TRAFFIC ISSUES RAISE IRE IN GREEPORT

Mike McCagg

ccSCOOP News

06-07-10 - 11:40 p.m. - Even as more businesses plan to open up in town, town officials are continuing to deal with concerns over traffic, especially that generated by the Greenport Commons shopping area.

At its June meeting, the Greenport Town Board was presented with a petition by resident Vince Concra. The petition had been signed by forty-five residents of Joslen Boulevard and side streets asking that stop signs be placed on Joslen Boulevard at Delaware and Livingston boulevards and also at Ravish Road. “We want to make it not as easy to use Joslen,” said Concra, adding that if it is less enticing as a bypass to Route 9, motorists may just stay on the highway. The board was also asked to impose a building moratorium and to petition the Department of Transportation to reconsider its decision to postpone widening Route 9 until 2016.

“We can’t wait that long,” said a resident.

“It seems to me that transportation is more important to the town than the residents,” said Concra, who resides on Joslen Boulevard, when town officials didn’t immediately act on the moratorium request.

The discussion comes on the heels of the groundbreaking for the T.J. Maxx store at Greenport Commons and the possible construction of a Kohl’s department store in the plaza. Joslen Boulevard residents have been up in arms with the increased traffic that has flowed onto the road since the opening of the Commons last year.

Traffic engineers hired by the developer Widewaters said during the Planning Board review of Greenport Commons that there would be minimal impact on area roadways with about 1,200 trips in and out of the Commons during the peak period weekday afternoons and a maximum of 1,500 trips on Saturday afternoons. Concra said the study failed to measure the true impact on Joslen Boulevard, which motorists use to bypass Route 9. Other residents said the traffic has increased much more dramatically. 

Efforts to calm traffic on Joslen Boulevard have already been implemented, including placing a stop sign at its intersection with Cedar Parkway and reconfiguring the intersection with Harry Howard Avenue to make it a three-way stop, but residents say that traffic problems are not limited to Joslen Boulevard.

Carole Lane resident Mary Hallenbeck said traffic on her street and the neighboring Charles and Kline streets and Arthur Avenue has skyrocketed in recent years. “People use them to avoid the [traffic] lights and to cut over to Joslen,” she said, adding that “It’s impossible to pull out onto Route 9” to head north at nearly any time, as a result of the surging traffic on the thoroughfare.

Town Board member Tom Fleming said traffic congestion is not only a Greenport problem. “Go into Hudson on any weekend, and you can’t get a parking spot on Warren Street,” he said.