Your welcome report about Southampton Town traffic deliberations [“Solutions for ‘Crazy’ Traffic Are Difficult But Maybe Not Impossible,” 27east.com, July 5] contains an unfortunately passing reference to “grand ideas” for alleviating the chokehold on highways 39 and 27.
The reality is that, barring economic upheaval, only significant infrastructure investment will move the needle much on what has become a nearly year-around east-west vehicle jam and resultant side-street abuse.
Jay Fitzpatrick of Southampton presented a visionary set of renderings to the town traffic committee on June 26. These do, as your article suggests, harken back to South Fork bypass proposals that were on the table from the 1950s into the early 1980s.
Preservationist lore from that period, remembering best the “Halt the Highway” campaign of 1974, holds that opposition to a bypass road was a critical stand in maintaining the character of the Hamptons. Surely, many important saves were made in those late-20th century decades. But nobody would claim that the South Fork then is the South Fork now.
The construction rarely stopped. What was built is a trades-dependent luxury community — larger and for longer periods of the year — with barely any accommodation for increased trip counts. The resulting traffic standstill has now diverted a day-long stream of various-sized trucks onto residential roads, changing their character. According to an estimate given by the traffic committee, half of the trade flow is going beyond Southampton to the east.
In retrospect, the quashing of some form of limited-access bypass, particularly the two-lane version that was advanced by 1981, was a fateful error. Development happened — not the residential or commercial concentrations that were feared at the time, but a type of manor housing that has brought untold numbers of service vehicles to maintain this living style.
It is late in the game now. The cost of achieving an infrastructure alternative is much higher, and politically even more difficult and subject to lawsuit. But the wealth of the area has also grown enormously. The Hamptons, largely on its own, if necessary, could afford to build whatever it chose to.
A grand idea for a granddaddy of a problem?
Tim Ferguson
Water Mill