A safer Route 110? Local leaders say NYS stands in the way.

When Dennis Siry took over as mayor of Amityville in 2017, making Route 110 safer was among his top priorities. When he left office eight years later, the improvements he sought hadn’t even begun.

Now, another mayor, Michael O’Neill, hopes to narrow the road, called Broadway as it slices through the heart of the village, separating businesses in a resurgent downtown.

Despite more than a decade of meetings, walking audits and traffic studies — not to mention a $10 million state grant — none of the planned work has been done, as serious crashes on the village portion of Route 110 pile up. Just last month, an SUV and Suffolk County bus struck two pedestrians, one fatally, as they tried to cross Route 110, bringing the death toll on the road in Amityville to at least six in the past 10 years.

The reason for the delay: Route 110 is controlled by New York State, and local governments generally can't improve roads they don’t control.

It’s a common issue on Long Island, which has more than 100 local road jurisdictions that often overlap with state and county roads at key high-traffic intersections. But villages, cities and towns only have authority to work on roads under their control. Main thoroughfares, like Route 110 and Sunrise Highway, are owned by the state. Other large roads, like Straight Path and Great Neck Road, are controlled by Suffolk County.

"We said the heart of the village just needs to be slowed down," O’Neill said in an interview. "Where it gets frustrating is we have this strong belief in it. If we had total control of the roads, it would have gone a whole lot smoother and faster."

This jurisdictional checkerboard poses a true roadblock to the goal of making Long Island's dangerous roads a little less dangerous, say experts and advocates, potentially hindering regional solutions like "Vision Zero," a comprehensive traffic safety initiative that, at its core, aims to reduce serious crashes by redesigning roads.

In some places, such as Hempstead Village, Newsday has reported connecting different levels of government has been left to residents for things as simple as painting an intersection's crosswalk.

Cynthia Brown, director of Long Island-based New York Coalition for Transportation Safety, said the problem often comes down to a disconnect between the state Department of Transportation, which controls some of Long Island's most vital roads, and the local officials who rely on them.

In Amityville's case, the state's interest in keeping cars moving conflicts with the village's desire to slow traffic coming into the village, village officials and road safety advocates told Newsday.

"Their vision is different than the people most directly affected," Brown said of the DOT. "It's what makes the whole process take so long."

Recently, as many in Amityville hoped the work on Route 110 would soon begin, the DOT requested a study to analyze where traffic would go if the road were narrowed, as planned.

The DOT declined to answer questions from Newsday about the considerations it has to make when working with local governments on projects involving state roads.

"Safety is the New York State Department of Transportation’s top priority," spokesman Stephen Canzoneri said in an emailed statement. "We routinely engage with our partners in local government and community stakeholders to ensure that our projects meet the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders and motorists."

Canzoneri added the DOT is reviewing Amityville’s latest proposal for Route 110, which includes a recent traffic study.

Despite his frustration, O'Neill said he understands the DOT has other priorities to consider, such as people being able to efficiently move across Long Island and commercial traffic routes.

But others criticized the delays.

"If you walk out there at 7 a.m., you take your life into your hands," Eric Alexander, director of Vision Long Island, a Northport-based nonprofit promoting walkable downtowns, said of Route 110 in Amityville. "Just enough people trying to walk and get the train that they’re literally targets."

Newsday counted more than a dozen crashes over the past decade on the portion of Route 110 that goes through the village, at least six of them fatal. Four of those crashes, including two fatalities, were on the section of the road the village wants to improve.

Alexander acknowledged it's impossible to say any of those could have been prevented, "but moving expeditiously toward that new traffic pattern will save lives, it will reduce crashes, it will improve the community."

O'Neill said he would like the DOT to be more collaborative as it reviews the village's most recent traffic-calming proposal.

"What I really want is I want them to say, ‘Well what about this?’ " he told Newsday, "as opposed to just saying, ‘No this doesn’t work.’ "

Jeffrey T. Erath, a former Amityville Chamber of Commerce president who sat on Suffolk County's Downtown Revitalization Advisory Committee, said this frustration is common.

"Every village and town is having the same problems," he said. "You have to go through five agencies to get anything done."

Every village and town is having the same problems. You have to go through five agencies to get anything done.

— Jeffrey T. Erath, former Amityville Chamber of Commerce president

The state controls just 6% of road mileage on Long Island, but those roads see the heaviest traffic, according to a Newsday analysis of DOT data. This means work done on state-controlled roads has the biggest effect on traffic patterns, which could help explain the lengthy process in getting such work approved.

But Alexander said he’s starting to see a change in the DOT’s approach, citing a lane-narrowing project on Main Street in Smithtown that included collaboration with town officials.

"It’s not like they’ve never worked creatively, and we’re hoping to see more of that," he said.

'Crossing the street feels unsafe'

Slowing traffic coming into the village has long been a priority for Amityville officials, not just for safety reasons, but also to help the revitalization of the downtown.

When the state picked Amityville as a recipient of a $10 million grant for its Downtown Revitalization Initiative in 2022, the village listed road safety as one of its top challenges.

"Broadway is not pedestrian friendly due to speeding cars, narrow sidewalks, and lack of street furnishings," according to the strategic investment plan related to the grant award. "Crossing the street feels unsafe for many residents who walk or bike through the downtown."

To make downtown safer for pedestrians, the village has proposed narrowing Route 110 from four lanes to two on a quarter-mile stretch from Mill Street, north of the Long Island Rail Road station, to Union Avenue, where the road is already two lanes. Other safety improvements include expanded curbs at intersections and a raised median.

$10 million

Downtown revitalization grant awarded to Amityville, nearly half of which was designated for Route 110 improvements.

Other projects covered by the grant include storefront facade improvements, building restoration and new village signage and branding.

But the largest chunk of the money — some $4.5 million — has been earmarked for the Route 110 work and linking the LIRR station to the downtown. That work remains on hold.

O’Neill said now that the village has given its most recent traffic study to the DOT, he expects the project will soon move forward, but he’s stopped giving constituents project timelines.

"It’s frustrating because we want it to move forward," he added. "The residents are saying, ‘You got the grant a couple of years ago, what’s going on?’ "

Another fatal crash

The mayor spoke last month from his office in Village Hall, just off Route 110. After the interview, O’Neill led Newsday on a short walk around the village, where he pointed out some of the facade work. He stopped at the intersection of Oak Street and Route 110, where he'd like the number of traffic lanes halved, and noted how fast people drive through. The posted speed limit on Route 110 in the village is 30 mph, but the mayor said people often drive through at much faster speeds.

Just after 8 the following night, two pedestrians were crossing at the same intersection, where they were navigating five lanes of traffic, including a turn lane. A driver in a 2003 Mercury Mountaineer was turning left onto Route 110 and hit both pedestrians, Newsday reported. A Suffolk County Transit bus also struck them.

The Suffolk County Police Department previously said the crash involved "no criminality."

Pablo Serrano, 61, of Woodside, Queens, was killed. His cousin, 45-year-old Clara-Lee Correa, of Brooklyn, was taken to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.

An obituary for Serrano posted online described him as "the most loving, compassionate and giving person" and said "there is a big hole missing from our hearts." The family could not be reached for comment.

The day before the fatal crash, O'Neill had noted  the proposed road work would narrow the intersection where Serrano was killed, potentially slowing drivers down and giving pedestrians less road to cross.