Letters

The quality of life is being destroyed in Hampton Bays (and almost everywhere, actually) by traffic jams created by too many cars on our roads. Hampton Bays is literally gridlocked every morning, Monday through Friday.

Our residents deserve better — we need a walkable and bike-friendly town.

This awful pattern book caters to cars. It specifies more streets for cars, more parking lots for cars, more asphalt, more induced traffic. I’ve traveled all over the United States and Europe, and the best cities and downtowns have connected bike paths and public squares with no cars.

This pattern book mentions biking extremely briefly and actually nixes bike lanes and prefers diagonal parking. As for protected bike lanes, they don’t have any diagrammed; instead, it has biking between parked cars and car lanes (floating parked cars is protected biking, with bike lane alongside sidewalks).

Biking is never a priority in Southampton Town. FYI, it is banned on Southampton Village and Sag Harbor Main Streets.

In 2018, Southampton Town won a $750,000 grant for a bike lane between Good Ground Park and Red Creek Park. Not one shovel of dirt has been dug in almost seven years. Also, a sign posted at the Ponquogue Bridge says riders must walk their bikes across it to the ocean.

Our residents of all ages should be able to ride bicycles safely everywhere, from home to town, instead of driving or riding in cars. The long lines of cars dropping kids at both schools is setting a bad example to our children (and adding to the traffic mess every morning).

Protected bike lanes (not shared roads): Build them and they will make our town a better place to live.

Andy Morris

Hampton Bays