Rating Long Island's most dangerous roads

BY TOM MCGINTY | tom.mcginty@newsday.com

August 5, 2007

The Southern State Parkway is the most dangerous state road on Long Island and Hempstead Turnpike has the highest concentration of crash-prone locations, according to data compiled by the state Department of Transportation.

The Southern State had five of Long Island's 10 worst-rated spots when compared with similar state roads throughout New York. Hempstead Turnpike had 12 segments with above-average accident rates west of the Meadowbrook Parkway.

There were nearly 24,000 accidents on the Island's 724 miles of state roads in 2004 and 2005, the latest crash data available. The DOT's analysis of the Island, home to 363 spots where accident frequency exceeds state averages, shows distinct patterns that suggest flaws in certain roads and their surroundings -- not just chance or poor driving habits -- may have contributed to many of the accidents.

The data, for which Newsday waged a three-year legal battle with the DOT, include:

A three-tenths of a mile stretch of Route 110 just north of the Southern State and south of Main Street in Farmingdale that was ranked as the most dangerous location on all of Long Island's state routes based on 68 accidents with injuries and two with fatalities over the two years. The DOT says extreme congestion at the confluence of three busy roads is at the heart of the problem.

A two-block strip of Islip Avenue near Suffolk Avenue in Brentwood that came in fourth place by racking up 61 crashes, including 46 with injuries and one fatal accident.

A small section of Route 112 just north of the Long Island Expressway in Medford that ranked eighth with 41 injury accidents and one fatal crash.

The transportation department analyzes crash data to identify crash-prone locations and determine how to fix them.

But the DOT concedes that it has few solutions for some of the most dangerous spots on Long Island -- such as Hempstead Turnpike and the Southern State -- that crop up on the list year after year. Critics complain that the department is slow to act and more concerned about moving vast amounts of traffic than improving safety.

"I think they just look at this stuff from an engineering point of view, and traditional highway engineering is a very limited concept of what you do about safety," Jonathan Orcutt said as executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a group dedicated to reducing the dependency on cars in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. (He has since become an adviser to the commissioner of the New York City transportation department.) "They need to sit down with the counties, with key municipal officials in the affected areas, and make some progress on it, rather than just going through the usual motions."

Frank Pearson, the lead DOT engineer for Long Island, said safety is built into every project the department undertakes with an annual combined budget for Suffolk and Nassau of about $200 million. He also said some factors that cause accidents are beyond the DOT's control, particularly driver error, which in 2005 at least partially contributed to 87 percent of all crashes on Long Island, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

"We try to address this with the 'Three Es' -- education, enforcement [of traffic laws] and engineering -- and they all play a part," Pearson said. "When you talk about the police, obviously they can't be everywhere, but they are a big factor. Hopefully, people are taking their defensive driving courses. It's a broad approach and hopefully you reach some people."

Richard Retting, senior traffic engineer for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, agreed with Pearson that bad driving habits deserve a good bit of blame for high accident rates but said those who put most of the onus on drivers "don't have a deep enough understanding of roadway design. "The fact is we have built a roadway system that could be much safer," he said.

The DOT analysis is limited to state routes and therefore accounts for 27 percent of the 90,000 accidents reported on Long Island in the two-year period and covers just 155 of the 516 fatal crashes. The department says it plans to expand its reach to all crashes as early as next year.

Since 1973, federal highway-funding guidelines have required states to analyze crash patterns and seek remedies for the most dangerous locations. In 2005, Congress required that states begin posting only the worst 5 percent of high-accident locations on the Web site of the Federal Highway Administration, along with a description of measures they will take to solve the problems. New York's first report included 20 sites from Long Island.

Jeff Lindley, associate administrator for safety at the highway administration, said he believed Congress required disclosure so the public could be alerted to dangerous locations where they might want to be more cautious and informed about what their states were doing to fix them.

Right to know

"So it would make it easier for citizens to have conversations with decision makers in their state about investing resources in safety," Lindley said. The DOT's analysis begins by comparing each road segment's accident rate with the average rate for similar roads across the state. It also takes into account the relative severity of crashes.

For example, the worst-rated segment on Long Island -- on 110 just north of the Southern State -- had an accident rate six times the statewide average for similar roads. The segment would need to see 19 fewer accidents per every tenth of a mile to come down to the statewide average rate. The initial severity rating of 19 was adjusted upward, to 25.94, because analysts estimating the costs of injuries, deaths and property damage determined accidents there cost nearly 39 percent more than average.

Since that segment made the top of the DOT's list, the department has repainted the markings on the road and at the intersection, upgraded the traffic signals and sensors embedded in the pavement, realigned the crosswalk across 110 and installed a new one across Main Street, a spokeswoman said. The segment also will be repaved as part of a project that began this month. The department estimates that it will spend a total of $3 million on the improvements. The dangerous rating didn't surprise Paul Keker of Deer Park, who was shopping at the Ace Hardware store beside the troubled stretch of Route 110. "Everyone dumps out at 4:30, five o'clock and runs to the Southern State," said Keker, 52. "The entrance is too small to accommodate the volume it's getting and people double-stack trying to get onto the parkway. A guy who is coming down, expecting to go down to Amityville in the middle lane, he has no place to go. If you're not familiar with it, you're surprised."