County to narrow Roslyn Road to two lanes: Jacobs

Harrison Marder

Nassau County Legislator Judy Jacobs said Tuesday that the final phase of the Roslyn Road improvement has been completed and she is hopeful that it will be heard and voted on by the Rules Committee at the meeting of the Nassau County Legislature on Oct. 29.

The changes would condense Roslyn Road from I.U. Willets Road to the Long Island Expressway Service Road from four lanes to two, Jacobs said. 

The cutoff for Locust Lane would also be eliminated. Jacobs said drivers would have the ability to “stack up” and make a normal right turn with the help of a traffic a light, Jacobs said. 

“You’re going to see a traffic light at Roslyn Rd. and Locust Lane,” Jacobs said. “You’re going to see normal turning. You’re going to see 2 lanes, one in each direction, hopefully going the speed limit, and hopefully curing the problem.”

Jacobs’ 16th district covers parts of Roslyn Heights. 

If the improvement is not heard on Oct. 29, Jacobs said it will have to wait an additional two weeks.

“[This] is a traffic calming measure that works,” Jacobs said. “It’s not going to be a free for all anymore.”

The Department of Public Works will present the study to the Rules Committee, Jacobs said.

Prior to issuing a Request for Proposal for an in depth study, the Department of Public Works said they came up with the concept to reduce the amount of lanes from one to two in each direction.

“The concept is based on preliminary data collected along the roadway and at the intersections along Roslyn Road and represents what we think can be accomplished,” the Deparment said. “We now need to progress the concept through a more robust study of the traffic patterns, and develop an engineering quality plan for the improvements that can be accomplished and that will be identified in the report.”

The Department said the concept “is based on preliminary data collected along the roadway and at the intersections along Roslyn Road and represents what we think can be accomplished.”

“We now need to progress the concept through a more robust study of the traffic patterns, and develop an engineering quality plan for the improvements that can be accomplished and that will be identified in the report,” the Department said.  

The changes will go into effect if they are approved by the Rules Committee, Jacobs said. They do not require a vote of the Legislature. 

Jacobs said that she does not know the cost of the improvement because she has not yet received the contract. 

Jacobs, who initiated the study along with Councilman Peter Zuckerman, whose second district covers Roslyn Heights, said she looks forward to seeing the study brought up at the meeting.  

“I am very pleased with Public Works,” Jacobs said. “I am very pleased with the administration.”

At this point, Jacobs said she thinks the work for the improvement will begin in Spring.

Describing the portion of Roslyn Road as “a speedway,” Jacobs said she was unsure how these changes were not made earlier. 

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, Jacobs said.  

Jacobs said that she and a number of officials from the Department of Public Works, the Town of North Hempstead and Zukerman’s office were all at the site of the accident the day before it happened.  

“I couldn’t believe it,” Jacobs said.“The day before those two young men were killed we were there. We were numb.”

But, Clancy and Gonzales were not the only ones to lose their lives on Roslyn Road. 

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.

All of those incidents caused Jacobs to passed a number of measures to try to control the traffic on Roslyn Road. 

“We’ve done a lot up till now,” she said. “First of all, we lowered the speed limit from 40 MPH to 30 MPH. We needed the town’s cooperation because speed limits are controlled by the town. We all worked together and we got that down to 30 MPH.”

Jacobs also had two arms put up over the road, advising motorists of both the speed limit as well as the speed at which they are traveling. 

Jacobs said Roslyn Road has “monopolized her” over the past two years, and that it “always has been a concern.”

“Whatever happens, I’ll be very happy for the Rosen’s, as well as other people who might be killed in the future,” Jacobs said. “There is obviously something about that configuration, the way it curves, that creates the problem.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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