Starting September 14, a channelizing island at the corner of Lee Avenue and Hill Street blocked left turns around the clock. At Captains Neck Lane and Halsey Neck Lane, the barrier was cones and barrels, put out at 3 p.m. and removed at 7 p.m. The Village Board resolution set those afternoon restrictions for weekdays, excluding village-recognized holidays, and gave the Chief of Police authority to end the pilot early for safety reasons.
The pilot was scheduled to end October 30. The village's traffic consultant plans to bring its assessment and recommendations to the Board in December. Whatever that report says, the six weeks south of Hill Street did not run as a clean experiment. Partway through, Suffolk County changed the road that decides how much traffic tries to get through the village in the first place. Any decision on Lee Avenue, Captains Neck and Halsey Neck will rest partly on what happened on County Road 39.
The North Side Already Had Its Rules
The pilot copied a system that already exists across the street. Under the Southampton Village code, right turns onto Hill Street are prohibited from 3 to 7 p.m. at three streets on the north side. Those restrictions were added on March 21, 2023, by Local Law No. 3-2023. This fall put a mirror image on the south side.
| Street | Side of Hill Street | Restriction | When | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bishops Lane | North | No right turn onto Hill Street | 3 to 7 p.m. | Village code since March 2023 |
| Corrigan Street | North | No right turn onto Hill Street | 3 to 7 p.m. | Village code since March 2023 |
| Somerset Avenue | North | No right turn onto Hill Street | 3 to 7 p.m. | Village code since March 2023 |
| Lee Avenue | South | No left turn onto Hill Street | 24 hours, physical island | Pilot, Sept. 14 to Oct. 30, 2026 |
| Captains Neck Lane | South | No left turn onto Hill Street | Weekdays 3 to 7 p.m., cones and barrels | Pilot, Sept. 14 to Oct. 30, 2026 |
| Halsey Neck Lane | South | No left turn onto Hill Street | Weekdays 3 to 7 p.m., cones and barrels | Pilot, Sept. 14 to Oct. 30, 2026 |
The Village's Fall 2025 newsletter laid out the order of events. No-right-turn laws went in at Somerset, Bishops and Corrigan to stop cut-through traffic, and residents on Lee and Captains Neck then asked for left-turn bans on their own streets. The Southampton Press reported that residents of Lee Avenue and other streets south of Hill Street spent several meetings this summer describing slow evening rush-hour traffic through their streets and asking the Board to act.
The Board approved the pilot 4 to 1 on August 25. Ryan Winter, a project manager at VHB Engineers, presented the plan with his colleague Patrick Lenihan. Over the summer the two had also floated other options, including making the first 75 feet of Lee Avenue south of Hill Street one-way, or dead-ending one end of the road. Winter's first draft used cones on all three streets. Trustee Willa Bernstein suggested a physical island at Lee Avenue so the Board could compare it with the cone-controlled streets, and the Board agreed. Several Board members also wanted a longer trial than the three weeks Winter first proposed, and Police Chief Suzanne Hurteau had backed a longer run at an earlier meeting.
Trustee Rob Coburn cast the only no vote. He cited the unknown cost and said he was still waiting for data on how much traffic moves in and out of the village. His point about data turns out to be the central issue for December.
Winter also described what a permanent version could look like. He said the goal would be to need nothing physical at these intersections, so emergency vehicles could get through and the streets would take less wear. That is how the north side works now: there are no barriers there, and compliance has improved over time. So the Lee Avenue island was a test fixture. If the restrictions become permanent, the stated aim is signs and habit.
What Six Weeks Showed at the Curb
The Southampton Press reported on Winter's midpoint update. He said compliance was fairly high even in September, when traffic was heavier. He also said that Hill Street from Halsey Neck Lane westward moved better than before the pilot, even in the early weeks.
The traffic moved to other streets. Winter described drivers who turned right onto Hill Street, turned onto Moses Lane on the north side, made a U-turn, and then made a legal right back onto Hill Street to head west. Other drivers continued up Moses Lane toward Magee Street, a familiar shortcut around parts of Hill Street and CR39. In the first couple of weeks, First Neck Lane took on more congestion as drivers used it to leave the area south of Hill Street. Backups from turns onto Moses and Bishops reached First Neck Lane and, on several occasions, Windmill Lane.
He summed it up this way:
"Obviously the traffic's not going away, but it seems like it's been a success in relocating how the traffic moves through Hill Street and allowing it to flow a little bit better."
Mayor Bill Manger said the village had received several emails from residents south of Hill Street approving of the program and saying conditions on their streets had improved.
"Relocating" is the key word. The pilot changed which streets the cars used. How many cars arrive in the first place depends on a road the village does not control.
The County Road Changed Partway Through
While the pilot was running, the Suffolk County Department of Public Works restriped westbound County Road 39 between North Sea Road and Sandy Hollow Road. Coburn raised this at the Board meeting where Winter gave his midpoint update. The county removed striping and reopened that stretch to two westbound lanes. Winter told the Board the change had helped village traffic "to a large extent":
"The pinch point with that change seemed to be the southern access points, so it's kind of relieved some of that pressure and I think also relieved some of the folks that were coming from Water Mill and points east heading west and, instead of going down Powell [Avenue] and Prospect [Street], staying on 39 because the traffic was slightly better."
In other words, the village's traffic consultant said a county lane change kept some westbound drivers out of the village. That happened in the same weeks the village was measuring its own turn restrictions. Winter also said CR39 had been somewhat lighter in the week or two before his update, and that Hill Street had improved in step with lower overall volume.
This stretch of CR39 has changed several times. An earlier article in The Southampton Press covered an earlier two-week spring experiment that took the red-green cycle off all three traffic lights west of North Sea Road. Southampton Town Highway Superintendent Charlie McArdle told the Town Board that the drive from North Sea Road to the end of Sunrise Highway took "seven to eight minutes, which is a miracle," and added that the experiment had been staffing-intensive. County engineers were less convinced. County DPW Commissioner Charles Bartha wrote that there was "no consensus on the success of the pilot program." He also said the county would add pavement-marking lane restrictions consistent with McArdle's plan, which would reduce westbound CR39 to one lane between North Sea Road and Sandy Hollow Road. The same article reported that county engineers expected their multi-year corridor study to point to a new bypass highway as the only real fix, while doubting it would ever have the political or community support it needs.
The village has been clear about how the two roads connect. Its Fall 2025 newsletter said "CR39 is key." When commuters believe the county road will get them home faster, they don't cut through the village. When CR39 slows to a crawl, they look for shortcuts, and when Hill Street backs up, they look for routes through residential neighborhoods. The turn restrictions on both sides of Hill Street deal with the last step of that chain. CR39 controls the first step.
How the December Numbers Get Built
VHB's report will compare traffic counts taken at three different times, each under different conditions:
- August 2026 baseline. Collected before the pilot, during what Winter called much heavier traffic.
- The pilot itself, September 14 to October 30. Includes the weeks after the CR39 restriping and the period when Winter observed overall volume dropping off.
- A comparison week in November. One more set of counts for reference.
To connect fall counts to summer conditions, Winter said VHB can use models that estimate what October volumes would have been in August. He acknowledged that the models are not perfect. When the Board decides whether the south-side restrictions should become permanent, it will be relying on a modeled summer, not one it observed with the restrictions in place.
Coburn's own figure shows the scale of the problem. In the Fall 2025 newsletter, he estimated that village roads carry an average of 32,000 more vehicles a day than 30 years ago, and that about 15 percent of the increase comes from population growth. Turn restrictions on three side streets cannot absorb volume like that. They can only decide which streets carry it.
The Village Board of Trustees meets November 12 and November 24, both at 6 p.m. VHB's recommendations on Lee Avenue, Captains Neck Lane and Halsey Neck Lane are expected in December. Next summer's traffic on all three streets will also depend on how westbound CR39 is striped between North Sea Road and Sandy Hollow Road.
For owners and buyers south of Hill Street, decisions like these affect how a street works day to day, and that can matter as much as anything on a listing sheet. If you want to talk through how village and county road decisions bear on a specific property, Heskell Advisors can help. Schedule a confidential market consultation.
