Covert Avenue in New Hyde Park will be closed between 1st and 2nd avenues for part of the day at least until Feb. 12 as a result of Long Island Rail Road third track work, ahead of the road’s total closing in April.
Covert Avenue’s total closure has been delayed on several occasions, announced in meetings by both the Village of New Hyde Park Board of Trustees and MTA representatives.
A previous closure was scheduled for 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. from Jan. 29 to Feb. 2, according to a statement from the LIRR Community Outreach Team. Village of New Hyde Park Trustee Rainer Burger said that closure was cancelled for a failure to receive approval for the initial detour plan. The new closure announcement states the same area closure has been extended, starting “on or about” Tuesday for the same period during the day, lasting until Feb. 12.
Preliminary utility work for the elimination of the grade crossing at Covert Avenue is underway and responsible for the temporary closure, according to Village of Floral Park officials.
The plan outlined in the LIRR Expansion Project newsletter is to eliminate the grade crossing in its entirety and create a vehicular and pedestrian underpass. In total, seven grade crossings will be replaced with underpasses between Floral Park and Hicksville.
Flaggers and MTA police will be present at the work site to guide drivers to detours.
Drivers headed southbound on Covert Avenue will be instructed to turn right onto South 6th Street, and drivers headed northbound on Covert will be instructed to turn right onto 2nd Avenue before turning left onto South 8th Street.
Covert Avenue’s total closure is currently scheduled to begin in April, according to the most recent update provided by MTA officials. The roadway will remain closed for six months while the underpass crossing is constructed.
About a mile west of the Covert Avenue grade crossing, third track work is also picking up at South Tyson Avenue in Floral Park.
A third track is being created at the 60-year-old South Tyson bridge, where four tracks merge into two currently, creating a bottleneck on the LIRR Main Line, according to a project update.
The third track will be installed east of the bridge, to accommodate an increase in capacity on the Main Line.
