Patchogue creates curbside rideshare drop-off spots on Main Street for nightclubs, taverns

Because some late-night revelers in downtown Patchogue want to paint the town red, village officials are painting parts of it purple.

Patchogue last week repainted some curbside parking spots purple to create four designated rideshare drop-off and pickup spots on Main Street. The rideshare spots are intended to help contend with double-parking and drivers making illegal U-turns outside the village's popular nightclubs and taverns.

Village officials also hope the spaces encourage people to hail a cab or rideshare if they have imbibed a little too much.

Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri said late-night traffic often becomes unmanageable on Main Street, an east-west road with one lane in each direction.

“You drive through the village of Patchogue Friday night, it’s chaos. Absolute chaos,” Pontieri said in a phone interview Wednesday. “It’s become a big issue with the restaurants and bars, getting people in and out of the village.”

The parking spaces, each of which is marked by a sign, include two  on the westbound side of Main Street: in front of the Bank of America building and at a T-Mobile phone store near the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts. Two eastbound spaces are located outside Coho Coffee Shop and the Patchogue-Medford Library.

The spaces were painted Tuesday morning by village staff and cost virtually nothing, said August Ruckdeschel, Patchogue's deputy planning and zoning coordinator.

"It's paint and a sign," he said.

David Kennedy, executive director of Patchogue's Business Improvement District, said rideshare spots were requested by downtown shops, especially restaurants and clubs that cater to the late-night crowd.

Business owners and village officials had become concerned by rampant double-parking as vehicles stopped to drop off or pick up passengers and by “people doing U-turns in the middle of the street,” Kennedy said in a phone interview.

“Saturday night, it was becoming very confusing with people using Uber and Lyft," he said. “This was a chance to calm things down and make sure people were being dropped off in a proper way.”

Patchogue officials consulted Uber and Lyft, both of which shared internal data to help the village select rideshare pickup spots.

In a statement, Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin said the company believes rideshare spots "help reduce congestion and double-parking while making it faster and safer for riders to find their driver." Macklin added that Lyft shares rideshare data with municipalities to select "spaces where they'll have the most impact for both the community and our riders and drivers."

Uber added a rideshare location at Nassau Coliseum in 2017, Newsday previously reported. Designated rideshare zones also can be found outside UBS Arena in Elmont, Citi Field, Yankee Stadium and Barclays Center.

Patchogue officials said the rideshare spaces are viewed as a pilot program to gauge interest. If they prove to be popular, the village will consider adding more designated spaces on Main Street and on side roads such as South Ocean Avenue and West Street.

“More and more [people] would rather take a $20 bill out of their pocket and three or four of them [use] Uber or one of the rideshares," Pontieri said. “If we make it convenient for the rideshare companies … then it’s better for them and it’s safer for all of those who want to use it.”

By Carl MacGowan

carl.macgowan@newsday.comCarlMacGowan

Carl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.