Dan's Papers - October 5, 2007 - A Looming Pothole Between October 12 and 23

So here's the deal. The money was made available. The County Legislature voted. And now all the construction workers are out beginning the great ask of widening County Road 39 so that there will be a second eastbound lane by Memorial Day. The temporary cone lane operation will cease to be necessary.

Everybody knows that the end result will be wonderful. And everybody knows that there are going to be very hard times ahead for year-round commuters during all this construction, but we have to get through it.

And, of course, all this construction cannot be done with the cones in place. So it will be hard. But everybody will help out.

The construction workers have agreed to hold off bringing in all the heavy equipment until October 12. And the Long Island Railroad, to take the pressure off the highway, is planning to triple the number of railroad trains that run during the morning rush hour (from one to three). You'll be able to get on in Speonk or Westhampton or Hampton Bays or anywhere else along the line. You can even get on in Southampton. And they are currently working on a plan to have all the workmen, who normally come out here in the morning, get picked up at the railroad stations in the Hamptons with a fleet of county busses to take them to their job sites north and south of the east-west railroad line. Even the Hampton Jitney is getting in on board to help. They have offered to run an extra Jitney bus in between the times that the railroad trains will be offering their service in the morning. All of this is in hopes of having fewer and fewer cars on County Road 39 during construction so workmen can do their work.

Well, they released the new railroad schedule last week. The trains will be added on October 23. In addition to the regular morning commuter trains bringing workers out at 9:44 a.m. from Speonk, they will be adding two earlier ones, at 6:11 am and at 8:32 am. It will take just over an hour for these trains to travel from Speonk to Montauk.

Next week is October 12 and all the heavy construction begins. But hooray, the cavalry arrives and everything will go smoothly beginning October 23.

I don't mean to nitpick here, but if I understand this correctly, next week would be a real good week to either visit Aunt Selma in Georgia or call in sick.

The whole thing reminds me of the great Golden Spike ceremony that was held in the Great Basin Desert in Utah in 1869. It was that year the railroad, being built from San Francisco in the west heading east, linked up with the railroad being built from New York City heading west.

The two teams of railroad workers laying track heading toward one another came closer and closer. And then they each arrived in the Great Basin Desert in Utah. And the tracks linked up just perfect. So they sealed the deal by pounding a golden spike into the tracks. A job well done.