The new Amazon warehouse now rising on Rockaway Boulevard on the Nassau Queens border will, when operational, add a significant amount of new traffic to an already immensely overburdened roadway, which serves as the only real evacuation route from the Five Towns, Far Rockaway and the Long Beach-Atlantic Beach area, housing many tens of thousands of people. Already now, Rockaway carries many multiples of the amount of traffic for which it was designed many years ago.

The answer to this critical problem is to get traffic traveling between the affected areas and Queens and Manhattan off the commercial strip running from Burnside Avenue on the south end, to Brookville Boulevard on the north. The issue was known, and a solution envisioned before most of us were born.

We have been calling for years for New York State to complete the Nassau Expressway. Instead, Governor Cuomo and Senator Kaminsky provided a band aid that never helped.

Nassau County Legislators Denise Ford and Howard Kopel wrote to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, as well as Congressional Representatives Rice and Meeks on April 6, 2021, recognizing the likely imminence of a large infrastructure program, and for our community be remembered and the Nassau Expressway finally built. To date, we have not had the courtesy of a reply.

It is time for our community to stand up and declare that we are not second-class citizens, and deserve to finally have our needs recognized and addressed by our elected representatives. If you agree, please join us, and sign my petition below!

Tell our New York State Representatives to Complete the Nassau Expressway!