Bumpy street irks Valley Stream residents

Valley Stream resident Mitchel Lubman is fed up with the roller-coaster effect of Valley Greens Drive.

For the past 18 years, Lubman, 78, has been fighting to get his street's six wavelike humps and dips fixed. He said he's contacted three Valley Stream village mayors plus Hempstead Town supervisors, county legislators, state senators, even governors. The one-block street remains buckled.

"They all say they are working on it and it never gets done," said Lubman, who has lived in a house on the street for 21 years. "The excuses are always the same: fixing the street is too costly."

Valley Greens Drive was built on a landfill that the village sold to a private developer in the 1960s, according to Village Clerk Robert Barra. As the fill below the surface shifts, so does the roadway. To fix it, the street, the base and the landfill "cells" below would have to be removed, Barra said.

Driveways would need to be regraded to the same level as the street. And underground utilities like gas, sewer and electric might have to be adjusted, Barra said.

"Settlement of the street is causing excessive damage to our mains," said Bill Varley, president of Long Island American Water, which serves the area. While the company's records showed one water main break since 2006, a "rash" of leaks and breaks occurred before that, he said.

Without state or federal funding, the village can't afford to undertake the road renovation estimated to cost about $5 million, Barra said. The village had applied for state aid, federal grants and funding from Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola), but didn't receive any assistance for the project, he said. A spokesman for McCarthy confirmed that Valley Greens Drive was not chosen to receive federal or state funding.

"It's not as simple as to say 'just repave the road,' " said Barra, who pointed out nearby Gale Drive also is experiencing sinking and buckling.

Any road improvement project would require a year or more to complete, Barra said. Residents from both sides of the streets would have to agree to the project and its lengthy disruptions, he said.

In 2002, "residents didn't want the village do this because they didn't want to be inconvenienced," Barra said.

Susan Freedman, who has lived on Valley Greens Drive for 24 years, said safety outweighed inconvenience. She is concerned about teenager drivers speeding over the bumps for thrills, she said.

"I am very resentful because they have fixed every other block around us and they let our street continue to rot and sink," Freedman said.

While several other roads have been resurfaced, they didn't require extensive reconstruction, Barra said.

Lubman's wife has had enough, he said, and is ready to move.

Fixing the street "is an ongoing fight and it never gets resolved," he said.