Daily News from New York, New York • 491

9 I gs State eyes ways to ease bottlenecks By GUS DALLAS lllilillH 1fj DENNIS CARUSO DAILY NEWS George Zaimes, state Transportation Department director for New York City engineering and operations, discusses drawings showing alternate projects to alleviate congestion on the Long Island Expressway. KJOPOLOGY is a study of geomet- I ric shapes with peculiar prop-Li erties, such as the Mobius strip, a loop whose surface has only one or the tesseract, a four-dimensional cube. The Long Island Expressway, which may seem more properly a study for topography, also is a geometric shape with peculiar properties it can hold 10 more vehicles than it can hold. That is, it often operates at 110 capacity. The frequent traffic jams account for the mathematical phenomenon.

"A road's capacity is calculated by the size of the gaps between vehicles, which are presumed to be traveling at reasonable speeds and reasonable distances," explained George Zaimes, director of New York City engineering and operations for the New York State Department of Transportation. "SOMETHING LIKE 25 to 35 mph might be a gauge for road capacity. On the Long Island in Queens, the average speed can be 8 mph. There are no gaps. If by a miracle a gap big enough for a car appears, in half a second it will be plugged by a car of the exact size." Zaimes has high hopes of widening the gaps and increasing the speeds in the acute bottleneck stretch between Grand Central Parkway and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

A $110 million reconstruction of the north and south sides between those two points almost has reached the final design. Part of the plan calls for linking the unconnected parts of the service road north of the expressway with two-lane roadways and overpasses at existing local street intersections. Motorists will be able to drive straight from the Grand Central Parkway entrances to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway without having to enter the main roadway. The new link, it is hoped, would alleviate a lot of the congestion on the main roadway. PART OF THE design calls for adding two lines of a separated service road south of the main roadway for eastbound traffic.

Both of these new roadways also will allow local traffic to travel without having to get on and off the main roadway. The construction also will provide, shoulders for disabled cars, a major block to traffic when they result in thet closing of one or two lanes. The scpa- solution to the City Council, which was adopted, recommending that the mayor reject the construction project. Even though it is a state project, Mayor Koch has the final word on such projects in the city. The resolution was) sent to the mayor but there has been no response, Katzman said.

Zaimes said that the problem is that those communities already are suffering from motorists fleeing traffic jams into their local streets. "Traffic congestions can solve themselves because traffic is like water, seeking to Zaimes sug-. gested. "Drivers are spilling into local streets right now to get out of a THEY GET LOST, local roads are blocked by the Long Island Rail Road at 74th and there are only a few underpasses to the opposite side of the. expressway itself." Zaimes also said that engineers are taking an unfair blame for the fact that as fast as they improve the Long Island Expressway, the traffic jams pace.

The expressway was conceived as part of a network of expressways through Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, he said. The Long Island Expressway was built but the others died on the drawing boards mostly because of what he called political pressures, leaving the Long Island Expressway to carry an intolerable burden. The complete design called for construction of a Clearview Expressway from the Throgs Neck Bridge to connect with the Nassau Expressway east of Kennedy Airport. THE CLEARVIEW was stopped at Hillside Ave. 15 years ago by the protests of the communities south of the avenue, Zaimes said.

Of course, the Nassau Expressway never was built either except for a small strip between Cross Bay Blvd. and the Van Wyck Expressway. Those two phantom expressways were to run west and connect with the Bushwick Expressway, which would run straight to the Williamsburgh Bridge onto the elevated Lower Manhattan Expressway and directly into the Holland Tunnel. The Williamsburgh Bridge and the Holland Tunnel are there, of but the Bushwick and Lower Manhattan Expressways are The Nassau Expressway is not -dead, though, Zaimes announced proudly. Planning is going forward and funding is being sought confidently.

Zaimes. said construction of the proposed Nassau Expressway would start with an expressway entrance into Kennedy Airport along 150th St. linked to the Southern State Parkway and the North and South Conduits. The Port Authority already has agreed to build exit and entry ramps on airport property, he said. APPLICATION has been made to the federal government seeking an interstate designation for that airport entry, he said, and Zaimes expressed confidence that it would be accepted and that interstate highway construction funds would be released for it.

At this point, the complete Nassau Expressway is proposed as a four to six-lane divided highway linking the Southern State Parkway at Cross Bay in Queens to the Atlantic Beach Bridge in Nassau County. The proposed route would follow Rockaway Turnpike through the villages of Woodmere, Cedarhurst and Inwood and then parallel Doughty Blvd. through the village of Lawrence to the Atlantic Beach Bridge. Zaimes, however, has bad news for Van Wyck Expressway There is no room for widening it without destroying an excessive, amount of property. rated service roads will give drivers a chance to bypass accidents, stalled cars and repair vehicles that close off lanes.

There are proposals to rearrange entry and exit ramps for a smoother flow. Some proposals not yet in the final design include: Building a metering entrance ramp to the eastbound lanes just east of Maurice Ave. to alleviate traffic congestion along the eastbound service road by allowing direct entry to the expressway at that point Realigning the westbound service road at Grand Ave. and 69th St. to reduce traffic conflicts at the existing five-way intersection.

Widening and improving the complicated intersections of 108th St. and service roads. Building an elevated left-turn ramp from Woodhaven Blvd. northbound onto Queens Blvd. westbound.

Most of the money for the project is on hand from federal funds obtained after a proposed plan to widen the, main roadway was scrapped several years ago when engineers decided too many homeowners would be displaced. There was $270 million in federal money available for the job because the expressway was an interstate highway. The state relinquished the ex-, pressway's interstate designation, and the $270 million was turned over to the state for transportation improvements in Queens. It was split three ways $90 million each for mass transit, highways and the Long Island Expressway. COMMUNITY BOARDS 4, 5 and 6, the districts that would be affected, have approved the latest plan, but a group of homeowners in Elmhurst, Middle Village and Maspeth has banded to oppose the plan.

They believe that continuous service roads will pour a lot of traffic into local streets. City Councilman Arthur Katzman, representing the area, submitted a re Mammoth mural in path of wrecker's ball page 3.