Shut It Down

The Southampton Village Board faces a tough task in addressing concerns along Somerset Avenue, and its members are taking their time in examining ways to make the curvy street, with an awkward, busy intersection with Magee Street and a twisty stretch down to Hill Street safer for both traffic and pedestrians. A roundabout, one proposal at the Magee-Somerset intersection, might make sense, considering the amount of traffic flowing through the residential street. Speed humps could be deployed, as one has been nearby on Halsey Street, to try to slow traffic a bit.

But there is a larger situation, one that has been the subject of close scrutiny as well, that needs further attention: all of the feeder streets onto Hill Street. During the afternoon drive time, they flow like swollen creeks into Hill Street from all angles, swamping it. Considering Hill Street is one of only two ways west at that point in the afternoon, it’s a regional matter.

It’s not hard to see what causes the daily backup. Between Windmill Lane, in the business district, and Tuckahoe Lane, at the farthest end of the village, Hill Street has a dozen feeder streets on the two sides, all of which are sending traffic into the westward push. Traffic heading along Hill Street has to stop at each of the intersections; the slowdowns accumulate exponentially heading back toward Windmill Lane, and though traffic flows freely at the western border of the village, it sits still on much of Hill Street.

Crafty commuters know to use the back streets above and below Hill Street to gain on the traffic jam, which worsens it for others and increases the speedway conditions on otherwise quiet residential streets. It’s a clear example of modern-day traffic enveloping a street system designed for much more sedate times.

The answer — one the village has experimented with — is to eliminate the problem with roadblocks eliminating turns westbound on Hill Street during afternoon rush hours along both sides at all the intersections: Somerset Avenue, Bishops Lane, Corrigan Street, Moses Lane, Fordham Street and Breeze Lane on the north side, and Lee Avenue, Captains Neck Lane, Halsey Neck Lane, Old Field Lane, Rosko Drive and First Neck Lane on the south side. That makes Hill Street what it functionally serves as: a primary artery pushing traffic out of the slowdown caused by village streets for the few hours when east-west traffic is heaviest.

This works. The downside is that it’s disruptive, labor-intensive and, thus, expensive. It requires setting up and taking down temporary roadblocks, monitoring for rule-breakers, making access a little trickier for people who live in the nearby neighborhoods, and listening to the gripes of motorists who thought they’d outsmarted the system to their advantage.

The village should commit to this solution if officials are serious about getting results. Perhaps the investment in manpower can be alleviated with technology: How about, after a reasonable time period to teach the new rules and install signs, license plate readers are set up to capture offenders, who get a ticket in the mail every time they ignore the restrictions?

Traffic congestion is a thorny problem, and there are no easy, sweeping solutions — but there are real-world ways to make small areas more functional. This is one. Shut down those streets, eliminate the racetrack through residential neighborhoods, and perhaps Hill Street will begin to play a role in easing the daily gridlock, rather than contributing to it.