Sinkhole closes three lanes on Long Island Expressway in Melville

A sinkhole in the westbound lanes of the Long Island Expressway near Exit 49N in Melville shut three lanes and turned the afternoon commute into a slow-moving backup for Suffolk drivers. Suffolk County police said the collapse was reported around 1 p.m. on Thursday, May 14, 2026, and lane closures were expected to last at least 24 hours, with some delays stretching into Friday afternoon.

The hole measured about 10 feet wide and 8 feet deep, according to multiple reports. One car partially fell into it, and NBC New York said the front end of a silver Honda with New Jersey plates ended up in the sinkhole. No injuries were reported, but the disruption hit one of western Suffolk’s most heavily traveled corridors, where even a short shutdown can ripple through school pickups, shift changes and the evening rush.

Crews began work Thursday evening to repair the damaged roadway and install new asphalt pavement, according to the New York State Department of Transportation. The center lane reopened around 7 a.m. Friday, the right lane came back a few hours later, and the Long Island Expressway was fully reopened by Friday afternoon. For drivers trying to cross Melville and the Town of Huntington, the closure meant rerouting or waiting out a shutdown on a road many use to reach work, deliveries and regional transit connections.

The collapse also raised the bigger question of what failed beneath the pavement. NYSDOT said the sinkhole appeared to have been caused by a contractor working on a local municipal sewage project, a reminder that the roadway above Long Island’s dense web of buried infrastructure can fail when work below ground goes wrong. Te Pei, a civil engineering professor at Stony Brook University, said cavities can form underground and collapse later, and he pointed to ground-penetrating radar as one way to detect weak spots before they give way.

State Sen. Mario Mattera said the incident underscored the need to prioritize Long Island infrastructure, as commuters were forced to absorb another reminder of how fragile the region’s travel network can be. The timing only added to the strain: the disruption came days before a possible Long Island Rail Road strike, when more riders could end up depending on the LIE to get across Suffolk and beyond.