By Mallie Jane Kim 

Stony Brook University is studying traffic and pedestrian safety, thanks to a $1 million grant from the New York State Department of Transportation. The study will assess road safety on and around university properties to prevent pedestrian and cyclist traffic deaths, according to Heather Banoub, SBU’s new assistant vice president of community relations, and may include a pedestrian overpass at the intersection of Nicolls Road and state Route 347 with more sidewalks.

Banoub, who shared a range of university updates at the Three Village Civic Association’s Nov. 6 meeting, said she anticipates results from the study around 2025.

“It will determine what would be the best way to help our campus be safer — as well as our larger community — as people come into and out of campus,” she said.

In serving to introduce herself to the community, Banoub said she was previously at New York University, where she served as assistant director of communications since 2014.

Carl Mills, SBU’s assistant vice president for government relations, added that area traffic flow will also be part of the study but that efforts at improving traffic need to be a cooperative effort between the university, state, county and town.

He emphasized that the funding is for information collection, and no actual structural changes are in the works yet. “If we were even to go forward with the overpass, we would still have to apply for additional funding to get it,” Mills noted.

He added that since SBU was earmarked by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) as a flagship university of the state university system, there are efforts to increase capacity for “cutting edge” research, and he expects the student body and faculty to grow. The university is currently assessing needs for additional housing and buildings, but any development will involve increasing sewage capacity.

Banoub also told attendees that a new radar survey of the area around a gravesite on campus near Dogwood Drive found four additional gravesites, in addition to the four sets of remains previously discovered. Banoub said the university is hoping to engage a genealogist to attempt to discover who was buried there and whether they have any living relatives.

Banoub said the site will be part of a beautification plan “that will include appropriate markers designating the historic importance of this site and turning it into a place where people go and pay their respects.”

Civic association leaders expressed gratitude that three representatives from SBU joined the meeting — Erika Karp, community relations representative for Stony Brook Medicine/SBU, was also in attendance. Civic member George Hoffman welcomed this closer connection between university officials and the community. “I get a real sense we’ve turned a corner in our relationship,” he said. “It would be so incredible for the community to be working in partnership with this great institution, and I think you’ve got the right team in place to make that happen.”

New police advisory board

Also at the civic meeting, Felix Adeyeye, Suffolk County Police Department’s director of community engagement, encouraged residents to apply for the new Precinct Level Advisory Board, a group of eight to 12 people in each precinct who will have direct access to their precinct inspector to inform SCPD about areas of community concern as well as to learn about safety issues facing the county.”

Adeyeye said this initiative stemmed from a summer ruling against the department in a lawsuit over racial discrimination in traffic stops, brought by civil rights group LatinoJustice.

“There’s a mandate under the police reform that stipulates that the department must engage in an overabundance of community engagement effort,” he said, adding that this engagement must be at the administrative level and not just on the streets. ”I want to implore you to get very active in not only this civic association but also in your police department.”

The department’s website about the boards indicated the application deadline was Oct. 15, but at the meeting Adeyeye said the police department is still accepting applications and will begin the review process in December. 

Adeyeye said the community is fortunate to have these advisory boards, particularly since a community ambassadors program instituted by outgoing Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison is currently in limbo after the commissioner resigned last week, just months after his department’s widely celebrated accomplishment of making an arrest in connection with the Gilgo Beach serial killings, though an alleged party is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

The community ambassadors program is the prerogative of the sitting commissioner, and under Harrison allowed a handful of residents from each community access to the county’s top cop. Adeyeye said the newly-elected county executive when in office will appoint a replacement police commissioner, and there should not be a delay in the county Legislature approval process.