Skip to main content

Large Trucks to Be Banned on Part of Accabonac Road

Thu, 09/09/2021 - 12:20
Traffic increased on Accabonac Road in East Hampton after a railroad trestle there was raised to accomodate large trucks.
David E. Rattray

Three months after several residents of a southern portion of Accabonac Road in East Hampton complained of a surge in truck traffic since the Long Island Rail Road trestle was raised there, the town board voted last Thursday to prohibit commercial vehicles weighing more than nine tons between Collins Avenue and Floyd Street. A public hearing on the proposed legislation was held on July 1.

The trestles on Accabonac Road and nearby North Main Street were raised after numerous incidents, spanning many years, in which trucks collided with them, sometimes getting stuck. The effect of the increased truck traffic, residents told the board in June, was a diminished quality of life, between the noise and the large vehicles' threat to the safety of pedestrians, joggers, cyclists, children, and pets. Some 80 residents had signed a letter to the board seeking the prohibition.

A similar recommendation was made by the East Hampton-Sag Harbor Citizens Advisory Committee in 2017, Councilman David Lys said in June, and Stephen Lynch, the highway superintendent, had made the same recommendation. Mr. Lys also noted that the road had recently been repaved and that weight limits would increase the useful life of the subsurface.

Only trucks making local deliveries are exempted from the prohibition.

There was previously no weight limit on town roads except on Indian Wells Highway in Amagansett, from 175 feet south of Bluff Road to its terminus at the ocean beach. There, commercial vehicles over four tons or 30 feet in length, or carrying more than eight passengers are prohibited. Several years ago, residents who frequent Indian Wells Beach complained to the board and at meetings of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee about an out-of-control party atmosphere there, with large groups arriving by bus and taxi, taking kegs and cases of beer to the beach, and leaving the garbage bins overflowing.

A town board move to install a gatehouse on Indian Wells Highway landward of the parking lot, with an attendant checking for resident parking permits, and a vehicle turnaround also improved conditions there.

In other news from last Thursday's meeting, the board voted to reschedule an upcoming meeting from next Thursday to Sept. 23, as next Thursday is Yom Kippur.

Villages

Owl's Death Prompts Call for Bird-Friendly Building

Window strikes kill up to a billion birds annually and rank up there with cats and habitat destruction as the leading causes of recent steep declines. After the recent death of a much-watched Eurasian eagle-owl that was set loose from the Central Park Zoo, a bill calling for bird-friendly building measures has been revived in the New York Assembly and Senate.

Mar 28, 2024

Architect’s Descendants Visit East Hampton Gem

Michele L’Hommedieu Hofmann had no idea until retiring last fall and starting to research her family history how prominent a role her great-great-grandfather James H. L’Hommedieu had played in Long Island’s late-19th-century architecture. On a trip to New York that included a stop at an East Hampton house he designed for Robert Southgate Bowne, a founder of the Maidstone Club and first president of the Long Island Rail Road, she and her family got a crash course in L’Hommedieu’s work.

Mar 28, 2024

Item of the Week: Gardiner Family Gossip From 1889

On July 16, 1889, while staying in Lenox, Mass., Sarah Diodati Gardiner Thompson wrote to her daughter Sarah Thompson Gardiner, who was vacationing at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Family news was top of mind.

Mar 28, 2024

Your support for The East Hampton Star helps us deliver the news, arts, and community information you need. Whether you are an online subscriber, get the paper in the mail, delivered to your door in Manhattan, or are just passing through, every reader counts. We value you for being part of The Star family.

Your subscription to The Star does more than get you great arts, news, sports, and outdoors stories. It makes everything we do possible.