Editorial: Speed limit should be reduced in Calverton

Calverton is no longer a one-horse town, so to speak.

With a deli, farm stand, post office, K-6 charter school, gas station and market — and soon enough a bank and a pharmacy — all in the area of Edwards Avenue and Route 25, Calverton is developing a true hamlet center.

And the speed limit on Route 25 should reflect that.

Students at Riverhead Charter School, which says the school’s front entrance is only about 50 feet from the road, realize the need for a lower speed limit in the area — if not a 20 to 25 mph school speed zone. A school crossing guard was hit by a car and injured in front of the school, where the speed limit is 50 mph, last year.

Last week, the students appealed to a Riverhead councilman to help them in their cause, which they have taken up as part of a more than month-long school project.

With a bank and drug store having won site plan approval and set to be built just southeast of the intersection, and commercial enterprises on both sides of the two-lane highway, including  a vacant restaurant building that will likely be used again in that capacity, people will be crossing Route 25 more and more. And more people will be driving in and out of all those businesses.

Riverhead Town and even Suffolk County officials should join the Riverhead Charter School kids in lobbying the state to slow things down in Calverton. No one would be allowed to drive through the Jamesport or Cutchogue hamlet centers at 50 mph.