Anyone who has ever been on the East End of Long Island at the beginning and/or end of the workday is familiar with the “trade parade,” the long line of cars with the brigade of workers who come to take care of us, mow our lawns, clean our homes, staff our stores, build and fix our homes, take care of our children, etc. There is no avoiding the traffic, but we need these people.
Recently, the Village of Southampton has instituted “no turn” rules onto main thoroughfares from various side streets during the trade parade hours. To ensure that these laws are enforced, the police have stationed unmarked cars carefully hidden on key streets, ready to pounce should anyone dare to flaunt the new rules and make the turn. They lay in wait, too, for the driver that doesn’t perchance stop long enough at the myriad stop signs nestled behind trees and pointed in odd directions on these streets.
These are expensive tickets, and for an hourly wage earner it can represent a good portion of their wages, let alone the many points added to one’s license.
I assume that these new “no turn” laws were instituted because the residents of the various streets that feed onto Hill Street and/or Route 27 have complained about the traffic. Most of the homes on the affected streets are vacation, second and third homes for the owners. As such, the majority of these homes are not even occupied for most of the year, let alone on weekdays.
Supposedly these new “no right turn” laws were instituted to avoid “dangerous” conditions. Since when did a little traffic constitute a “dangerous condition”? Funneling all the traffic onto one or two streets, I would argue, makes the traffic even worse than spreading it out.
These new rules do affect all of us coming and going at rush hour from Southampton, but most of us are not, in the main, permanent residents, and our livelihoods are not based on when we come can go. What these new rules have done is to make it just a tad more difficult for all the people who come to town to serve us all.
On this Labor Day I ask, “What would we do without all the tradespeople who lovingly watch over us and our homes?”
Libby Handros
Southampton