié Solages has announced traffic safety improvements for Elmont, which will include two new traffic lights— one at the intersection of 238th Street and Dutch Broadway, and another in front of the Elmont post office, on Elmont Road. The lights will be installed early this spring.
According to a news release about the safety upgrades, Solages said the new signals are a response to numerous accidents on Dutch Broadway and Elmont Road, including three fatal crashes since 2015.
One of those accidents, on Dutch Broadway in February 2016, resulted in the death of Elmont Memorial High School seventh-grader Gabrielle Johnson.
Lori Hallop, vice president of the Parkhurst Civic Association and a lifelong Elmont resident, said she recalled the tragedy, because Gabrielle attended school with Hallop’s daughter.
She said that traffic safety has been a hot issue in Elmont for years. “It is a nightmare here at times,” she said. “The only thing we have as a weapon against this is traffic signals.”
In another incident, in October 2018, a motorist lost control of his vehicle, careened off Elmont Road and struck four teenagers, causing serious injuries. Two of them were in critical condition after the crash, Hallop said, and one took over a year to fully recover.
“The kids take their lives in their hands every time they go to school,” she said.
After the 2018 accident, Solages requested that a traffic study be undertaken at nearby intersections, which led to the installation of a traffic light at Elmont Road and Dutch Broadway in 2022.
In addition to the new signals this upcoming spring, the news release said, repairs to lights at the intersection of Bayless Avenue and Elmont Road have also been expedited, after Solages and his team advocated for swift repairs.
“I am committed to preventing accidents and promoting traffic safety for drivers, bicyclists and motorists in any way I can,” Solages said in a statement. “I am glad that our advocacy has yielded key improvements for Elmont residents.”
Dale Davids, who leads the traffic committee in the Locustwood Gotham Civic Association, said that Dutch Broadway has been a safety concern for years, because motorists tend to speed by with no regard for their surroundings.
“People are coming from the city, and it’s like they’ve got blinders on,” Davids said. “They don’t see anybody else coming across the street, or turning, or anything.”
According to a 2020 news release from Solages’s office, the Nassau County Department of Public Works repaved and restriped Dutch Broadway, eliminating one of two westbound lanes between Ridge Road and the Queens border. The changes were intended to reduce vehicle speeds and create more space for pedestrians, including students.
But, Davids said, those changes were not enough to solve the problem.
According to Hallop, traffic lights are one of the only tools the town can implement to address the issue of motorists speeding near schools.
Many Elmont students walk to school, she explained, and there are no crossing guards for those who cross Elmont Road, unless they travel south to its intersection with Dutch Broadway. For some students, Hallop said, this adds time to their commute. Children who have just rolled out of bed, she said, are only focused on getting to school on time.
“Kids don’t always pay attention,” she said. “But you would think adults who are driving a motor vehicle would pay attention. Especially near a school.”
There seems to be a disregard for traffic signals and rules of the road, Hallop said, citing speeding as one of the central issues in Elmont over the past few years.
While the town isn’t large, she said, it is close to the Southern State and Cross Island parkways as well as Hempstead Turnpike, which exacerbates traffic problems, and many drivers going from one parkway to another use Elmont Road as a bypass.
Luckily, Hallop said, Solages has been engaged with his constituents in Elmont. When residents brought the speeding issue to his attention, she said, he quickly began working on a solution.
Between narrow walkways near the sump on Dutch Broadway, she said, and the busy intersection of Elmont Road and Bayless Avenue, which kids often cross to visit the corner 7-Eleven after school, it makes sense to add crosswalks and turn signals to help make crossing the road safer.
Davids said he thinks the new improvements secured by Solages will be effective in addressing residents’ traffic safety concerns. Having a signal to disrupt the flow of traffic, he said, could force motorists slow down and be more aware of children trying to cross the streets. “I think it’s going to help a lot,” he said.
