Attendees of the Dec. 6 Three Village Civic Association had local roads on their minds.
Town of Brookhaven Superintendent of Highways Dan Losquadro (R) was on hand for the meeting at the Emma S. Clark Memorial Library to talk about what was going on with Brookhaven roads and answered a few questions from attendees and those who sent in inquiries before the meeting.
The job is one that he described as “the best job I’ve ever had” as well as the hardest. Regarding making decisions about what gets done, he said it’s all about funding availability and prioritizing.
“I steal Supervisor [Ed] Romaine’s [R] line every chance that I get when he says every issue of government is an issue of budget,” he said. “It’s just that simple. If I had unlimited funds, I would do all the work. This year, we all know that’s not the case.”
Losquadro said deciding what needs to be done is a mixture of listening to the community and balancing it against engineering assessments and needs.
“What may not seem obvious to the average resident, when we select a road or a neighborhood or a project to complete, it usually serves a greater purpose,” he said. “If we don’t do that, we may suffer deterioration … that might cause us to have to spend more money if we waited another couple of years to do it.”
Streetlights
Losquadro said recently he has worked with The Ward Melville Heritage Organization in Stony Brook which has brought a lot of concerns to his attention, including problems with streetlights. WMHO is currently working with state-elected representatives to see if there is funding to restore the sidewalks that need to be disrupted to fix underground wiring.
He said one thing residents need to know is that when post top streetlights go out, it’s not as simple as changing a bulb.
“In a lot of older communities, we get a lot of underground breaks,” he said. “When these areas were put in, they just did direct burial cables. They didn’t put any conduit in the ground. This wire is aging out.”
He said with supply chain disruptions this year, the department has not been able to get enough poles and streetlights needed to accelerate the town’s LED replacement program. However, because money wasn’t spent in that area, he was able to repurpose the money to replace a lot of underground wiring next year.
“I’d more than double our budget from $150,000 to $300,000 for next year to replace underground wiring,” he said, adding the wiring problem is significant and townwide.
Stony Brook Road and 347
Nelson + Pope, a Melville engineering firm, has been brought “on board to begin the engineering process for the improvements at Stony Brook Road and 347,” Losquadro said.
“It’s a very important project,” he added. “One that obviously we’re going to have to coordinate with New York State, because we’re just talking about the improvements on the Stony Brook Road side, but with the businesses there, especially the expansion of the medical park to the west side of the road there, you get a lot of cross traffic.”
The highway superintendent said there have been a large number of collisions at the intersection and the goal is to make it safer and more efficient. He added there will be traffic studies conducted in the area.
“We’re going to measure all the turning movements, in and out, of those businesses and see how we can best improve again the efficiency and the safety of moving vehicles through that confined and heavily traveled space,” he said.
Losquadro added that a physical barrier between the north and southbound traffic on Stony Brook Road could also be possible, hopefully something stone stamped like the barriers on 347 which are more aesthetically pleasing.
Sidewalks
Losquadro said there isn’t room in the budget for new sidewalks in the town. He said when sidewalks are added, it’s usually due to federal, county or state grants.
“We’ll certainly work with the councilman [Jonathan Kornreich (D)] to identify them and find funding sources,” he said. “I assure you, whenever I get the money for something, I build it.”
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