Building a road across LI Sound and the nurses shortage

Good project would span LI Sound

I agree that Long Island needs a major industry, and the one focusing on offshore efforts that the editorial is suggesting could be significant [“Time to push ‘blue economy,’ ” Editorial, April 30].

However, there’s another major area that should be considered but wasn’t mentioned — Long Island’s road structure and the limited access to New England. Many of our roads are almost in disrepair, and the number of highways is limited for the additional traffic that the suggested “blue economy” would need.

Accessibility across the Long Island Sound via the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway was to have been completed some 50 years ago, connecting to Rye in Westchester County.

The amount of commercial traffic that would be diverted off Long Island away from the Whitestone and Throgs Neck bridges and the Cross Bronx Expressway would open the traffic flow in those areas and other Long Island roads.

— Stephen Weiss, Merrick

Expedite applications to hire more RNs

Since the nursing shortage is severe, why does it take a long time to complete a program for registered nurses and get the necessary code from the New York State Education Department? The code is needed to schedule the RN boards.

Nursing vacancies “will become a greater crisis and threaten patient populations if solutions are not enacted immediately,” according to Maryann Alexander, chief officer for Nursing Regulation of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing “Nurses leaving work,” LI Business, April 19].

One must pass the boards to work as an RN. My son completed the application in December, checking several times since, but has not heard back. I have been told by those in the field that this has been an unexplained issue for quite a while.

If this process could be expedited, maybe there would be less of a nursing shortage.

— Elizabeth Hennessy, Holbrook