New Hyde Park resident Tom Madera, of 7th Avenue, doesn’t want another car crashing into his house and hopes a Nassau County plan to install traffic calming features along Covert Avenue will prevent another incident.
“Anything would help, even if it makes noise like rubber strips along the road,” he said. “I can assure that it doesn’t make as much noise as a screeching Cadillac which has decided to reorganize the front of your house. That happened two years ago.”
The project would run down Covert Avenue from Jericho Turnpike in New Hyde Park, south to Hempstead Turnpike in Elmont. The project could cost more than $250,000, according to Aryeh Lemberger, unit head for Nassau County traffic engineers. He expects the plan would begin in 2015.
“We’ve been contacted multiple times over the past several years with requests related to improved safety, speeding, unsafe conditions, school safety and other items,” he said at last week’s New Hyde
Park Board of Trustees meeting. “Looking at the entire stretch of Covert [Avenue], we identified target areas to influence vehicular and pedestrian safety.”
Deputy Mayor Lawrence Montreuil spearheaded discussions with county engineers after reaching out in January 2013.
“There’s a lot of concern,” he said. “I live on Premier [Avenue] between 5th and 6th Avenue. When there’s a green light [near the train station] and the gates are up, it’s full speed ahead.”
Calling county recommendations “conceptual in nature,” Lemberger said the county is proposing to place flashing speed indicators on Covert Avenue at 6th Avenue in New Hyde Park, construct sidewalk bulb-outs at 6th and 7th avenues and lane configuration signs to alert drivers of road changes. “No Turn On Red” and “Stop Ahead” and additional stop signs are also being considered, particularly near the New Hyde Park Rail Road train station tracks.
Tom Moran, a 42-year 6th Avenue resident, is in favor of bulb-outs.
“When I come off [6th], they have lines painted and people aim for that,” he said. “You can’t even pull out to look around that curve and if you go out too far, you’re putting your life in your hands. It’s dangerous.”
Additional traffic signals on Covert Avenue are a “last resort,” Lemberger stated. He feels they increase speeding, because motorists try to “beat the light.”
The county plan calls for wide center medians, with side-shoulder striping to “create a channel” for cars to drive through.
“We realize that Covert Avenue is a challenging thoroughfare,” Mayor Robert Lofaro said. “We know the intersection of 6th Avenue and Covert is one of the most dangerous intersections in the village.
Going southbound between 7th and 6th avenues on the curve, it’s basically a speedway.”
The county did traffic signal investigations at the intersection and while there is no plan for one at the curved intersection, “if what we put up doesn’t work, we’ll re-evaluate it.”
“We collected accident records for the entire stretch [of Covert Avenue],” Lemberger said. “We spoke with the schools, trustees and tried to get as much information as possible.”
