State may cut speed limit on part of Route 25A

New York State transportation officials may reduce the speed limit on a section of Route 25A in Head of the Harbor Village after a request from village Police Chief Charles Lohmann.

Lohmann asked state Department of Transportation officials earlier this month to study reducing the speed limit from 45 mph to 35 mph on a stretch of the state road from Timothy Lane to Edgewood Avenue. The roadway is lined with retail businesses, the Sts. Philip and James Roman Catholic Church and a school affiliated with the church.

“There are people pulling in, pulling out, turning,” Lohmann said. “There are accidents there.”

About 13,000 vehicles travel the stretch daily. There have been two pedestrian accidents but no fatal crashes on Route 25A in the village over the past three years, according to state transportation officials.

In 2016, state officials reduced the speed on Route 25A between the village’s Van Buren Street and the Smithtown-Brookhaven town line from 45 mph to 35 mph.

“NYSDOT is undertaking a traffic study at the Village’s request,” department spokesman Stephen Canzoneri wrote in an email, which added that the department “will make a final determination in early spring.”

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.