Newtown to Get a Fourth Traffic Lane

A fourth traffic lane and pedestrian crosswalks on Newtown Lane, along with repairs and changes on Railroad Avenue and Race and Gingerbread Lanes, were the primary topics at the East Hampton Village Board’s meeting on Friday. The design review board was also presented with an award for its effort to preserve historic buildings.

The board agreed that the proposals for Newtown Lane described at the meeting by Drew Bennett, a consulting engineer, should go forward, along with the work on the other streets. The Suffolk County Transit bus shelter on Newtown Lane is to be relocated. Mr. Bennett said the changes were based on the volume of traffic. Newtown Lane will also be resurfaced and parallel parking on both sides of the street continued.

While moving the crosswalk at the East Hampton Middle School was considered, in part to separate it from the bus shelter, Mr. Bennett said it will remain in place and the shelter will be moved closer to the retail outlets. That “will eliminate the congestion of people standing and waiting for the bus as well as the children having to go back and forth to gym class,” across Newtown Lane from the school in Herrick Park, he said.

Richard Burns, the school district superintendent, who attended the meeting, expressed support for moving the bus station but questioned the fourth traffic lane. He said he hoped it “doesn’t? become what Main Street sometimes is,” a road where vehicles travel at higher speed. “I’m a little concerned about kids crossing four lanes of traffic, even if it is a crosswalk. . . . I’m always worried about that intersection when it’s dusk,” he said.

Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. told Mr. Burns that the state had authorized funding for radar speed cameras in school districts and that the village would look at it. “I wouldn’t have any difficulty in having the village reach out if that was a goal that could be achieved,” he said. “You not only have a camera but, by golly, documentation and potentially a summons.” The board agreed.

Barbara Borsack, the deputy mayor, suggested that the crosswalk at the school be lighted, which Mr. Bennett called a good suggestion. He then added the possible construction of a center island at that part of Newtown Lane, which he said might further increase pedestrian safety.

Elsewhere in the village, a new curb will be added at the intersection of Gingerbread and Race Lanes, creating a 90-degree intersection. The present “swoop,” Mr. Bennett told the board, encourages motorists to roll through the stop sign there. He also proposed a raised island at the westerly end of Railroad Avenue and moving the existing stop sign there closer to the stop line, which he said would result in improved visibility.

The concrete island that separates train-station traffic and flow-through traffic on Railroad Avenue is going to be repaired. “The curbing is corroding; rebar is popping out,” Mr. Bennett said. “We’re proposing to replace the curbs in kind.” He also is asking for reflectors in the pavement at the intersection of Newtown Lane and Railroad Avenue. “As the striping wears out, people seem to come further and further over the line,” he said, and reflectors will help.

Nomination

Janet Dayton, the president of the Ladies Village Improvement Society, told the board that its landmarks committee had nominated the East Hampton Village Design Review Board’s timber frame landmarks project, covering structures built between 1700 and 1850, for an excellence award from the National Alliance of Preservation Commission.

Legislation to implement the landmarks project, initially presented to the board in October 2012, was designed to preserve significant buildings outside the village’s historic districts. In exchange for a restriction that land-marked houses cannot be demolished or relocated and rigid design review standards apply to exterior changes, the owners of such houses will be allowed to build a guest house and to transfer some of the allowable floor area in their primary residence to an accessory dwelling such as a guest house.

Many of the houses in question are small buildings on large lots. “Without this protection,” Ms. Dayton said, “it is certain that the village would lose many of its oldest houses as well as the significance of the first communities on the East End of Long Island.”

 “It is with great pleasure that now I present this award to you. Congratulations to the village and the Design Review Board for their foresight in working to preserve our historic village,” she said to the mayor and to Carolyn Preische, vice chairwoman of the review board.

The board also scheduled public hearings on Oct. 17 on proposed code amendments. One involves requiring insurance for mass-gathering events held on public property. The other would reduce the speed limit to 25 miles per hour on Mill Hill Lane and Meadow Way. The hearings will take place at 11 a.m. at the Emergency Services Building.