An Amsterdam at Harborside senior living community committee has launched a campaign to increase bus service on the N23 bus line along West Shore Road in Port Washington.
The Public Bus Committee’s proposal for an expansion of the line is designed to connect people in the Harborside area with Old Northern Boulevard in Roslyn, committee members said.
The expansion would connect either the N20 or the N21 to the N23 on Northern Boulevard in Roslyn by Mineola Avenue and continue up West Shore Road.
Currently, the N23 stretches from Mineola to Manorhaven, running up the western side of Port Washington.
“So many people could benefit from this,” said Dottie Bheddah, chair of the bus committee. “People don’t have cars and need to get to and from the Long Island Rail Road.”
Bheddah, who called the expansion vital for the transportation of employees and residents of the area, said it would add four miles to the round trip of the bus’ current route.
On June 20, Lou Levitt, an Amsterdam resident, spoke at the Nassau County Legislature on behalf of the committee, breaking down the proposal and describing it as modest because he said it should only add 14 minutes.
Levitt said he contacted Nassau Inter County Express to request the expanded service, but was turned down.
“NICE sent us a very nice, polite boiler-plate-type letter,” Levitt said. “They said there were so many things to balance and that it couldn’t be done basically.”
A resident of the Amsterdam for two years, Levitt said he sees how many people the lack of a bus route affects, from residents of Amsterdam to its staff.
“We pay well, but not well enough to afford transportation by car,” Levitt said. “An expansion would open up a whole new opportunity for employees, especially people on our housekeeping staff.”
The expansion would allow people living and working in the Harborside area to travel to New York City and eastern parts of Long Island.
Currently, the N20 bus runs from Flushing, Queens to Hicksville, so an expansion would allow Port Washington residents and potential employees looking to work in Port Washington greater access, Levitt said.
The expansion would also provide transportation to North Hempstead Beach Park, which is on West Shore Road.
Levitt said it’s also an opportunity to travel to and from other boroughs in New York City, using the bus service to connect to the subway system.
Bob Lipiello, general manager of the Harbor Links Golf Course, which is located off West Shore Road, said an extension to the route has been a necessity since he started working there in 2001.
“It’s important for employee transportation,” Lipiello said. “They take the train to Roslyn and either have to walk or take a taxi to the job. They would be able to travel easier.”
Lipiello said he is surprised that nothing has changed since so many new developments are opening in the area.
Tom Brancato, shipping manager of Kiss Nail Products, said many of his employees are affected by the absence of a bus route. He said it affects 30 to 50 employees and some people have quit due to the tough commute.
“I’ll see people — my employees — walking on the side of the road and pull over to pick them up,” Brancato said. “It’s not only a transportation issue, it’s a safety issue too. People are walking on the grass and cars are speeding by.”
Kiss Nail Products has been located on Seaview Boulevard since 2005, and Brancato said it’s always been a major issue.
“In the summer, people come in with beet-red faces, sweating, because they just had to walk,” Brancato said. “And in the winter, we get calls and sometimes have to pick people up because it’s too cold and because of the slippery conditions.”
Andy Kraus, senior vice president of Epoch 5 Public Relations, which represents NICE, said in the 1990s more routes served the Port Washington area, but they were eliminated before NICE was established in 2012.
Because the potential expansion design wasn’t formulated by NICE, Kraus said, there is no way to estimate how much a route like this would cost, but that adding a service would “basically come to reallocating it from somewhere else.”
Many routes are overcrowded, and if a route were expanded somewhere else, it would reduce the service in the overcrowded areas, he said.
Kraus added that he believes there are alternative methods for expanding routes, especially in Port Washington.
“We have just begun using smaller vehicles on some of NICE’s smallest existing routes and hope that this may lead to solutions for Port Washington sometime in the future,” Kraus said.
Aside from affecting the residents of the Amsterdam, its executive director, Sam Guedouar, said it affects employees and potential employees.
In his five years working in the area, Guedouar said, the lack of public transportation on West Shore Road has caused 250 to 300 potential employees to not take jobs they were offered.
“Recently, I wanted to hire a manager, but I had a hard time because people didn’t have cars and there’s no public transportation to the area,” he said.
Two employees of the Amsterdam quit recently, explaining that transportation was an important factor in their taking jobs in the city, Guedouar said.
“We need to get all the business owners together and work out a plan,” Guedouar said. “Then we have to discuss it with the Legislature.”
