Portion Road Visioning Update
Dec 01, 2005
In the September newsletter, we reported in detail on
the status of the Portion Road project. At that time
our biggest concern was that the Suffolk County DPW
was insisting that a full widening to 5 lanes was
required between Hawkins Avenue and Cenacle
Road-Smith Road. The need for the extensive widening
was being caused by capacity concerns at the
Patchogue-Holbrook Road/Hans Boulevard
intersection.
The Civic strongly objected and indicated that it
would be detrimental to the community to fully widen
more than a mile of Portion Road just because the
problems at one intersection in the middle could not
be overcome. The County and the Town agreed to study
the problem further with the hope of coming up with
an alternate solution.
After a brief study period the
County engineers contacted the Civic and a meeting
was arranged so they could present their plan for a
compromise design that they had developed. Their new
plan now calls for a reduced 3-lane wide road design
for this section of the road. However, to meet
Federal approval procedures and funding requirements
they said that they must space the roadway curbs far
enough apart so that the road could theoretically be
widened to 5 lanes in the future, if necessary. They
stressed that a future widening would only happen if
the community requested it and that they would
minimize the impact of the extra pavement width by
providing bike lanes, medians and landscaped “bump
out” at the intersections to shorten the pedestrian
crossing distance.
While the Civic still has some
concerns about the extra roadway pavement width, it
is a major accomplishment that the new design for
this section of the road provides for only one
through travel lane in each direction. The County has
promised to work closely with the Civic on the
details for this new design and they will most likely
present the plan to the community at a public meeting
in early 2006.
In summary, the proposed design
configuration for entire length of the new Portion
Road from end to end is now as
follows:
Ronkonkoma
Avenue to Hawkins Avenue:
Limited length 5-lane design with 2 through lanes in
each direction to handle heavy localized traffic.
Previously agreed to by Civic.
Hawkins
Avenue to Smith-Cenacle Road:
Special 3-lane design with 1 through lane in each
direction and room to add an additional travel lane
in future if requested by
community.
Smith-Cenacle
Road to Holbrook Road:
Limited length 5-lane design with 2 through lanes in
each direction to handle heavy localized traffic.
Previously agreed to by Civic.
Holbrook
Road to Morris Avenue:
Basic 3-lane design with 1 through lane in each
direction.
Center turn lanes will be provided to
safely accommodate left turns and tapered sections of
roadway will be utilized to safely and smoothly
transition between the 5-lane and 3-lane sections of
the road.
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