With the new year just days away, 2026 does not seem so far off, either. That is the latest projected date that Suffolk County plans to repave Three Mile Harbor Road, also known as County Road 40, from its intersection with Copeces Lane in Springs south to its terminus, where it meets Springs-Fireplace Road, one of the busiest intersections in East Hampton Town.
With that in mind, the town board on Tuesday discussed with a consulting engineer and the town’s planning director how the town might prepare to add to the county’s project a redesign of the point where Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road merge, at the northern terminus of North Main Street, with a roundabout, among the considerations.
“This will ideally be a process that will get us to a series of upgrades,” Jeremy Samuelson, the planning director, told the board, with improvements to safety for motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians alike, as well as to quality of life through reduced noise and improved stormwater management.
According to a presentation from the engineering firm L.K. McLean Associates, in 2023 there have been 24 reported accidents in the short distance between the Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road intersection and the service station at 148 North Main Street. There were just eight in 2013.
Ray DiBiase, a consulting engineer with L.K. McLean, shared four potential redesigns for the intersection. One is an updated “channelization” plan that arose from the hamlet studies conducted in recent years, which would separate traffic with a raised island. “This has some immediate advantages,” he said. “It’s not a major capacity improvement per se, but it reduces the backups on Springs-Fireplace Road and will reduce people going to other roadways, such as Jackson and Abraham’s Path, to avoid this intersection because the backup will be less.”
Its construction could also have the benefit of costing the town nothing, Mr. DiBiase said, if the county agreed to add it to the repaving project. “You’ve got sufficient data here in terms of traffic accidents that would make them consider that.”
One concept produced by L.K. McLean is a roundabout at the existing intersection, which Mr. DiBiase said would accommodate an additional 110 vehicles per hour during peak times, on top of “normal” anticipated growth. The estimated cost is $2 million. The plan would require the conveyance of a small portion of the existing triangle where Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road fork as parkland, “but there’s adequate new, reclaimed land that’s obtained by removing pavement from the existing roadway surface,” he said.
A third option is similar to the second in design and cost, but would situate a roundabout farther north and require more parkland. This, Mr. DiBiase said, “creates an area for preservation that is most likely larger than the area that’s being alienated or encroached upon along the right side of Springs-Fireplace Road.”
The fourth concept was described as a modified channelization north of the existing intersection. It would retain the southbound lane on Three Mile Harbor Road and the northbound lane of Springs-Fireplace Road, and add crisscrossing lanes for motorists moving from one road to the other, meeting at an intersection with stop signs. The project would cost $1 million to $1.5 million, Mr. DiBiase said.
“There’s a lot to take in here,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said. “At first blush, my preferred intersection would be concept three, for a couple of reasons.” It pushes the intersection farther north, allowing a section of Springs-Fireplace Road to be turned over to parkland. It also “seems to be the most efficient in terms of funneling traffic around. It’s pretty easy to figure out how to navigate that from anywhere.”
Roundabouts slow traffic but keep it moving at the same time, he said, and the intersection in question “is really a choke point.” Were the conditions alleviated, motorists might not take alternative routes through residential neighborhoods, he added.
The East Hampton Citizens Advisory Committee “did not like the channelization,” Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said. “They are strong proponents of a roundabout.”
Mr. Van Scoyoc, who is retiring from government at year’s end, said that “a lot more analysis has to be done” regarding the impacts of each design on the residents abutting the area, including access to and from their properties. He called for the formation of a working group to study the designs and issue recommendations.
Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who is also retiring, said that such a group should understand that “we need to make this as rural looking as possible. The urbanization of this area is something that we don’t really want to see, although safety is always of concern here.”
“These are obviously very preliminary concept plans,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “but we need to work on finalizing, coming up with a plan that the community supports that addresses safety concerns and the traffic concerns, and do so in a timely way that aligns with the repaving project so it gets included and incorporated.”
