Outcry continues over Southern State Parkway Exit 13

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Mohamed Tarek, a 14-year-old Elmont High School student, was walking home from a basketball game when an unlicensed driver who was trying to move into the eastbound lanes of the Southern State Parkway from North Central Avenue struck him, leaving him in a coma. In the aftermath, representatives of the State Department of Transportation agreed to conduct a traffic study at Exit 13.

That was four years ago, and residents say they have yet to hear about the results of the study. “We don’t know where that study is,” said Nayyer Zubair, of Valley Stream.

So Zubair created a Change.org petition asking state officials to redesign the entrance and exit ramps at Exit 13, to and from Stuart Avenue and Central Avenue. The intersection separates North Valley Stream from Elmont. Many students who live south of the parkway attend Elmont High School, which is about a half-mile to the north.

The exit is also frequented by congregants of the Masjid Hamza Islamic Center of the South Shore, students and staff at the Hamza Academy, students at Alden Terrace School and congregants of the Valley Stream Baptist Church. The mosque alone draws thousands of Muslims for weekly prayers on Friday afternoons, and hundreds of Muslims who attend daily prayers at sunrise and sunset, according to Zubair, who regularly attends services at Masjid Hamza.

He said that accidents and near-crashes occur regularly at the intersection, and that he and some of his close friends were almost struck there. “Navigating that intersection has been a challenge for everyone,” Zubair said.

The petition had about 450 signatures as of Nov. 17. Some of the comments on it, like those of Nafel Bajwa, urge a redesign of the complicated intersection. “It’s a serious matter that should be dealt with,” Bajwa wrote.

The petition calls for better nighttime street lighting for pedestrians and traffic cameras to deter drivers from running red lights, and notes that a left-turn signal is “desperately” needed.

“I think that would go a long, long way,” Zubair said.

Karim Mozawalla, a trustee of Masjid Hamza, agreed that there should be better lighting, a traffic signal for cars entering the parkway and better signage, including an electronic speedometer sign “because cars are just going really fast.”

A State DOT spokesperson referred all inquiries about the ramp to Nassau County. The state maintains the parkway, and the county has jurisdiction over the entrance and exit ramps. But according to State Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages, a Democrat from Elmont, while former County Executive Ed Mangano’s administration said it would conduct a study of the exit, “I haven’t heard anything since.”

Solages and outgoing State Sen. Kemp Hannon, a Republican from Garden City, submitted a bill in their respective houses that would allow the state DOT to study the configuration of all of the Southern State’s entrance and exit ramps. She also said that she secured grant money to redesign Exit 13, but county officials would have to accept the funding and devise a plan to reconfigure the exit.

Solages said she was hopeful because, she noted, County Executive Laura Curran “seems more open-minded.”

“All the parties are now at the table talking,” she added.

Zubair’s petition can be found at https://bit.ly/2PBwEuz.