Express Sessions: Policymakers and Politicians Convene To Talk Southampton Traffic Woes

There was a moment last week when it appeared as though an episode of road rage might break out between local officials gathered at Union Sushi & Steak during the latest Express Sessions forum on the traffic crisis in the Town of Southampton.

Panelists at the October 26 afternoon event included Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman and Charlie McArdle, the town’s highway superintendent. At one point, McArdle was observed giving some side eye to Schneiderman while the supervisor hashed out some issues over policing and local taxes.

At issue was the prospect of the town hiring more police officers — up to 20 of them — to help address the traffic crisis via ramped-up enforcement measures and expanded “cone programs,” where traffic cones are deployed during high-volume times of day to create temporary lanes designed to keep the traffic moving.

There’s one underway on Montauk Highway just west of the Shinnecock Canal at the Canoe Place Road intersection that has seen some success, said McArdle — so much so that McArdle said that passing drivers wave and thank him for the program as they glide past the cones. “I’m like the cone master for some reason,” he said with a guffaw.

Schneiderman has been working on the area’s “nightmare” traffic problem over his four terms as town supervisor and told the audience that greater traffic enforcement on County Road 39, Montauk Highway and Sunrise Highway “isn’t the long-term solution,” and that local taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for a problem that’s taking place on nontown roads and is driven in large part by people who don’t live in the town.

Enter the McArdle side eye.

“Yeah, I totally disagree, Jay,” said McArdle, a former Town Police officer. “You get an A-plus for your Aaa [Moody’s] bond rating. You get an F for quality of life.

“I think you opened up with the economy,” McArdle continued, referring to the town supervisor’s earlier remarks, “how great everyone’s doing out here, all the new houses, all of these things, but you’re too worried about keeping a hold on taxes instead of supplying the police [with what] they need so that people have quality of life out here.”

Panelist and Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming tried to chime in and move the conversation along, but Schneiderman jumped in to defend his record. “The quality of life out here is second to none,” he said, addressing McArdle directly and telling him that “the police department has grown pretty much every year that I’ve been here.”

The two men went at it for another minute or two about historical levels of police staffing, before the forum continued.

Other panelists included Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, Southampton Village Police Chief Sue Hurteau, and Alex Prego, director of traffic engineering and highway permits for the county.

Various solutions to the East End traffic crisis were raised by the panelists and audience members, which included roundabouts, more cone programs, more blinking-light programs, additional lanes on County Road 39, more trains and buses, switchable “zipper” lanes during the morning and evening traffic crunch, a toll program at Shinnecock Inlet, secure lots for trade-parade workers who could leave their work vehicles here and perhaps use public transportation, more bike lanes, new shoulders along County Road 39, greater enforcement of no-turn warnings along that route, and more.

Bellone told attendees that an August 31 announcement from the county that it would solicit bids for a traffic study along the most notoriously nightmarish stretch of County Road 39 was coming right along.

The request for proposals went out on September 14, he said, and the county received four bids from transportation and engineering firms that are currently under review. He couldn’t provide any details about what they may be proposing but reiterated what he had said back in August: that the growing traffic problem in Southampton represents “a threat to the prosperity of this region.”

“Now, for everyone on this panel other than me, it’s a daily torture going through the traffic issues. But as county executive, I look at it from that perspective,” he added, noting Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.’s attendance at the lunch, and that he’d been working with the state legislator to “reimagine the transit system right now.”

The four bids, he said, would go before a review panel on November 3, “and then we’ll have a selection shortly after that.”

Part of the conversation swirled around lost opportunities to nip the gridlock in the bud. Prego recalled that, for example, policymakers considered and rejected a plan to push Sunrise Highway farther to the east, though he quickly noted, “I’m not saying we should have expanded Sunrise Highway back in 1970, but that was a decision made that we are living with now.”

The prospect of adding lanes to County Road 39 — let alone a shoulder, or sidewalks — was met with a cautionary comment from Prego drawn from the famous baseball movie: “If you build it, they will come.”

There was a plan to expand County Road 39 in the early 2000s, said Schneiderman, which would have included two lanes in both directions, eliminating traffic lights, and creating shoulders and sidewalks along the route. That was a $70 million plan that the county committed $16 million or $17 million to get off the ground, but local policymakers couldn’t secure federal funding for a project that Schneiderman said would now cost “$200 million, easily.”

Fleming said that failure to address the traffic crisis 20 years ago is something “we’re still living with today.” She is leaving the Suffolk County Legislature for the private sector this year and urged lawmakers, “As I go out the door, remember that if you don’t get it right the first time — especially when it comes to something like this county road — you are very unlikely to have the opportunity to come back and do it right again.”

While it awaits the recommendations from the county’s study, the traffic crisis continues to be a huge challenge. Traffic on the main Southampton Town arterials impacts safety and the quality of life for village residents, said Hurteau, who told the audience that she didn’t have the resources for continuous and effective traffic enforcement in the village, fielding a dedicated traffic enforcement unit composed of three officers. Nearly 80 percent of the tickets they write, said Hurteau, are issued in the western part of the village.

“Before the village can be fixed, the big problem has to be addressed,” she said, “and that’s County Road 39.”