If you vacation in the Hamptons and sometimes make the drive out to Montauk to look at the lighthouse, you’ll probably groan when you get to Route 27 each summer and see all those trucks and vans. You’ll maybe not know that those plumbers and gardeners and other service types are driving out on the so-called “trade parade.”
That’s the phrase for the typical morning traffic jam that forms on Route 27, when lots of trucks and vans from so-called “up island” on Long Island head eastbound. Many of the members of the parade are true tradesmen. You can see the scene every morning, when Route 27 leading into the Hamptons and Montauk is backed up with all the workers driving out to work at vacation homes in the Hamptons.
The vans carry workers to the Hamptons to build houses, keep pools and lawns pristine and to get a paycheck. One plumber said “anybody looking for work goes where the work is.”
It’s simply more affordable to live somewhere west of, say, the Shinnecock Canal and drive in to the jobs on the eastern end of Long Island. In fact, the gap between house prices and pay is so stark that it gives rise to the trade parade. In early 2023, the average house price on the South Fork hit $3 million. That sort of puts the house outside the range of those working the deli counter at Citarella. And about 85 percent of South Fork workers drive to their jobs. Unfortunately, this means that tradespeople often need to drive long distances each work day.
Plumbers’ Pay
Plumbers also take the route in for their jobs in the Hamptons. On a local job site, you’ll see ads for plumbers posted at $20 to $35 an hour. A typical 40-hour work week puts this plumbers’ pay at $41,600 to $72,800 a year, and even more if they work more than 40 hours. According to one company in Bridgehampton, they’ll pay $55,000 to start for plumbers. By comparison, a night shift cashier at a local supermarket earns $18 an hour. If you’re a full-time cashier at Citarella, you’ll earn up to $38,300 a year.
One pool company pays entry-level $20 to $25 an hour and every new house seems to have a pool. A worker there said most of the pool companies are hiring. Many pool workers are from Colombia and do seasonal pool work here. In winter, they go back home to South America. And landscapers work 20 to 30 hours of overtime a week.
One landscaping company owner in Suffolk County, Long Island, said he will take on workers from El Salvador and Mexico as seasonal workers under a federal program that gives out H-2B visas and lasts up to nine months. He said he rents them a house.
While landscaping can be learned on the job, plumbers must complete months of school and then years as an apprentice. And the eastern end of Long Island doesn’t have enough plumbers. Meanwhile, the current generation of workers are retiring and not being replaced by younger generations.
One contractor in Southampton pays his entry-level worker $23.50 an hour and pays his top man $65, and one of his employees drives in every day from East Patchogue. The contractor said he sets his prices based on what a deli sandwich costs. Most plumbers in the area tend to live west of the Shinnecock Canal. One said if you are too busy, you are not charging enough.
The Only Main East-west Road in the South Fork
In the Hamptons, Route 27 is the only main east-west road in the South Fork, so any overflow from the trade parade has nowhere to go. As of 2023, one particularly well-traveled stretch of County Road 39 in Southampton carried 44,562 vehicles a day. The traffic simply backs up and people just have to wait.
The trade parade starts around sunrise where the divided highway narrows. Trucks and vans are at least half the slow traffic. Suffolk County’s chief engineer said that the afternoon peak on County Road 39 now runs from 2:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., which he calls “a rush six hours” rather than a rush hour. In 2021 the Southampton Village mayor said the westbound drive from East Hampton jams especially after 4:30 p.m.
At a public meeting on October 16, 2024, Suffolk County engineers ruled out building an additional lane on County Road 39. The likely outcome may be to do nothing, engineering officials said.
On the other hand, some workers do have a train: the South Fork Commuter Connection costs $3.75 one way including the shuttle service to take you from the train to your destination. It runs Monday through Friday excluding major holidays. It stops at eight stations from Speonk to Montauk. The Long Island Rail Road has tried to help reduce traffic on the South Fork by starting service in March of 2019 as a one-year experiment.
So the traffic you’ll see in the morning and evening rush hours is the day’s work out in the Hamptons. If you’re trying to get out to your vacation rental in the Hamptons or see the lighthouse at Montauk, it’s wise to time it around the parade. First, you can expect the trade parade to be slowing traffic down Route 27 from roughly sunrise for a couple of hours. These are people heading east in the morning. The reverse is true too: later in the evening, you can expect more trucks and vans on the road, as people finish work and head back “up island.” You may prefer to plan your day out east so that you’ll go through the Hamptons mid-day and avoid the traffic of both the morning and afternoon.
The Rising Cost of Living
Many workers leave because of the rising cost of living. One woman who works at a plumbing shop in the Hamptons said they’re understaffed and overworked, and it has become hard for the workforce to find housing. One plumbing company owner with a long family history on eastern Long Island noted that there was nothing but potato fields when he was a kid. He says he has lost good, reliable employees who wanted to own houses and couldn’t afford it, so they moved away. Money drives everybody out, and everybody in.
