East Williston school trustee expressed concerns Monday that the Nassau County’s planned reduction in lanes on Roslyn Road will create safety issues for the district’s buses.
The district has multiple buses that stop along Roslyn Road to pick up students who live along the stretch of Roslyn Road between I.U. Willets Road and the Long Island Expressway, which Nassau County plans to narrow from two lanes of traffic to one in each direction.
Concerns centered on how the county will be narrowing the road, and if the new changes would make the area even worse than it already is.
“Are they just going to narrow it by painting lines, which would be my guess?” school board President Mark Kamberg said. “(That) means there is certainly plenty of room for cars to weave around buses.”
Discussion of the county’s proposed changes to Roslyn Road was not originally on the meeting’s agenda, but Kamberg wanted to open the meeting to discussions of student safety.
He added that traffic already backs up on Roslyn Road between Jericho Turnpike and I. U. Willets Road, and may only worsen with the extension of the single lane further down the road.
Board Vice President Robert Fallarino countered that the proposed changes would improve conditions.
“Everyone knows with one lane you must stop behind a bus,” Fallarino said. “Someone might say in a second lane that (they) don’t have to stop behind the bus. I think the least amount of traffic lanes will go a long way to improving safety.”
Nassau County has done a study regarding the safety of the roadway and collected preliminary data, but the details of the study have not been fully discussed.
Board members agreed to draft a letter to the county expressing concerns over the proposed changes, asking for more information on the study and offering the alternative of adding a traffic light along the Locust Lane entrance to Roslyn Road, which is included in the county’s plan.
“I feel that we need to express some sort of message to the county as they’re taking the very big approach to something that may be solved with major construction in a minor area,” Kamberg said.
Nassau County Legislator Judy Jacobs said last week that the county Department of Public Works had completed a study of ways to improve safety on Roslyn Road improvement that would be presented to the Rules Committee at the meeting of the Nassau County Legislature on Oct. 29.
In addition to narrowing Roslyn Road from I.U. Willets Road to the Long Island Expressway Service Road from four lanes to two, the cutoff for Locust Lane would also be eliminated and a light would be installed at the intersection of Locust Lane and Roslyn Road, Jacobs said drivers would have the ability to “stack up” and make a normal right turn with the help of the traffic a light.
In March 2014, Mineola teenagers Steven Clancy and Javier Gonzalez, both 19, were killed when they drove through the fence and into the backyard of the home of Dr. Ronald Rosen, 66 Oak Lane in Roslyn Heights.
The teenagers hit a tree and were killed as they were ejected from their 2004 Volkswagen Jetta.
Less than a month later, in April 2014, 43-year-old Facundo R. Ponce died when he lost control of his 2006 Dodge Dakota pickup truck and crashed into a charter bus near the corner of Roslyn Road and Heathcote Drive.
The accident injured the bus driver and a passenger.
In mid October 2013, a motorist who was allegedly inebriated crashed through side fence of Rosen’s home and totaled a car parked in the driveway.
Later that month a 98-year-old was killed along Roslyn Road near Powerhouse Road after his car collided with a garbage truck.
In mid November, a car allegedly drag-racing down Roslyn Road crashed into fortifying boulders that had been put up along Locust Lane.
