Levittown once again won out in a battle with a larger entity this past week when it was announced that the DOT has scaled back their plans for Hempstead Turnpike at the Wantagh Avenue intersection.

This is the second time in a year that a grassroots effort to stop a project in Levittown has been successful. It was this past February that Nassau Mall announced, following a public outcry, that the lease they had with Home Depot had been terminated.

Now, only six months after the Home Depot resolution, the New York State Department of Transportation, following yet another public outcry, announced that they will not be expanding Hempstead Turnpike to nine lanes and would be eliminating the right-turn lane that would involve taking property from Levittown businesses.

If nothing else, these two victories in such a short period of time, show just how much good a community effort can do. It was the Island Trees Board of Education and PTA that led the fight against the Home Depot in Nassau Mall and the battle against a nine-lane highway was led by one woman, who feared for pedestrian safety and her own business.

Very few people knew about the plans that the DOT had to expand Hempstead Turnpike until Hanna Harel, vice president of the Meineke Station that would lose a good portion of its property if the plans went through, started a one-woman campaign that turned into a community effort.

The fight against the nine-lane intersection began as a one-woman fight, but ended with many concerned citizens getting involved. Whether it was the PTAs, local businesses, or residents who lived near the intersection, people got involved, wrote letters, and made people aware that Levittown did not want a nine lane intersection on Hempstead Turnpike any more than they wanted a Home Depot in Nassau Mall.

Who said one person couldn't make a difference? One person has the ability to rally others and to prove that the squeaky wheel really does get the grease. There is no question that the DOT had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they suggested an expansion of Hempstead Turnpike. They now know that when people in this community feel threatened by development plans they do not sit by idly but get involved and do what they can to stop the project.

Never underestimate the power of the public.

-Susie Trenkle