Portion Road Visioning Update

The County arranged the meeting rather quickly because they have realized that they must get the project out to bid by the end of the year or risk losing the Federal funding that would pay for it. Previous policy permitted funds to be rolled forward into the following year if necessary, but that is no longer permitted. The final design must be completed by October. After required State reviews are completed, the con¬struction contract will then be bid and awarded over the winter, with actual construction expected to begin in spring 2009. The road will be divided into two or three separate construction stages to minimize disruption to the community. It is expected that two construction seasons will be required to complete the rebuilding of the road, so hopefully the work will be finished by the end of 2010.
As discussed previously, the new road will basically remain one lane in each direction, but will have a continuous center turn lane for its entire length and more right turn lanes to improve inter¬section capacity. Additionally, a second through lane will be provided on Portion Road at the four busy intersections that cause most of the delays along the road, namely: Ronkonkoma Avenue, Hawkins Avenue, Smith-Cenacle and Holbrook Road.
At the meeting we discussed and resolved most of the open issues, but were not able to find an acceptable solu¬tion to the problem of the two through eastbound continuing several blocks east of Hawkins Avenue instead of dropping back to a single lane right after the inter¬section. The County maintains that the longer distance is required because of the closely spaced intersections and driveways in that area.
Other items discussed were the details for the crosswalk treatments and the decorative paver design that will be used between the sidewalk and the curb. The project will have continuous sidewalks on both sides of Portion Road with dis¬tinctive crosswalks at each intersection for enhanced safety. There was consid¬erable discussion about the importance of locating the crosswalks carefully so that drivers can easily see the pedestri¬ans and yield to them, especially when making right turns from Portion Road onto the cross streets.
We also discussed the placement and spacing of the trees that will be planted for the full length of the road, as well as the details for the bus shelters and orna¬mental light posts that will be provided. The special lights posts will be provided only in the two business districts: in the vicinity of Ronkonkoma and Hawkins Avenues at the west end of the project and between Warren Avenue and Morris Avenue in Farmingville at the east end of the project.
The special colored pavement treat¬ments that were originally included have been deleted because of changes to the federal design manual. The colored pavement was intended to highlight the business district intersections, mark some of the flush medians and delineate the new bike lane. The bike lane will remain but it will be marked with stan¬dard white paint instead and the County has promised to look into moving the bike lane away from the adjacent traffic so that a safety buffer can be provided between the bikes and the adjacent moving traffic. Another improvement will be the use of much larger street name signs for the Portion Road cross streets so that unfamiliar drivers will be able to identify the street they want sooner and make their turns more easily and safely.
We will continue to stay in contact with the County engineers and elected officials to track the progress on this project and will keep the Civic member¬ship informed of any new developments.