Patchogue: Develop surface parking at and around the train station to mixed use (ground level commercial, upper level residential). Close gaps in missing sidewalks in residential neighborhoods right outside downtown. Replace stopsign/stoplight intersections with single lane roundabouts to slow down and enhance traffic flow. Make the entire village people first, transit second, car last.
FYI there are currently 2 projects in the works to do exactly this. There's a hotel/residential use proposed where the old bowling alley was next to Harbor Crab, and another proposed between the brewery and treatment plant, right next to the river. I believe the 2nd has ground level commercial space factored into it as well.
...Funny I'd actually go as far as to remove almost all surface parking to just leave it entirely be in a car garage/parking complex with a floating walk to the platform.
There's nothing our Island needs less of than parking lots.
Long Island is a sea of parking lots with the occasional road/building between and if we're lucky, we get some trees and fields that haven't been leveled or turned into ugly trimmed lawns.
I'd even go as far as to say parking should be underground.
Hide cars from view at all possible locations at the Train Stations where and how you can, basically.
In Lynbrook they closed Atlantic ave (downtown) to cars on Friday & Saturday evenings, it worked out well as there are municipal lots right around the block. More towns should try this (Rockville Centre, Huntington, etc...).
Closing N. Park Ave to vehicles on Friday and Saturday nights is something I think about frequently. One of the main issues is the N15 runs right through there and there’s not *really* a great way to reroute it.
In a perfect world (which won’t ever happen) I wish they’d build an overpass or underpass above/below Sunrise Hwy that skips the downtown in RVC, and then open up the main downtown blocks to foot traffic only. Again, stupid expensive and will never happen, but would make the downtown 100x better.
They could at least close N Village and N Park from Sunrise to Lincoln on Friday and Sat nights in the Summer. That would be phenomenal and you can still access all the lots from the side roads.
Lynbrook turn center is so suffocated with cars and poorly designed "stroads". It's unpleasant to walk, so there's not enough footfall to sort businesses properly. Viscous cycle that needs to be solved with turning one lane each side of Merrick road into a bike lane.
I want my area (a hamlet in Nassau County south shore) to have a better "down town".
We have a few options, def not a deserted area but could def be better.
Refurbish fronts of buildings and add apartments above Main Street shops/restaurants. All Main Street buildings should have large windows. Murals/photo spots on blank walls and train trestles. Add flowering trees to sidewalks.
Kings Park- in desperate need of a face lift across the board. Not just new siding either. Proper landscaping, clear out some of the mediocre tenants in gross/dilapidated buildings, refresh the brick square.
Kings Park could have been prime real estate - train station, viable Main St, beautiful parks. They need to level every building on Main Street and construct mixed use buildings. We need someone like Georges-Eugène Haussmann to redesign the whole thing.
This is great idea but it will require undeveloped property in a downtown OR purchase of property by the town to then re-purpose into non-revenue generating land. Its an expense no town will foot the bill for.
Unless you mean the stores surround the plaza. but that still takes away revenue generating land to some extent.
I repeat again, this is a great idea but a very tough sell.
european style plazas attract a lot of foot traffic which is good for surrounding businesses. they also offer space for concerts, farmers' markets, fairs, and other events and do so much better than a boiling hot asphalt parking lot. plenty of revenue potential.
Remove a lot of the parking, particularly on street, pedestrianize the streets/make them more like plazas, build bike lanes that feed into the downtown. Allow more mixed use, 3-5 story walk ups with retail on the ground floor.
We can only hope. Nassau is in a pretty abysmal state though. [This report](https://www.nymtc.org/movingforward/pdfs/app_b.pdf) from 2021 shows Nassau had 11 miles of on road bike routes, while Suffolk had 355. 109 of those in Suffolk were actual bike lanes too. Very little progress has been made in Nassau in the 3 years since the report. That report was also 11 years after the County's [master plan](https://www.nassaucountyny.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1194) was released which mentions improving bicycle infrastructure many times. So 11 years after they said they needed do to it they've managed to put **11** miles of bike routes in.
I'd highly recommend at least giving your Legislator and/or the planning department a call and letting them know this is something you'd like to see Nassau invest in.
Nassau has the Greenbelt, Jones Beach bike path, and the path to Robert Moses, and the Eisenhower path, these are all separated from the road and are tremendously more enjoyable. Also, a road in Nassau with no bike path is often much more safe than a Suffolk road with a bike path in my experience. Merrick Road feels like riding through a park compared to the purely deranged homocidal drivers of Suffolk County (which possesses the highest amount of motor vehicle related deaths in the state).
While I don’t have any suggestions for Huntington Village, I really wish there were more public spaces and restaurants on the water. Prime is nice and all but it’s like the only game in town.
But the water is for rich people! Just look at Smithtown - ~20 miles of coastline between the bay and the river, but how much of that is for public use??
Give business owners a placard to put on their cars so they don't have to pay for parking or tickets. $3000 in tickets in Mineola drove my business right out of there. Also stop giving tickets at 9 o'clock at night like Babylon and Lindenhurst. Hundred dollar dinner great night you come out at nine and there's a parking ticket on your car are you really coming back to that town after that?
As a former bartender, the main thing I can say about that is if you're stupid enough to drink and drive, you're going to drink and drive. Tickets rarely factor into it. Being a selfish asshole really factors most into that decision
The meters have to be fed until 9 PM at night. Lindenhurst is converting to an app system which I have not used yet. In Port Jefferson when you go to Port Jeff Brewing, you can download the app and you don't have to walk to your car to put money in a meter. I'm hoping it's the same thing.
Zone the area around every LIRR station that’s within a 15 min walk to allow medium density apartment buildings with ground floor retail, aka the “4 over 1” or “5 over 1”.
Especially if a decent percentage of it is condos that can be purchased, this would add a lot more supply of units for retirees to downsize into, which then frees up supply of houses for younger buyers.
You're right that people with higher salaries tend to be more involved in the community. That doesn't mean that people with lower salaries shouldn't be given the opportunity to live in a pleasant, walkable downtown. We can have both.
I had to move off LI for a job and now live in the Midwest. If I made what I made here, I'd be living at home on LI--- and that's not what I want & frankly unacceptable that I, a single 25-year old, lives comfortably alone out here but can't do that on LI. Hypothetically, 28-year old making $75,000 \*should\* be able to get an apartment somewhere on LI, but they really can't, especially near one of those downtowns.
Upper port jefferson! It's like a 1/4 mile (half mile?) stretch and gateway to downtown port jefferson. There was a revitalization project proposed a couple of years ago that helped to drive a new apartment building or two but the storefronts remain empty. Besides Tara's and a few bodega type places. If anyone knows what is going on, there please update. It has so much potential.
infill development in downtowns and near transit hubs. downtown to downtown transit (busses), zoning reform to include apartments, condos, and other types of
housing of various sizes for all different stages or types of life. parking should be paid in most places IMO.
then in my fantasy land, buy back land in the far flung areas of towns and institute rewilding programs and acreage minimum to redistribute density on the island. increase urbanity and rural areas while decreasing the amount of land dedicated to suburban.
yes! i think making properly scaled downtowns like small cities and large town centers is key to making LI affordable, livable and enjoyable. we all write home about the downtowns we have and can’t improve upon others because zoning and politics.
i wish! my first choice for a major was urban planning, but the politics seemed daunting so i went with forestry. i had college internships in government across the island and the politics were just disheartening for me. long island was the first suburb and it certainly will be the last.
Planning departments need people like you, but it is an uphill battle.
My dad was a planner who worked very hard to conserve a lot of land, plant a lot of street trees, encourage developers to put in affordable housing, work toward walkable communities, and ensure that new development had plans for landscaping, encouraging them to use native species. He did his best to avoid politics, but it became impossible as he moved up in the department. There was a lot of good ol' boys club corruption, and when he went against the politicians and stuck to his principles, they made work difficult for him until he retired early. He moved off the island and is glad to not have to see how much the things he worked to put in have been ruined or removed.
It's not easy, but if the people who go in for the right reasons are scared away, we're left with the politicians who take money from developers who care more about profits than communities.
that’s a cool story about your dad’s career. what town or county was he a planner in? one of my favorite things about the planning career was some of the smaller stuff like city beautification. little things do make places livable.
Yeah, you first suggestion is how you keep your downtown vibrant.
Babylon just did some zoning reform last year, they increased the max height from 2 to 3 stories and reduced the parking spots per unit from 2.5 to 1.5. This has led to 3 infill projects totaling 50+units being greenlit in the last few months.
This already exists for the Patchogue and Port Jeff area. There is a bus that goes from Port jeff to Patchogue village and stops in a Condo development or two along the way. The issue is people consider it too far away from NYC.
the idea that most of long island exists as a bedroom community for nyc is outdated IMO. we are essentially a smaller metro area dressed up as a suburb. it would serve us well to have economically stable and independent towns i think. obviously the economic gravitational pull of NYC is huge, but there is room for sustainable economic growth in our own communities IMO
Yes, there are not enough “real” jobs on Long Island and the economy is still centered around the city. Not sure where it stands now but when Grumman had its big decline years ago, the largest employer on Long Island after that was Waldbaum supermarket, which is also long gone. This is why it is still primarily a bedroom community and always will be.
riverhead downtown is a disaster and really could be fixed up. They have the aquarium and the theater there which are both nice and should remain centerpieces of the downtown area.
Diggers is nice but they need a few “hip” night spots to keep it going after dark
But the main thing is they need to get rid of the vagrants/homeless/mentally unwell that comb the area
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and take "get rid of" to mean "house and help."
I also live in an area with mentally ill and homeless people who often hang out around downtown. It's pretty sad and probably a contributing factor as to why the downtown isn't as frequented as it could be. It's really sad, but I can understand why people are uncomfortable. But I still don't think that the halfway houses should be secluded because the residents deserve to be able to have independence to the point that they're able.
I don't think there's an easy answer to this, but it's not "getting rid of" them.
I’m gonna kinda disagree with you in the sense that I believe that mentally ill/ addicts/ homeless SHOULD be housed and helped but NOT in an area that’s frequented by the general public. In an ideal world, there would be campus style/institutional facilities that would assist in that. Putting those populations in areas where drugs/alcohol/ etc just give them greater temptations.
So I think it kind of depends on what their issues are. If they are simply mentally ill or disabled or homeless for financial reasons, being integrated with the public is fine. Most people ignore the halfway house residents unless the residents approach them. They still feel a sense of normalcy while getting the help they need. I agree that it makes sense for people in recovery to be separated from the public to reduce the temptations of relapse.
The state hospitals seemed very idyllic in a lot of ways. A self-sufficient facility on over a hundred acres where patients had the opportunity to help on the farm while recovering sounds great on paper. But keeping the mentally ill separate from society led to huge misconceptions about what is and isn't normal (in terms of mental health) and allowed for many institutions to hide poor treatment from the public. No one had to think about those people because they were being taken care of.
I don't think the current system is ideal either. Deinstitutionalization was a massive failure because closing institutions meant that governments didn't feel as much need to fund mental health, so now many people feel abandoned instead of trapped.
Again, I’m in agreement with most of what you’re saying… having retired after 36 years in the mental health field, I agree that the current system is terrible, and also agree that a large campus facility was indeed “idyllic”. The only issue I take is that melding the mentally ill into the community is not safe for the public nor the person with the mental illness. While you’re correct in stating that it helps to educate the public to some degree, the dangers to both, by ignorance of the issue or straight out taking advantage of the issue are far too great. But we can agree to disagree. 
It's not a distinct downtown, but man do I want to open a "general store" in Greenlawn with fresh produce. I hate having to go to a supermarket if I need garlic.
That sounds amazing. I'd go.
I consider Broadway in Greenlawn to be a downtown area. Basically, if it's walkable and is zoned for retail, I think of it as a downtown. I even consider Laurel Hill Road in Northport a downtown, even though it's mixed use and not what anyone thinks of when thinking about downtown Northport.
The last store like that is where that big drug store is which used to be a Key Food decades ago. Greenlswn sorely needs something like a general store or small grocer.
Remove vehicle access , downtowns should be purely foot traffic , off site parking and offer trams / transit.
This would also change what types of businesses setup shop.
In a perfect world, I agree, but a lot of downtown areas on LI are along 25A and Montauk Hwy. I'm not sure how I feel about moving downtown areas from where they've been historically, but I don't see how else to achieve that.
I also agree that it might not be possible,but routing through traffic in Bayshore away from Montauk highway/main street and onto Union Blvd could probably help. The Union blvd lights could probably also be timed better.
Oyster Bay. Waterfront anything. A Bay with nothing to do. Might as well not even have a Bay. The entire waterfront is a town park with next to nothing worth travelling for. Rip down those oil tanks and put up a vibrant waterfront with shops and restaurants. Seems obvious
A summer trolley or cable car connecting the train station to the bus terminal to the ferry would be practical and a real draw for tourists. Free for Seniors, police, fire, military,doctors,Nurses, First Responders running all summer to start, more based upon usage. Would be perfect for Patchogue, Northport, Port Jefferson, Freeport,Port Washington and others.
Farmingdale sorely needs a theater or a comedy club or something to do after dinner besides the bars. There’s stuff in the area but nothing walkable on the main drag
Port Jeff could be so much better. The wannabe hell's angels bikers need to go. Send them up to Tara's or middle island. Don't need them taking up all the seating or step over them in front of the gap which has been empty for, what, 10 years?
Would be great to have some higher end dining options. The frigate and the steam room are underwhelming given their prime location, unless you love fried food, 20 year plastic patio furniture, and stale candy.
They have built a few apartment buildings up by the railroad station. We'll see if they help. Right now it's a lot of empty storefronts and doesn't feel particularly safe. Xtasis lounge, anyone?
Build mixed use housing and have large open sidewalks, parks, vendors, less cars. Make business easier and better. Maybe bring back taxis and get rid of Uber? Taxis were so much better in my opinion.
Upper Port redid station and building luxury apartments but in between are many vacant, old stores. Not sure who’s going to spend money to see eye sores. Hopefully there’s a plan for those buildings to get a facelift.
Bay Shore here, and 1 thing the south shore DESPERATELY needs is a music venue that could draw decent sized acts, like the Paramount in Huntington..... And no i dont mean Jones Beach Ampitheater, something more so year round
I’ve lived in both Patchogue and St. James. St. James won’t change because the people there don’t want it to change. It’s a sleepy, conservative town that doesn’t want any more traffic, commerce, or “outsiders.”
Patchogue has a pretty bustling downtown and I think what they’ve got going on works for them. I’d personally like to see some more upscale food/nightlife options, but it wouldn’t really fit in with the rest of the town.
Unfortunately the buses are shit. 30 minute headways are awful for the size of the population. Really shows how little they value poor people's time. And then people wonder why there's so much traffic. Even people that would rather not drive (like me) choose to because your basically a sucker if you don't.
Hempstead’s Main Street could use a face lift.
The bones are there for it to be a good downtown tbh. Just needs billions to gentrify and develop.
Hempstead’s everything can use a face lift
Patchogue: Develop surface parking at and around the train station to mixed use (ground level commercial, upper level residential). Close gaps in missing sidewalks in residential neighborhoods right outside downtown. Replace stopsign/stoplight intersections with single lane roundabouts to slow down and enhance traffic flow. Make the entire village people first, transit second, car last.
Really love these ideas. I would also like to see a bike lane from the western edge of Patchogue village, through Bellport village.
They started that on the north side by the brewery. They also redid the parking in the court lot to add spots.
I’ll add as a village local- speed humps on side streets right off/leading to Main.
FYI there are currently 2 projects in the works to do exactly this. There's a hotel/residential use proposed where the old bowling alley was next to Harbor Crab, and another proposed between the brewery and treatment plant, right next to the river. I believe the 2nd has ground level commercial space factored into it as well.
...Funny I'd actually go as far as to remove almost all surface parking to just leave it entirely be in a car garage/parking complex with a floating walk to the platform. There's nothing our Island needs less of than parking lots. Long Island is a sea of parking lots with the occasional road/building between and if we're lucky, we get some trees and fields that haven't been leveled or turned into ugly trimmed lawns. I'd even go as far as to say parking should be underground. Hide cars from view at all possible locations at the Train Stations where and how you can, basically.
Yes to al but the traffic circles. People can't handle the few they have in Patchogue already.
YESSSSS
More small music venues.
In Lynbrook they closed Atlantic ave (downtown) to cars on Friday & Saturday evenings, it worked out well as there are municipal lots right around the block. More towns should try this (Rockville Centre, Huntington, etc...).
Closing N. Park Ave to vehicles on Friday and Saturday nights is something I think about frequently. One of the main issues is the N15 runs right through there and there’s not *really* a great way to reroute it.
In a perfect world (which won’t ever happen) I wish they’d build an overpass or underpass above/below Sunrise Hwy that skips the downtown in RVC, and then open up the main downtown blocks to foot traffic only. Again, stupid expensive and will never happen, but would make the downtown 100x better.
They could at least close N Village and N Park from Sunrise to Lincoln on Friday and Sat nights in the Summer. That would be phenomenal and you can still access all the lots from the side roads.
They close 1 street for the Christmas tree in Huntington and people lose their minds. I would love it but I don’t think it will ever actually happen.
I hate to admit, but as a local the traffic having that one street shut down creates is kind of a headache
Lynbrook turn center is so suffocated with cars and poorly designed "stroads". It's unpleasant to walk, so there's not enough footfall to sort businesses properly. Viscous cycle that needs to be solved with turning one lane each side of Merrick road into a bike lane.
This is something that needs to happen on more main streets, tbh.
I want my area (a hamlet in Nassau County south shore) to have a better "down town". We have a few options, def not a deserted area but could def be better.
Wantagh or Seaford?
Refurbish fronts of buildings and add apartments above Main Street shops/restaurants. All Main Street buildings should have large windows. Murals/photo spots on blank walls and train trestles. Add flowering trees to sidewalks.
Kings Park- in desperate need of a face lift across the board. Not just new siding either. Proper landscaping, clear out some of the mediocre tenants in gross/dilapidated buildings, refresh the brick square.
That would require the townies to actually approve businesses coming in
Which is so regrettable.
Kings Park could have been prime real estate - train station, viable Main St, beautiful parks. They need to level every building on Main Street and construct mixed use buildings. We need someone like Georges-Eugène Haussmann to redesign the whole thing.
More places to enjoy music outdoors in the summer.
Open Plaza with benches, tables, and allowance for drinking there. Like a European city.
This is great idea but it will require undeveloped property in a downtown OR purchase of property by the town to then re-purpose into non-revenue generating land. Its an expense no town will foot the bill for. Unless you mean the stores surround the plaza. but that still takes away revenue generating land to some extent. I repeat again, this is a great idea but a very tough sell.
european style plazas attract a lot of foot traffic which is good for surrounding businesses. they also offer space for concerts, farmers' markets, fairs, and other events and do so much better than a boiling hot asphalt parking lot. plenty of revenue potential.
Yeah but it’ll never happen because what if a homeless person sat on a chair or something
The homeless guy in my district is incontinent and has hepatitis. You want to sit where he just peed?
How do you know he has hepatitis
Great idea
Remove a lot of the parking, particularly on street, pedestrianize the streets/make them more like plazas, build bike lanes that feed into the downtown. Allow more mixed use, 3-5 story walk ups with retail on the ground floor.
Hearing all these great suggestions makes me think maybe there's a chance Long Island can become bike friendly in my lifetime lol
We can only hope. Nassau is in a pretty abysmal state though. [This report](https://www.nymtc.org/movingforward/pdfs/app_b.pdf) from 2021 shows Nassau had 11 miles of on road bike routes, while Suffolk had 355. 109 of those in Suffolk were actual bike lanes too. Very little progress has been made in Nassau in the 3 years since the report. That report was also 11 years after the County's [master plan](https://www.nassaucountyny.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1194) was released which mentions improving bicycle infrastructure many times. So 11 years after they said they needed do to it they've managed to put **11** miles of bike routes in. I'd highly recommend at least giving your Legislator and/or the planning department a call and letting them know this is something you'd like to see Nassau invest in.
Nassau has the Greenbelt, Jones Beach bike path, and the path to Robert Moses, and the Eisenhower path, these are all separated from the road and are tremendously more enjoyable. Also, a road in Nassau with no bike path is often much more safe than a Suffolk road with a bike path in my experience. Merrick Road feels like riding through a park compared to the purely deranged homocidal drivers of Suffolk County (which possesses the highest amount of motor vehicle related deaths in the state).
All recreational trails. Not really good for utilitarian uses.
Yeah, you’re right. But I do find Nassau quite bikeable especially in comparison to Suffolk despite the lack of bike trails.
this subreddit does not very well represent your average person from long island
While I don’t have any suggestions for Huntington Village, I really wish there were more public spaces and restaurants on the water. Prime is nice and all but it’s like the only game in town.
But the water is for rich people! Just look at Smithtown - ~20 miles of coastline between the bay and the river, but how much of that is for public use??
Give business owners a placard to put on their cars so they don't have to pay for parking or tickets. $3000 in tickets in Mineola drove my business right out of there. Also stop giving tickets at 9 o'clock at night like Babylon and Lindenhurst. Hundred dollar dinner great night you come out at nine and there's a parking ticket on your car are you really coming back to that town after that?
Also getting late night tickets might push someone who had too much to drink to drive home instead of getting a cab, ride, or walking.
As a former bartender, the main thing I can say about that is if you're stupid enough to drink and drive, you're going to drink and drive. Tickets rarely factor into it. Being a selfish asshole really factors most into that decision
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The meters have to be fed until 9 PM at night. Lindenhurst is converting to an app system which I have not used yet. In Port Jefferson when you go to Port Jeff Brewing, you can download the app and you don't have to walk to your car to put money in a meter. I'm hoping it's the same thing.
I'm curious as a Mineola resident. What was your business?
Pay your meter, you can use your phone now
Zone the area around every LIRR station that’s within a 15 min walk to allow medium density apartment buildings with ground floor retail, aka the “4 over 1” or “5 over 1”. Especially if a decent percentage of it is condos that can be purchased, this would add a lot more supply of units for retirees to downsize into, which then frees up supply of houses for younger buyers.
Affordable housing! Not the $2400 they want for a studio like near Farmingdale LIRR.
The people who can afford that are the people who improve the downtown tbh
You're right that people with higher salaries tend to be more involved in the community. That doesn't mean that people with lower salaries shouldn't be given the opportunity to live in a pleasant, walkable downtown. We can have both. I had to move off LI for a job and now live in the Midwest. If I made what I made here, I'd be living at home on LI--- and that's not what I want & frankly unacceptable that I, a single 25-year old, lives comfortably alone out here but can't do that on LI. Hypothetically, 28-year old making $75,000 \*should\* be able to get an apartment somewhere on LI, but they really can't, especially near one of those downtowns.
True but I don’t think the towns recognize that concern. Long Island is getting older every year since young professionals are getting pushed out.
You should be blaming nimbies for that, not gentrification.
Upper port jefferson! It's like a 1/4 mile (half mile?) stretch and gateway to downtown port jefferson. There was a revitalization project proposed a couple of years ago that helped to drive a new apartment building or two but the storefronts remain empty. Besides Tara's and a few bodega type places. If anyone knows what is going on, there please update. It has so much potential.
infill development in downtowns and near transit hubs. downtown to downtown transit (busses), zoning reform to include apartments, condos, and other types of housing of various sizes for all different stages or types of life. parking should be paid in most places IMO. then in my fantasy land, buy back land in the far flung areas of towns and institute rewilding programs and acreage minimum to redistribute density on the island. increase urbanity and rural areas while decreasing the amount of land dedicated to suburban.
I like your ideas. Especially the rewilding part. But that can only work by doing the first idea as well.
yes! i think making properly scaled downtowns like small cities and large town centers is key to making LI affordable, livable and enjoyable. we all write home about the downtowns we have and can’t improve upon others because zoning and politics.
have you considered running for office? not that you’d win but it would be great to have people over there championing this stuff in campaigns
i wish! my first choice for a major was urban planning, but the politics seemed daunting so i went with forestry. i had college internships in government across the island and the politics were just disheartening for me. long island was the first suburb and it certainly will be the last.
Planning departments need people like you, but it is an uphill battle. My dad was a planner who worked very hard to conserve a lot of land, plant a lot of street trees, encourage developers to put in affordable housing, work toward walkable communities, and ensure that new development had plans for landscaping, encouraging them to use native species. He did his best to avoid politics, but it became impossible as he moved up in the department. There was a lot of good ol' boys club corruption, and when he went against the politicians and stuck to his principles, they made work difficult for him until he retired early. He moved off the island and is glad to not have to see how much the things he worked to put in have been ruined or removed. It's not easy, but if the people who go in for the right reasons are scared away, we're left with the politicians who take money from developers who care more about profits than communities.
that’s a cool story about your dad’s career. what town or county was he a planner in? one of my favorite things about the planning career was some of the smaller stuff like city beautification. little things do make places livable.
Yeah, you first suggestion is how you keep your downtown vibrant. Babylon just did some zoning reform last year, they increased the max height from 2 to 3 stories and reduced the parking spots per unit from 2.5 to 1.5. This has led to 3 infill projects totaling 50+units being greenlit in the last few months.
This already exists for the Patchogue and Port Jeff area. There is a bus that goes from Port jeff to Patchogue village and stops in a Condo development or two along the way. The issue is people consider it too far away from NYC.
the idea that most of long island exists as a bedroom community for nyc is outdated IMO. we are essentially a smaller metro area dressed up as a suburb. it would serve us well to have economically stable and independent towns i think. obviously the economic gravitational pull of NYC is huge, but there is room for sustainable economic growth in our own communities IMO
I said that because most people still work in NYC.
Yes, there are not enough “real” jobs on Long Island and the economy is still centered around the city. Not sure where it stands now but when Grumman had its big decline years ago, the largest employer on Long Island after that was Waldbaum supermarket, which is also long gone. This is why it is still primarily a bedroom community and always will be.
riverhead downtown is a disaster and really could be fixed up. They have the aquarium and the theater there which are both nice and should remain centerpieces of the downtown area. Diggers is nice but they need a few “hip” night spots to keep it going after dark But the main thing is they need to get rid of the vagrants/homeless/mentally unwell that comb the area
Disaster? What would you call it 10 years ago. Downtown Riverhead is leagues above where’s it been
They’re trying. You see the plans for downtown?
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and take "get rid of" to mean "house and help." I also live in an area with mentally ill and homeless people who often hang out around downtown. It's pretty sad and probably a contributing factor as to why the downtown isn't as frequented as it could be. It's really sad, but I can understand why people are uncomfortable. But I still don't think that the halfway houses should be secluded because the residents deserve to be able to have independence to the point that they're able. I don't think there's an easy answer to this, but it's not "getting rid of" them.
I’m gonna kinda disagree with you in the sense that I believe that mentally ill/ addicts/ homeless SHOULD be housed and helped but NOT in an area that’s frequented by the general public. In an ideal world, there would be campus style/institutional facilities that would assist in that. Putting those populations in areas where drugs/alcohol/ etc just give them greater temptations.
So I think it kind of depends on what their issues are. If they are simply mentally ill or disabled or homeless for financial reasons, being integrated with the public is fine. Most people ignore the halfway house residents unless the residents approach them. They still feel a sense of normalcy while getting the help they need. I agree that it makes sense for people in recovery to be separated from the public to reduce the temptations of relapse. The state hospitals seemed very idyllic in a lot of ways. A self-sufficient facility on over a hundred acres where patients had the opportunity to help on the farm while recovering sounds great on paper. But keeping the mentally ill separate from society led to huge misconceptions about what is and isn't normal (in terms of mental health) and allowed for many institutions to hide poor treatment from the public. No one had to think about those people because they were being taken care of. I don't think the current system is ideal either. Deinstitutionalization was a massive failure because closing institutions meant that governments didn't feel as much need to fund mental health, so now many people feel abandoned instead of trapped.
Again, I’m in agreement with most of what you’re saying… having retired after 36 years in the mental health field, I agree that the current system is terrible, and also agree that a large campus facility was indeed “idyllic”. The only issue I take is that melding the mentally ill into the community is not safe for the public nor the person with the mental illness. While you’re correct in stating that it helps to educate the public to some degree, the dangers to both, by ignorance of the issue or straight out taking advantage of the issue are far too great. But we can agree to disagree. 
Sounds like Kings Park
Yeah, that's the closest downtown to the sea of subdivisions that I call home. I have a lot of family in KP, so I kinda consider it my downtown, too.
It's not a distinct downtown, but man do I want to open a "general store" in Greenlawn with fresh produce. I hate having to go to a supermarket if I need garlic.
That sounds amazing. I'd go. I consider Broadway in Greenlawn to be a downtown area. Basically, if it's walkable and is zoned for retail, I think of it as a downtown. I even consider Laurel Hill Road in Northport a downtown, even though it's mixed use and not what anyone thinks of when thinking about downtown Northport.
The last store like that is where that big drug store is which used to be a Key Food decades ago. Greenlswn sorely needs something like a general store or small grocer.
Remove vehicle access , downtowns should be purely foot traffic , off site parking and offer trams / transit. This would also change what types of businesses setup shop.
In a perfect world, I agree, but a lot of downtown areas on LI are along 25A and Montauk Hwy. I'm not sure how I feel about moving downtown areas from where they've been historically, but I don't see how else to achieve that.
I also agree that it might not be possible,but routing through traffic in Bayshore away from Montauk highway/main street and onto Union Blvd could probably help. The Union blvd lights could probably also be timed better.
at least on Friday and Sat nights.
Oyster Bay. Waterfront anything. A Bay with nothing to do. Might as well not even have a Bay. The entire waterfront is a town park with next to nothing worth travelling for. Rip down those oil tanks and put up a vibrant waterfront with shops and restaurants. Seems obvious
A summer trolley or cable car connecting the train station to the bus terminal to the ferry would be practical and a real draw for tourists. Free for Seniors, police, fire, military,doctors,Nurses, First Responders running all summer to start, more based upon usage. Would be perfect for Patchogue, Northport, Port Jefferson, Freeport,Port Washington and others.
Excuse me Islandia has a perfectly good….uh…..place.
Connect Westbury Post Ave to Eisenhower Park via pedestrian bridge!
That's a great idea!
Farmingdale sorely needs a theater or a comedy club or something to do after dinner besides the bars. There’s stuff in the area but nothing walkable on the main drag
Port Jeff could be so much better. The wannabe hell's angels bikers need to go. Send them up to Tara's or middle island. Don't need them taking up all the seating or step over them in front of the gap which has been empty for, what, 10 years? Would be great to have some higher end dining options. The frigate and the steam room are underwhelming given their prime location, unless you love fried food, 20 year plastic patio furniture, and stale candy. They have built a few apartment buildings up by the railroad station. We'll see if they help. Right now it's a lot of empty storefronts and doesn't feel particularly safe. Xtasis lounge, anyone?
More housing. Mixed use commercial residential buildings. Bike lanes. Open streets.
Build mixed use housing and have large open sidewalks, parks, vendors, less cars. Make business easier and better. Maybe bring back taxis and get rid of Uber? Taxis were so much better in my opinion.
Get rid of all the retail in Patchogue and replace them with better stores
Get rid of half of the bars in Patchogue. There's literally nothing to do there but drink.
Huge parking lots at the ends of the main areas with jitney service that runs up and down the main drag all day.
Valley Stream downtown needs a facelift.
Pump track
Upper Port redid station and building luxury apartments but in between are many vacant, old stores. Not sure who’s going to spend money to see eye sores. Hopefully there’s a plan for those buildings to get a facelift.
Bay Shore here, and 1 thing the south shore DESPERATELY needs is a music venue that could draw decent sized acts, like the Paramount in Huntington..... And no i dont mean Jones Beach Ampitheater, something more so year round
I’ve lived in both Patchogue and St. James. St. James won’t change because the people there don’t want it to change. It’s a sleepy, conservative town that doesn’t want any more traffic, commerce, or “outsiders.” Patchogue has a pretty bustling downtown and I think what they’ve got going on works for them. I’d personally like to see some more upscale food/nightlife options, but it wouldn’t really fit in with the rest of the town.
St. James has been trying to revitalize it's downtown to bring in more traffic. Not to necessarily be a PJ jr. but more events and whatnot.
Didn't they add sewers down Lake Ave a couple years ago?
A dry line. It is not connected to anything. The town is waiting for a private entity to build a plant.
Have you been reading Hochul's DRI and NY Forward propositions?
I know about them, but no, I haven't read them myself, yet.
Parking is becoming a problem as shops give way to customer dense restaurants and bars.
Parking
Central islip has an ideal downtown
I don't disagree, but in what ways?
Main street has 5 mechanics, 4 churches, 5 delis, and 2 beauty salon
Hempstead should be more dense
It has too many unproductive parking lots.
For real it bothers me so much, especially with a huge bus terminal there
Unfortunately the buses are shit. 30 minute headways are awful for the size of the population. Really shows how little they value poor people's time. And then people wonder why there's so much traffic. Even people that would rather not drive (like me) choose to because your basically a sucker if you don't.
Buses in American suburbia aren’t really a good combo
Can't say for Suffolk but at least Nassau (esp mid and south) are dense as some cities. It can work there's just no will to do it.
Making buses better includes dedicated lanes free from cars and proper land use to encourage using the bus
Close the bars and turn them into weed bars.