"They're trying to do it least disruptive, doing it at night," Mayor Bill Manger told the Southampton Press about PSEG's return to North Sea Road. He was describing one project, but the same idea runs through the village's whole fall agenda. The substation work that started last winter stopped for the summer so it wouldn't add to the traffic for residents and commuters. Now it's back, overnight only. The turn restrictions south of Hill Street run on fixed afternoon hours and stop on a set date. The repaving comes in a planned order. Almost every project this season has a time window attached, and that window decides when you'll actually run into it.
Below is the schedule, roughly in order of how often you're likely to hit each project.
The Hill Street Pilot, Hour by Hour
This one started with residents. At several Village Board meetings this summer, people living on Lee Avenue and other streets south of Hill Street complained about slow, seemingly endless traffic moving through their blocks during the evening rush. The board answered with a pilot that restricts left turns from Lee Avenue, Captains Neck Lane and Halsey Neck Lane.
The three streets aren't handled the same way, and that's on purpose. Lee Avenue has a physical channelizing island that blocks the turn around the clock. Captains Neck Lane and Halsey Neck Lane get cones and barrels from 3 to 7 p.m. that mimic an island. Trustee Willa Bernstein suggested the hard barrier at Lee Avenue so the board could compare results against the other two streets. The board's August 25 resolution limits the afternoon restrictions to weekdays, excluding village holidays, from September 14 through October 30, 2026.
North of Hill Street, the pilot will look familiar. Bishops Lane, Corrigan Street and Somerset Avenue already have right-turn restrictions from 3 to 7 p.m. VHB Engineers project manager Ryan Winter said the new setup is meant to mirror them. Those northern streets have no physical barriers, and Winter said compliance there has improved over time. If the southern restrictions become permanent, he'd like them to work the same way, without anything physical in the road, which would make things easier for emergency vehicles.
The traffic still has to go somewhere, and Winter said where. Cars coming from east of the village will still use Hill Street to head west from downtown. Drivers who would have turned onto Hill Street will either cut through the neighborhood next to Lee Avenue or head toward North Sea Road.
The vote was 4 to 1. Trustee Rob Coburn voted no, citing the pilot's unknown cost and the traffic data he was still waiting on. Under the resolution, the board will review the results before deciding whether to keep the restrictions. One posted Village Police notice labels the Lee Avenue ban "PERMANENT," but the board's own resolution treats it as a trial that ends October 30 unless the board votes to extend it.
North Sea Road After Dark
The second clock starts after dinner. PSEG Long Island is finishing the last phase of a project that routes power from the substation on West Prospect Street to the Deerfield substation in Water Mill. The work was set to resume in late September. Crews start around 8 or 9 p.m. and finish around 5 or 6 a.m., before the morning rush, and North Sea Road closes while they're working. On those nights, Manger said, the way in or out of the village is under the train trestle on North Main Street.
That trestle is getting work too. The village's Fall 2026 newsletter says the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will keep repainting the Long Island Rail Road trestles over North Main Street and North Sea Road "after many years of neglect." No dates or work hours have been published.
Expect smoother roads once the conduit work is done. During the last stage of the project, electric conduit went under Willow Street and North Main Street, so both streets will be repaved, along with a small section of North Sea Road. The village newsletter says PSEG is paying for the repaving. Manger expects the project to finish by the end of 2026. We haven't seen a public update confirming that the overnight work has actually restarted, so the late-September start is the schedule as announced.
The Schedule in One Place
| Project | Where | When | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Left-turn pilot, fixed island | Lee Avenue | Around the clock, through October 30 | Trial, under evaluation |
| Left-turn pilot, cones and barrels | Captains Neck Lane, Halsey Neck Lane | Weekdays, 3 to 7 p.m., through October 30 | Trial, under evaluation |
| PSEG substation connection | North Sea Road | Overnight, roughly 8 or 9 p.m. to 5 or 6 a.m. | Scheduled to resume late September; completion expected by end of 2026 |
| Repaving after PSEG | Willow Street, North Main Street, part of North Sea Road | After PSEG's work is done | Paid for by PSEG |
| LIRR trestle repainting | North Main Street, North Sea Road | No dates published | Continuing |
| Western half of Hill Street | Hill Street | 2027 | Eastern half repaved this summer |
The Hill Street row ties back to the pilot. The village repaved the eastern half of Hill Street this past summer and plans to do the western half in 2027. Flying Point Road is finished. It got new drainage, and the entire stretch inside the village was repaved.
Smaller Jobs on Main Street and Agawam Park
Some of this fall's projects are small and stay in one spot, so they're easy to walk past without noticing.
The World War I Monument is getting repairs and restoration. The village went through a request-for-proposal process to find the best contractor at the best price. Neither a contractor's name nor a completion date has been made public.
Halfway down Main Street, the new pedestrian easement just north of Hildreth's Department Store is getting brick paving in place of the uneven asphalt. The walkway will line up with the crosswalk to the Chase Bank across the street. The newsletter ties the project to the Comprehensive Plan's goal of better connections between the parking lots and the shops.
The Agawam Park work points the furthest ahead. At its September 10 meeting, the Village Board authorized J&M Long Island, Inc. to install a 4-inch conduit through the park to connect the village's solar array to the grid, at a cost of no more than $26,600. Johnson Controls is covering PSEG's connection fee. The newsletter says the lines under the park will serve the solar array and a proposed algae harvester. According to the village's fact sheet, the harvester would treat Lake Agawam by removing algae along with the nitrogen and phosphorus that come with it. It would handle up to 3 million gallons a day and return the treated water to the lake. The preliminary design calls for three harvesters that each process 1 million gallons a day, drawing water from the north end of the lake and releasing it at the south end. The harvester is still a proposal. Only the conduit is going in this fall.
Agawam Park is also where SouthamptonFest holds its main program on Saturday, October 3.
What Earlier Projects Already Delivered
The finished projects show where the current work is headed, and outside money paid for a good share of them.
Moses Park sits on Moses Lane, north of Hill Street near Corrigan Street. The mayor's fall letter says the work there should be essentially complete, with the new playground and added walking trails in use. It also says the improvements were paid for entirely by the park fee from the Village Latch development on Hill Street.
Behind Village Hall, the Southampton Arts Center grounds became the Paulson Family Gardens. Southampton Arts Center announced in May that the gardens would open to the public over Memorial Day weekend, with a fountain and an outdoor performance space. In the fall newsletter, the mayor calls the garden, fountains and amphitheater "a tremendous hit" and thanks Alina and John Paulson for transforming the village-owned property. No separate hours for the gardens have been published. If you want to see the inside, Southampton Arts Center's East End Collected9 runs October 3 through December 27 at 25 Jobs Lane, with work by nearly 30 East End artists.
The next project is in the same building. Manger and Trustee Coburn are working with the architecture firm Garnett DePasquale on plans to renovate the gutted third floor of Village Hall and add a safe interior fire stair with a better rear entrance. The newsletter says the work will also improve how the back of the building looks from the parking lot and the gardens. The police department used to occupy the upper floors and moved out twenty-five years ago.
That anniversary sets the last date on the fall calendar. On Saturday, November 28, the village will hold a ceremony marking twenty-five years of the "new" police building on Windmill Lane, which also houses the Village Court. It takes place right before the Parade of Lights and the Christmas tree lighting. By then, the Hill Street pilot will have been over for about a month, and if the schedule holds, PSEG will have only a few weeks left before its year-end target.
If you own in the village and are weighing when to start a renovation, schedule showings, or put a property on the market, timing around the village's work calendar is part of that decision. James Giugliano follows these schedules closely and is happy to talk through how they might affect your plans. Let's Connect.
