Trade Parade Redux?

County Will Replace a Plan that Works With One that Might Not

By Dan Rattiner

Just when you thought the big trade parade traffic jam every morning at the end of the Sunrise Highway had finally been solved, somebody comes up with another idea. Which may make it worse than it was before. And we will find out next week.

As you may recall, the big solution, put into effect with much congratulations and applause this summer, sends workers out onto a 5 mile stretch of County Road 39 with hundreds of traffic cones at 6 in the morning. Using these cones, two temporary eastbound traffic lanes are created where there had been one before. This lasts until 9 a.m. Then the cones are picked up. All summer the traffic flowed smoothly and effortlessly. What a solution!

Well, beginning on September 15, the red cone solution to the traffic jam heading eastbound will come to an end. It will be replaced by a new program. The new program, administered by the County — and keep in mind this is a County Road so they can do this — is to take away the cones and shut down all the back roads that people took to avoid County Road 39 at those hours, and instead funnel them whether they like it or not into County Road 39. Which is now a two way road, just as it was before the cones.

On the surface, or even under the surface, this seems a horrendous idea. Let’s say that whatever the traffic flow is going eastbound to work in the morning, 100% of it would come down the Sunrise Highway toward the bottleneck at the Lobster Inn and then about 20% of the traffic would peel off to Shinnecock, or exit 66 or even at the Lobster Inn, taking a variety of back roads to avoid the problem all together. This leaves 80% to be dealt with, and it was dealt with this summer by providing this traffic two lanes instead of one, all the way to the crossing at Tuckahoe Road.

So now you will have, once again, 100% of the traffic going into the bottleneck, and it will be just one lane as it was before the cones. Who dreamt this up?

Well, the County did. And they are betting that it will work for a very unusual reason. They claim that the reason for the bottleneck is that at one point or another the 20% who take the shortcuts merge back into County Road 39 further on, dramatically slowing the flow of traffic and bringing it to a halt. Get these people back into the bottleneck at the beginning, and since the main traffic flow won’t have to slow to let them merge back in later, there will be no bottleneck.

And they are very serious about this. They have learned almost every shortcut there is, and by forcibly torturing certain motorists, even a few more. And using signs and traffic cones of their own, they are shutting them down for the rest of the off season. So if you think you will use Exit 66 just over the canal, or Depot Road, or Inlet Road or Long View Road beginning on September 15. They will be blocked off, and police will be on hand to deal with those wishing to try the shortcuts anyway.

This is going to be interesting. OTB is right in the shopping center closest to the Lobster Inn. Place your bets.