Community Corner

Austin Blvd. Traffic Study to Go Public

Community input meeting set for July 31.

A public meeting to review a proposed traffic plan for Austin Boulevard will be held next week, Nassau County announced Monday.

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A traffic study of the boulevard, between the Long Beach Bridge and Long Beach Road in Island Park, is nearing completion and Leg. Denis Ford, R-Long Beach, will host the meeting at the Lincoln Orens Middle School, at 150 Trafalgar Blvd. at 7 p.m. on July 31. Area residents and business owners are invited to the meeting.

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“The traffic study has evaluated different scenarios to address ongoing traffic safety issues and developed conceptual strategies to address speeding, pedestrian safety, accessibility, parking and other issues identified by the community,” Ford said in a statement about the meeting. “Your added input is important and will help determine the best plan for our community.”

The study is a revision on an early version that Patch reported last year. In that version, RBA Group, the engineering firm hired to conduct the study that analyzed road design, traffic patterns and accident reports from 2008 to 2010, concluded that the boulevard is plagued with aggressive drivers that has led to 309 accidents in that time, and that lanes that are 10-feet wide, when they should be 11, have contributed to its hazards.

As one solution, the proposal called for widening the lanes but reducing the number of south- or Long Beach-bound lanes from three to two, while maintaining the three northbound lanes that serve as a coastal evacuation route for the barrier island.

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Ford said that the two southbound lanes on Austin would open up to three lanes at the foot of the Long Beach Bridge on the Island Park side of the structure


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