Town-State Meeting To Discuss Intersection

A troublesome five-way intersection on Jericho Turnpike has the state Department of Transportation and town of Huntington meeting Wednesday to discuss an acceptable solution.

The state DOT made four recommendations to the town after doing a traffic study of the intersection, and is waiting to hear back from the town on how it wants to proceed, said DOT Region 10 spokeswoman Eileen Peters. The state has jurisdiction on traffic flow on Jericho Turnpike, while the other roads feeding the intersection – Dix Hills Road and Broadway/Greenlawn – are town roads.

Residents have complained about the intersection, said A.J. Carter, Huntington town spokesman, but the options the state has suggested after doing a traffic study aren’t being greeted with enthusiasm. “We hope to discuss other items and to come up with a solution that’s not as burdensome,” he said. “We hope to come up with a fifth option that’s mutually acceptable.”

Three of the state’s recommendations involve changes or restrictions to the flow of traffic on Dix Hills Road and the fourth involves adding another signal at Broadway that would delay traffic moving east/west along Jericho Turnpike, said Joan Cergol, town spokeswoman who forwarded the state’s recommendations.

The specific DOT recommendations are to:

• Restrict southbound Dix Hills Road at Jericho to right turns only;
• Convert all or a portion of Dix Hills Road north of Jericho to a one-way northbound operation;
• Dead-end the northern leg of Dix Hills Road at Jericho Turnpike; or
• Adjust the traffic signal to make it split phase at the joining of Broadway-Greenlawn Road, Dix Hills Road, and Jericho.

Carter said the state-town meeting Wednesday with transporation safety engineers and the town's transportation and traffic safety department is to see if it is possible to come up with a solution that isn’t onerous to the community. “We want to put our heads together with the state to kick ideas around and hope we get something that’s acceptable. It’s a problematic intersection,” Carter said.

Peters with the DOT said the intersection situation is similar to slicing a pizza pie. “The pizza stays the same size, no matter what,” she said. “Depending on how you slice it, someone’s going to get a larger slice and someone’s going to get a smaller slice, but the pizza stays the same size.” The challenge is to find the best way to make sure the traffic on all legs is safely regulated, she said.

The state, in compiling its study, looked at three years of accident information at the intersection, made on-site observations and analysis, did time-delay and traffic-movement studies to find out which direction cars traveled, and looked at the movement of traffic, Peters said.