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At one deadly intersection, a Congregation sits

BY LUIS PEREZ | luis.perez@newsday.com

August 5, 2007

Pastor Anthony Pelella remembers all of them. The young girl whose airbag deployed, saving her life. The man who was thrown several feet from his car. Pelella raced out of his church on those nights, knelt with them, held their hands and prayed.

Then there is the one he learned about the morning after. Pelella knew him only as Ryan, the young man who installed donated tile flooring at the church. Ryan Powell, 25, was dragged more than 500 feet by a hit-and-run driver before he died at the intersection on a Saturday night in June 2006.

It is impossible for Pelella to forget these crash victims because his church, the Medford Assembly of God, sits at the intersection of Route 112 and Horseblock Road, very near to where all three accidents occurred.

"Every time I hear the brakes go on, I kind of cringe, waiting for that sound of the crash," Pelella said.

The DOT ranked this section as the eighth-worst state road location on Long Island for its 66 accidents in 2004 and 2005, including 41 with injuries and one fatal crash.

In the next few years, long-awaited change is scheduled to arrive at this intersection.

In April, state transportation officials briefed Pelella and his neighbors on a proposed plan, three years in the making, to widen a three-mile stretch of Route 112 that includes the four-lane road in front of the church. The conversion would widen the lanes and add a center turning lane in most places, as well as restriping and other improvements.

In the process, Pelella was warned, the church would lose 20 feet of curb and lawn, for which it would be reimbursed at fair market value. This after the church invested money of its own to reconfigure its driveways in 2003.

When Pelella got there a decade ago, the church, founded in 1961, was in a tiny farmhouse building that the growing congregation quickly outgrew.

The church is sandwiched between Route 112 and Middle Island Road, and drivers routinely cut across its driveway to avoid traffic signals at the notorious intersection, while others ignore the 40 mph speed limit to beat the light, said Pelella.

A handpainted sign -- "SHORTCUTTING PROHIBITED" -- was largely ignored by drivers.

"For some reason, people can't stand getting to that light," said Pelella.

The congregation moved back in last fall. The new building is four times larger, with an added driveway and a high copper steeple that watches over the wooden cross left as a shrine for Ryan Powell 500 feet away from the intersection on Maine Avenue.

Pelella says he doesn't want to blame state engineers for the elaborate traffic problems on Route 112. In 2006, they added a traffic light farther down Route 112, south of the Long Island Expressway. Things are quieter these days, but Pelella welcomes more roadwork.

"I hope it will cut down on our problems dramatically," Pelella said, adding of the crash victims he helped, "What I'm happy about is that I was able to be there for them."