Plowed-in sidewalks and bus shelters leave pedestrians stranded on Rt. 58 in Riverhead

Imagine this: You rely on the county bus to get to work at a County Route 58 “big box” store in Riverhead. The eastbound Suffolk Transit S92 bus comes to a stop at Pulaski Street, one of the designated stops on the route, outfitted with a passenger shelter. You hop off the bus.

As the S92 groans eastward, the traffic that had been stopped behind it begins to move. You find yourself standing in one of the two eastbound lanes of traffic. There is no shoulder. You can’t see, much less get to, the sidewalk.
County plows have created an icy wall between the lane of travel you’re standing in and the snow-covered sidewalk about three feet away. You have nowhere to go, nowhere to walk but in the road, sharing a nine-foot wide lane with cars and trucks picking up speed on the five-lane highway.

This is a daily reality for the riders of the S92 who board and exit the county bus on Route 58 during snowy weather.

County plows clear the five-lane highway of snow. The plow blades push the snow off to the sides of the road. Since the densely developed county road was reconstructed with little or no shoulders when it was widened from three lanes to five (a project completed in 2010), the plowed snow often gets piled on top of sidewalks.

But the county doesn’t clear the sidewalks — or the bus stops.

Riverhead town code says it’s the responsibility of property owners to keep sidewalks in front of their properties clear of snow. Many — maybe most — owners do not.

“Last year we gave out warnings and a lot of people got very upset with the town because the plowed snow was all ice and couldn’t even be shoveled or removed with snowblowers,” Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter said.

Snow clearing responsibility for the bus shelters themselves is an issue about which the town and county have different opinions.

Following an inquiry from RiverheadLOCAL, County Legislator Al Krupski said he spoke with the county’s public works commissioner Gil Anderson about the Route 58 bus shelters.

“I was told it’s a gray area,” Krupski said. “DPW says its responsibility for snow clearing on county roads ends at the curb. They said anything above the curb is the responsibility of the property owner or the municipality,” Krupski said.

Riverhead Town assumed responsibility for maintaining the bus shelters for a 10-year period under a contract between the town and the county that expired on Dec. 31, 2012, Walter said.

The contract was signed to gain the county’s consent to have the bus shelters erected, he said.

“I believe the town had gotten a grant to pay for the shelters and the county insisted that the town maintain them,” Walter recalled. He was a deputy town attorney at the time and said he negotiated the contract with the county.

But it is unclear which government entity is responsible now that the contract has expired.

Riverhead Highway Superintendent Gio Woodson had highway crews remove snow from the bus stops after last year’s blizzard.

“I will do what I can to help, but the bus shelters on county roads can’t be at the top of my priority list,” Woodson said. “With 30 guys and all the lane miles we have to clear, I can’t do anything about the bus stops until everything else is taken care of.”

But Walter said the bus shelters shouldn’t be the town’s job.

“Suffolk County gets a lot of revenue from the development along Route 58, sales tax revenue especially. The county has to give back something,” he said.

The county wants the town to maintain the all the traffic signals on county roads as well, Walter said.

Krupski vowed to work to reach an agreement between the county and town to make sure pedestrians and mass transit riders are not walking in the road.

“It’s just wrong. It’s hazardous,” Krupski said. The freshman legislator was critical of how the road was built, with narrow or nonexistent shoulders and no bus pull-outs.

“It’s crazy that buses have to stop in the lane of traffic to begin with,” Krupski said.