Long Island's Southern State Parkway has been called "Blood Alley" for the number of serious and deadly accidents on the road, but there may be changes coming that could fix that.
After a series of deaths on the highly traveled road, speed cameras could be added to the 25-miles-long highway that runs between Nassau and Suffolk counties. Lawmakers are pushing to make it a designated "highway safety corridor," which would give local officials the ability to step up police enforcement, increase fines and add said cameras.
"I just can’t drive by another roadside memorial. We see all the time where there are roadside memorials," said state Assemblymember Michaelle Solages, who represents Elmont and Valley Stream.
Get Tri-state area news and weather forecasts to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York newsletters.
Solages introduced the bill recently. The cameras could automatically ticket drivers for speeding — part of Solages' desire to change driver behavior and save lives.
"I’m open to modifications and limitations, I just want to start a conversation about how to make the Southern State a safer road," she said.
In 2019, there were 1,138 crashes that ended in injury or death, up 16 percent form 2012.
It may be a direct effect of over usage. Marc Herbst of the Long Island Contractors Association said the Southern State Parkway was never designed for so much traffic.
"It has over 200,000 vehicles a day that travel it, which is more than most of the Long Island Expressway, which most people don’t realize," said Herbst. "It’s a bucolic ride in the country — that’s what it was designed for. But when you’re rushing to get from A to B, it’s no longer a fun ride as it was intended to be."
It may not be an easy thing to get people on board with the plan for speed cameras, however. When Nassau County launched a speed camera program near schools in 2014, it was repealed after public outcry.
