Long Island Expressway construction has included the building of large concrete walls separating the highway from residential areas that line various service roads along the LIE. Members of the Roslyn Heights Civic Association are lobbying to get a "promised" sound barrier wall built along the Roslyn Road and Mineola Avenue areas of their village. The wall is being opposed by local businesses that claim that such a wall would not achieve the desired sound reductions.

Civic association members want walls constructed in two places: between Roslyn Road and the LIE trestle over the expressway and between the LIE trestle and Mineola Avenue. According to Roslyn Heights Civic Association President Delphine McLean, the wall is needed to reduce noise levels in Roslyn Heights.

Any plans by the New York State Department of Transportation to build the wall were denied by a July 27 stop work order, one issued by Nassau County Judge Thomas A. Adams. The DOT had earlier concluded that the area between the trestles and Mineola Avenue did not meet the noise abatement threshold required for a sound barrier.

The civic association is responding by drafting a letter to the regional director of the DOT, to be signed by as many Roslyn Heights residents as possible, asking that the department construct the walls and protect Roslyn Heights from "expressway noise." So far, 250 residents have signed the letter. In addition, Town of North Hempstead Councilwoman Doreen Banks and Linda Brickman of the TONH Planning Department have lent their support to the civic association's position. The two recently met with DOT officials in Hauppauge, where the department agreed to reconsider its earlier decision not to build the walls.

According to Ms. McLean, not having such a wall "will be intolerable." Once highway expansion is completed, Roslyn Heights residents will hear noise from not only eight lanes from the LIE, but also from six lanes of traffic from the Northern State Parkway. Additional sound decibels accompanied by no sound barrier, would, she added, be detrimental to "our health, our quality of life and the value of our homes."

Ms. McLean has cited a quote from Eileen Peters, a DOT official, which claims that the DOT model "has been used successfully across Long Island.... the noise level is very different once the red brick wall is up." Ms. McLean said that the civic association plans to hold a public hearing at which DOT officials will address residents' concerns about the wall. The date, she said, will be announced shortly.

Charles Schwartz, also a member of the civic association, is a resident of Jane Street, which sits three blocks from the LIE. He said his neighbors are concerned for two reasons. The DOT, he said, did a study which said that two additional lanes will, naturally enough, lead to increased volume on the LIE. Secondly, the lack of a wall in Roslyn Heights represents the only such break in the LIE wall for "many, many miles." Consequently, "under certain conditions" there could be greater emissions of carbon monoxide into Roslyn Heights than what might normally take place.

Mr. Schwartz also said such emissions could effect the air quality of the entire Roslyn area. He admitted that having a wall might not prevent such emissions, but the lack of one could make the carbon monoxide problem worse than what other North Shore neighborhoods experience.

Mr. Schwartz said civic association members would like the three businesses in question to conduct an environmental impact study verifying that excessive carbon monoxide emissions would not take place if a wall is never constructed. He also said civic association members would talk to the businesses to even discuss such matters as compensation for moving their establishments off Powerhouse Road. Mr. Schwartz believes the DOT, at least in the recent past, has been on the residents' side. A DOT study, he said, concluded that Roslyn Heights residents do need such a wall.

The three businesses that filed the legal action are Knoll Printing and Packing, North Shore Risk Management, and Curran Cooney Penny Agency. Mike Sahn is a lawyer representing the businesses. He said there are other reasons than just visibility problems that might affect local businesses for opposing such a structure.

Mr. Sahn said the DOT has never shown his clients a final draft of the wall, still local businesses were bound to feel "walled-in" by the structure. The businesses, he added, would be located at the foot of a "massive" wall, one that would adversely affect their properties. Such negative impacts would include environmental ones, Mr. Sahn said. The wall would "cut off all light and air" from the businesses. In addition, such a wall would be an "eyesore," complete with graffiti drawings. DOT officials have told the businesses that they have a program where every six months a contractor cleans up graffiti. "In the meantime," Mr. Sahn noted, "the walls are full of graffiti."

The purpose of a wall is to reduce sound barriers. Federal guidelines state that such walls must achieve certain sound and decibel results. If a wall in question does not meet those levels, then, according to federal guidelines, it shouldn't be built at all. Mr. Sahn said his clients have hired an expert to do readings to determine the sound effectiveness of such a wall. Those readings, he claimed, showed that sound reductions would in fact not be achieved. "All that would be accomplished by a wall would be more tax dollars spent, but no reduction in sound," Mr. Sahn said.

Mr. Sahn said his clients are sensitive to the needs of their residential neighbors. He added that the businesses along Powerhouse Road already shield homes in Roslyn Heights from excessive expressway sounds. "We don't want to create any bad will. We live here, too," said Michael Wittjowski of Curran Cooney, who noted that he lives in an apartment upstairs from his own business.