Reading last week’s story about the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, we were struck by a brief mention of that hamlet’s train station and the vehicle congestion during high-season weekend arrival and departure times. Things are not much better at East Hampton’s Long Island Rail Road stop and a whole lot worse at the Bridgehampton site, where the chaos even on a recent August weekday morning was truly beyond belief. But traffic problems may be the least of the railroad’s worries as a federal agency has begun to look at onboard safety on Hamptons-bound trains.

Underscoring concerns about the Montauk branch nearing a breaking point, the Federal Railroad Administration this week met with the L.I.R.R.’s operations head to discuss overcrowding. A railroad spokesman said that the question of passengers sitting on luggage in the aisles on the Cannonball, a Friday express from New York City, was added to the agenda of a previously scheduled meeting. The feds are concerned that too many passengers and all their weekend baggage might hinder an evacuation between cars in the event of an emergency.

Notably, the spokesman said, the L.I.R.R. does not have a maximum per-car occupancy limit nor was it able to say how many people exactly pile onto each train. The L.I.R.R. has not tallied up the use of its various stations more than once or twice a decade. Think of it: Thousands of riders, but the railroad cannot say how many. It’s laughable, to be generous; dangerously incompetent otherwise.

There is, of course, the distinct possibility that someone in the bowels of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority does know exactly how many tickets were issued in a given period to, say, Montauk, but if so, he or she is not telling the press office. On the other hand, maybe not. What can be inferred is that the policy makers and the people who create the schedules are doing so in an information vacuum — and that goes as well for the people who design our hamlet and village train stations and are in charge of their surrounding traffic patterns, and more important, onboard safety.

Anyone who has been in one of these vehicle scrums or a packed Friday train car can attest to the problem. What is astounding is that no one in a position to do something about it is keeping track even in the most minimal fashion — accurate passenger counts. At this point, moving the Amagansett L.I.R.R. station to another site, as suggested, might be a good idea, but until there are real numbers about its use, advocating for it can only be speculation. However, it is more than obvious that the railroad must move swiftly to improve weekender service on the Montauk branch.

Congratulations are due the East Hampton Town Board for unanimously voting last week to ban parking on a significant portion of Edgemere Street, where patrons of the Surf Lodge bar and restaurant (and lately, full-on concert venue) have made the road treacherous. The no-parking zone will encompass about a half mile of Edgemere Street, from well north of the club to South Elwell Street; parking will remain available closer to the Long Island Rail Road station, at about where Flamingo Avenue begins. In effect, the board told the Surf Lodge to deal with its customers’ cars. The move is but a start, and the board must turn next to other problem spots, most, but not all, in Montauk.

A good number of drivers have described near-misses to the west, at Cyril’s Fish House on Montauk Highway, for example. Westbound traffic slows to a stop there as patrons, taxi drivers, and the restaurant’s staff stir their own breed of chaos. Some assistance from the New York State Department of Transportation is sorely needed there — and quickly — before a fatal accident proves fears correct.

Another problem site made the news this week when a lawsuit was filed against the town by Sloppy Tuna, another hot spot in Montauk, challenging what it says was an arbitrary change in its maximum occupancy. That will work its way through the legal process, but a side note concerning the often-crowded bar and restaurant deserves attention.

 Former East Hampton Town Police Chief Ed Ecker Jr. now seems to work for a consulting firm hired by Drew Doscher, Sloppy Tuns’s owner. No disrespect intended, but we suspect Mr. Ecker was hired as much for who he is as for his expertise. On July 22, Mr. Ecker sat down with two former subordinates, the current chief, Michael D. Sarlo, and Lt. Thomas Grenci, the Montauk precinct commander, to discuss Sloppy Tuna. Whether one likes the place or is unhappy about the throngs it attracts, there seems to be something not quite right about a well-connected former town official acting on behalf of a business taking the town to court. One might hope Sloppy Tuna would try to tone it down so that residents would find being there more to their liking. But that is probably too much to ask when there are large heaps of money to be made catering to the party crowd.

Owners of these bars and restaurants will all say they are complying with what authorities ask and are being unfairly targeted. It will be a tough fight to bring them into line, but the town board, through the Edgemere parking ban and other efforts, is demonstrating that it has the will to take it on — even if it means standing up to old friends like Mr. Ecker.

Crews under contract to the State of New York will begin resurfacing Route 114 between East Hampton and Sag Harbor sometime in the fall. The work follows a larger effort on Montauk Highway, Route 27, which was completed in the spring. As smooth as the new pavement is, there is reason for concern for bicyclists, who seem to have been all but forgotten during the highway work.

For some reason, the Department of Transportation appears to favor expansive no-go zones and turning lanes at the expense of room along the shoulders for bikes. This is unfortunate as the seemingly narrow lanes often force those on two wheels into a tight squeeze between moving traffic and parked vehicles. It is almost as if the state were trying to discourage bicyclists from using the roads.

With Route 114 resurfacing looming, officials should remember that bicycling is a big deal here, with some members of the work force dependent on two wheels to get to their jobs. And, of course, there are all the weekend riders who are expected to follow the rules of the road and should get decent surfaces and safe line markings as part of the deal.

The same goes for other parts of the South Fork where, as roadwork is contemplated in the future, better and safer conditions for bikers and pedestrians should be a must.

Pizza boxes, cracked lobster claws, napkins, beer cups, empty bottles of good wine, plastic tablecloths, half-eaten salads, disposable forks, paper plates, a box of fava beans, broken umbrellas, blown-out chairs, a snapped body board. These are just a few of the things left scattered around the trash bins that we saw on several early morning tours of the ocean beaches during the last few days.

At Georgica in East Hampton Village, s’mores sticks and assorted debris surrounded both the bins on the beach and those in the parking lot. At Two Mile Hollow around 7 a.m. Sunday, a trash can was smoldering and puffing smoke as if it were a tiny coal locomotive. At Main Beach on Monday morning, Coca Cola cups and Pepsi cans spilled onto the sand from a receptacle too full to hold any more.

It is unacceptable that those who head to the ocean beaches in East Hampton Village, and to a similar degree the town beaches, have to look at these messes on what seems a daily basis now. Seeking serenity and nature’s beauty, visitors instead contend with having to tiptoe around the prior evening’s debris and listen to the squawk of the seagulls as they dig amid it for something to eat.

Human nature being what it is, many are the people who apparently think it is okay to leave their trash on the beach so long as it is in relative proximity to a garbage can. Maybe this is because so many summer folks are New Yorkers, inured to the sight of garbage piled along the streets. Maybe not. But it is up to our local officials to figure out how to manage the mess — and that does not mean forcing village employees to start their mornings picking up disgusting waste that ought to be handled in a better way.

The East Hampton Town Trustees have begun to make an issue of the village’s approach to beach trash. Unfortunately, instead of doing something about it, the village has taken a petulant, almost arrogant stance. Meanwhile, when dawn breaks, the beaches look like hell. Come on, East Hampton Village, how difficult could it be to get this right?

The village has been ahead of the town, however, in the regulation of beach fires. About two years after it banned blazes built right on the sand, the experiment has proven worthwhile. Unlike in East Hampton Town, the sand has again become more or less pristine white, in stark contrast to the charcoal-flecked areas at every single popular road-end and lifeguarded beach managed by the town.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a hearing tonight on whether to follow the village’s lead and require all beach fires to be kindled within metal containers. While some residents might be nostalgic for a time when fires right on the sand did not add up and create a significant problem, those days have passed. On any warm summer’s night now, dozens of fires can be seen almost anywhere you go, and in the morning, buried but still-hot coals present a risk to bare feet. By mid-day, beachgoers often have to set their towels down amid black flecks and half-burned logs. This is not okay.

We expect that the town board will do what is right and make the change to require containers for fires. The East Hampton Town Trustees, whose agreement is needed for the beaches under their jurisdiction, should endorse the new rule. It is necessary.

A bill awaiting Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s signature that was recently approved by the State Legislature could signal the beginning of the end of the much-vaunted community preservation fund program. The proposal is to allow local governments to take up to 20 percent of the money for water quality projects, including new and upgraded sewage treatment plants. Doing more about water pollution is a good thing; this bill is the wrong way to fund it.

Its chief backers are State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who piggybacked the proposal onto a reasonable 20-year extension of the fund, which is set to expire in 2030. At a minimum, the two proposals should have been de-coupled, allowing them to be considered separately in the participating towns and voted on in the November general election as independent referendums. Since that did not happen, Mr. Cuomo’s veto is essential.

Long eyed by politicians as a potential and pain-free source of cash for all sorts of things, the community preservation fund has withstood most assaults. Should it become law, this measure, however, would chip away at one of its fundamental precepts, that the initiative is independent of the rest of government services. If local officials want water projects, they should do so through ordinary bonding, tax credits for septic upgrades, or permissive referendums.

It is outrageous that Mr. Thiele, who has recently expressed the opinion that the fund should not be tapped to buy buildings, would be eager to see money diverted to projects that on Long Island have been marked historically by corruption, cost overages, and poor environmental record-keeping. To think that more money will make this any better is to enter a fairyland fantasy. That there is a problem is hinted at by a caveat tucked into the bill, that the fund cannot be used for any project that would increase development. This is hardly assuring nor is it meaty enough to function as intended.

Given that in East Hampton Town the only proposed sewage project nearing shovel-ready status is a head-scratching one in downtown Montauk, officials here need to think carefully before agreeing to allow themselves — or future governments — to skim so much from the preservation fund for ill-thought-out boondoggles.

Before East Hampton goes looking for new ways to spend the C.P.F., it should try to stop development of all remaining vacant parcels of land in the town, take additional steps to assure crop farming on already-preserved acreage, protect more historic sites, and remove structures in environmentally sensitive areas. Once that is done and there is no land at all left to buy, maybe then, and only then, will it be time to talk about taking that 20 percent off the top.

One of the solutions that has been floated regarding Montauk’s too-much, too-wild party scene is eliminating outdoor music altogether. At an East Hampton Town Board meeting in the besieged easternmost hamlet this month, however, the general sense among the hundreds who attended was that doing so would be going a step too far. Those sharing that view, who nevertheless are outraged about all the mayhem, should recognize that amplified music can be blamed for much of the plague that has upended the community they know and love.

We believe that the problems with Montauk’s overly festive crowds — noise, litter, and public urination — should be attacked head-on. This means pulling the plug on amplified music outside any commercial establishment. This would squarely address a large portion of the attraction for the hordes who amass on weekends at such places as Solé East, Navy Beach, Swallow East, the Montauk Beach House, Sloppy Tuna, the Surf Lodge, Ruschmeyer’s, and (of all places!) at Gurney’s.

The town’s regulations on outdoor events and noise are contradictory and difficult to enforce, with the tool that is potentially most effective, the mass gathering law, little used. Forcing the party indoors would give enforcement the upper hand, as fire safety maximum occupancy numbers are easier to quantify. Consider the example of Harbor, a bar and restaurant rated for 68 patrons near the Montauk docks, which was recently told by a judge that it had to keep to that figure, not the 300-plus guests recently counted by town officials.

The Surf Lodge has a similarly restrictive indoor occupancy maximum, but it routinely packs hundreds of people onto its open-air decks and (quote-unquote) lawn, for headliners like last weekend’s Leon Bridges. As enjoyable as that show may have been, Edgemere Road, where the town could soon put in place new parking restrictions, was a nearly impassible mess. End the shows under the stars, pack up the outdoor D.J.s, and much of the problem will drift away. Want music to dine by? Hire an acoustic combo or move the thumping inside.

Until the town and the public are willing to admit that one of the main causes of undesirable crowding is impossible-to-regulate outdoor music, the party will simply go on and on and on — much like the beats residents have had to endure. If officials and Montauk residents are serious about taking back the hamlet from the hordes, they have to act that way.

A couple of weeks ago, a Montauk resident in a letter to the editor in this newspaper described how sweet it once was to fall asleep  listening to the sounds of the ocean and the crickets. But now, she wrote, she has to close her windows and turn up the air-conditioning to drown out the noise and get a good night’s sleep. Let’s not allow that to be this beloved hamlet’s epitaph.

The latest developments in the United States Army Corps of Engineers project to build a 3,100-foot-long sandbag wall on the downtown Montauk oceanfront warrant close attention. Though a private lawsuit could still derail this massive boondoggle, the Corps, East Hampton Town officials, and the state appear to be moving forward. Recently described details concern pedestrian and vehicular access over the planned artificial dune and what happens to rainwater there. Barring a court ruling, work is expected to begin in October.

Now, unbelievably, the same people who brought us the Katrina disaster are considering installing some kind of a floodgate to allow rainfall and runoff to escape to the ocean. Sorry. We are not convinced.

From the start, the project has been marked by rule-bending, false claims, inadequate review, and, going back several years, an embarrassing, overstated back-of-the-napkin economic analysis. All this has not appeared to shake current town support. Politics plays a role; woe be the elected official who speaks out to block the effort then sees heavy damage caused by a hurricane or bad winter storm. But expediency comes at the expense of sound planning and a responsible answer to the long-term issue of erosion.

Downtown Montauk was built where it should not be. It’s that simple. No Army Corps seawall by itself is going to change that fact. The Corps’s poorly conceived project only delays the day of reckoning, which should have taken place after Hurricane Sandy’s near miss in 2012. Tough leadership is desperately needed, but it is not coming — from any level of government.

Kicking a few ideas around at last week’s editorial meeting, we hit on the subject of pet peeves. Everybody has a few, and with the Hamptons high season at full boil, a lot of us are happy to share. In no particular order, here is a list of a few things that get the staff’s collective goat.

Landscape trucks parked in the lane of travel while the crews are off mowing or what have you. Those people who think nothing of parking in handicapped-only spaces “just to run in for something for a minute.” Rows of stakes on public property along the roadside; are they intended to protect the grass from errant tires? Large items, like beach chairs, umbrellas, and body boards, left at beach trash receptacles. Benches left sticky from a fallen ice cream. Don’t get us started about price-gouging for staple groceries. And one that is really more serious than a peeve: Drivers who fail to get out of the way for emergency responders’ vehicles.

There’s plenty to grumble about. What’s on your list? Let us know.

Several weeks ago, we briefly described an ostentatious party on one of East Hampton Town’s ocean beaches and suggested that a little more restraint by all concerned would not be a bad thing. At the time, we wondered how such an elaborate party — thumping reggae band and all — was allowed, but took it more as a curiosity than a symbol of an underlying problem with law enforcement.

As frequent evening beach visitors, it was inevitable that we would encounter more of the same, and a week later stopped at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett to find another party, this time with a three-piece, electrified calypso band playing a few steps off to the right, costumed hula performers, and guests wearing leis. The rest of the beach was oddly deserted.

Stopping in the parking lot to check the town code online confirmed what we had only half recalled: Amplified music is prohibited at large gatherings for which permits must be obtained. Driving on, we paused at Atlantic Avenue. The beach there was quiet, with a familiar summer evening contingent of people enjoying a picnic or just relaxing. “Refugees,” we thought, “from the racket at Indian Wells.”

At around 10 the next night, a Saturday, however, we dropped in on a friend’s clambake at Atlantic Avenue as guests were finishing their dinner around a bonfire and a D.J. played dance music. Nearby, a good dozen or more gatherings were happening, most with their own fires. Two town Marine Patrol officers were hanging around, and at one point asked the D.J. to lower the volume — and here we have to pause in the narrative to make a point.

Our friend had obtained and signed the necessary permit, which is unambiguous: “Assemblies that include amplified music shall not be permitted on any beach.” In asking that the music be turned down, the officers were exercising latitude that under the town code they simply did not have. Agree with the prohibition or not, that is the law.

It is difficult to say what went through the two officers’ minds as they allowed the music to go on, but it points to an apparent breakdown in town authority. Regardless of how you look at it, there is real reason for concern. Either the officers used inappropriate discretion, or they had been told by their superiors in the Police Department that this section of the law need not apply. And it was not a case of their being rushed or called to another location. During the hour or more that we were there, the officers hung around. After a long time in the cab of his truck, one emerged with a slip of paper and walked off into the dark in the opposite direction of the D.J. party, apparently to issue a citation to someone who had built a fire too close to a lifeguard stand.

Did the officers not know about the prohibition on amplified music? Or did they know the law but figure that since no angry calls had come in, they didn’t have to bother? Had someone told them to go easy on parties? Hard to say. What is clear, however, is that any town’s laws are only as good as how they are enforced; if that Saturday night at Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett is any indication, the law is none too good.

What is unfortunate is that the town police log for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of that weekend showed 40 noise complaints. What if it became known that consistent, hefty fines were to be levied on those who fail to comply with the town’s party permits. You know, broken windows policing and all that. Were word to get out that the rules are being enforced, it might reduce the number of complaints and help free officers to respond to other, higher-priority incidents. And, of course, ignoring the law is not limited to the beaches.

Since a post-July 4 public uprising about tackling the summertime din, town officers have spoken out about public drunkenness and mayhem in general. It is very clear, though, that much more has to be done to make sure the get-tough words are heeded on the enforcers’ front lines.