Add Express Lanes to Reflect Long Island Growth?

It’s rather quaint to read of an effort to widen a Long Island, N.Y., highway–reminiscent of the days when Robert Moses and others carved out easier traffic routes to bring the isle’s eastern reaches to within just a few hours of New York City. But as Newsday reports, that’s what Republican officials in Suffolk County (where the party still holds sway) are proposing for the Sunrise Highway, one of two primary east-west thoroughfares. The state of New York, which controls that route, would need to approve–and that’s a far different political set. But congestion is undeniable on much of this stretch of the Sunrise, and it’s not just drivers going to and from “the Hamptons,” 15 minutes or more to the east. As the article notes, big hospital and housing expansions south of the highway loom in Brookhaven town. Also, not noted, industrial and other development to the north will contribute volume to the flow. Objections surely will be heard, including the belief that more pavement is environmentally harmful and only invites commensurately more car trips. This is a trope that has carried the day on the East End of the island for decades, going back to the “Halt the Highway” movement in the 1970s that prevented a bypass express road in the Hamptons. As traffic pressures reach a boiling point in those precious precincts, that decision no longer looks so foresightful. –Sept. 16, 2026

Suffolk politicians call for third Sunrise Highway lane in stretch from Patchogue to Center Moriches – Newsday