The East Hampton Town Board intends to modify parking restrictions on Edgemere Street in Montauk, possibly in time for Memorial Day weekend, to improve public safety on a stretch of road where the Surf Lodge has tied up traffic and created dangerous conditions for motorists and pedestrians alike.
Councilman David Lys told the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee on Monday that “there’s always an issue” with pedestrian and automobile safety on Edgemere. A few years ago, he said, Suffolk County awarded the town a $400,000 grant for a public safety initiative. “Finally, we’re starting to move on that with the county . . . and the area that we’re starting to look at is going to be from the train station up just past the Surf Lodge.”
Street signs are not always aligned with the town code, Mr. Lys said. “Either there’s signs there that aren’t supposed to be there, or there are signs that are not there that are supposed to be there. We did a deep dive into this all and we started to map it.” Working with the Police Department, “we came up with some recommendations that we wanted to discuss with the C.A.C. and also bring to the town board for greater discussion,” he said.
Presently, parking is prohibited on both sides of Edgemere Street from Elwell Street to around 300 feet north of Industrial Road, and on the eastern side
A “no parking” regulation is in fact the least restrictive, Mr. Lys said. “You can be parked in a car in a no-parking zone. You can be in the parked car and in a no-parking zone, and can’t get a ticket.” The most restrictive regulation, he said, is no stopping. “No stopping means you can’t discharge passengers, you can’t park in those locations, or even stay in the car.”
The recommendation is to designate the stretch of roadway “no stopping,” Mr. Lys said.
Above the small pond just north of Industrial Road, the triangle formed by Flamingo Avenue, Manor Road, and Fort Pond Road also sees unauthorized parking, including by taxi and Uber drivers, in rights of way, but there are no signs indicating as much, Mr. Lys said. “People leave their cars in a no-parking zone and they’ll just take the ticket,” he said.
The Montauk Project restaurant, StraightEdge Plumbing, and the Rough Riders Landing condominiums have all been impacted by parking there, he said. Along with street signs there, the recommendations include designating the north side of Manor Road a no-stopping zone as well as the west side of Fort Pond Road and a portion of Tuthill Road. “This will allow for us to at least have a travel lane through these areas for emergency access,” he said.
The recommendations for Edgemere Street would be subject to the county’s approval, he said. “If the county agrees with it, the town would then have to go through the process of public hearing,” Mr. Lys told the citizens committee.
Committee members wondered aloud whether the recommendations would positively impact the hazardous conditions near the Surf Lodge, to which many patrons walk from distant parked cars along Edgemere Street. “I don’t see how no-stopping is going to work, when you have a busy night on a Saturday in the summer, getting patrons in and out of there,” one said.
“Depending on that specific property or entity, they have a dedicated site plan that they should be able to use,” Mr. Lys said. Currently, “many people might get dropped off in that location or wait for pickups, but the driver of that car sits there. You can’t ticket that person and tell them to move right now.” The venue’s ownership, he said, “have been working very well with agencies and their security teams that try to keep people moving through there. . . . I don’t think it’s going to be perfect, but it’s a move in the right direction to allow for better public safety.�
Would this force even more pedestrians onto the roadway? another person asked. “We hope that the load of pickups and drop-offs can be managed within the property itself,” Mr. Lys said.
The town board may discuss the recommendations on Tuesday, he said.
