Letter to the Editor: Dangerous Intersection—Middletown Road and Eri Lane

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing on behalf of the residents, friends and relatives of Eri Lane in Nanuet.  Eri Lane is a small road off Middletown Road and opposite Pigeon Hill Road.  For a little over a year, we have been living with a very dangerous situation because the County decided to install a center turn lane (sometimes referred to as a "suicide lane") on Middletown Road.  What makes this particular interchange between the two sides streets and Middletown troublesome is that drivers making a left onto Eri Lane face near head on collisions in the "suicide lane" with southbound drivers on Middletown making a left onto Pigeon Hill Road.  These drivers are using  Pigeon Hill Road to cut over to Route 304 (which obviously is another main North-South artery in the area).  Unlike other cross overs to 304 from Middletown, there is no traffic light at Pigeon Hill Road and Middletown.

At first, we thought that the new turning lane would be better, but we quickly realized that this is not the case.  And so began, over a year of phone calls and dealing with the County.

Well, since it is a County road, we were directed to speak with Charles "Skip" Vezzetti.  While he took my phone calls and listened to the concerns, it was clear that we were getting the run-around. I then called County Executive Ed Day's office this past April. Within 24 hours, the County Executive personally went out to the area, called me back and told me that this was a dangerous situation and that his office and the County would support changes to the roadway that would make this safer.  Mr. Day also suggested that we go to the Clarkstown Traffic Advisory Board because they would make the recommendation to the county.  We did this as well.  But, it always comes back to "Skip" Vezzetti.

In my conversations with numerous folks inside the other local governments, it seems pretty clear that "Skip" Vezzetti is the one that can work out a solution.  The problem is, and we have heard this from those inside government, that getting him to do something or even anything is pretty difficult.  Of course, he will not think that, but everyone we spoke to says the same thing.  I guess he has a reputation as being very responsive to safety concerns (sarcasm there).    He claims that he already sent out his engineers to look at the situation, but when pressed to provide documentation of that, he is not sure if they have any.  He also claimed that his engineers saw no problem with the interchange.  How could the County Executive (a former police officer) see the problem, but Skip's engineers could not?  The residents see the problem, but a trained engineer can not?  Mr. Vezzetti seems to want to wait until there is a serious injury or fatality to make a change.  He told me he would need to look at the "statistics".  How?  What traffic study has been done there?

Could Mr. Vezzetti stop blowing us off and  please send an engineer to meet with the residents so that all parties may explore a solution?  That is how adults handle problems - not by laughing at me on the phone as you did with me this past Spring.

I would urge residents to call Mr. Vezzetti's office to complain. His number is 845-638-5060.  We do not want our loved ones or fellow residents to become a statistic while Mr. Vezzetti looks for non-existent statistics.