By ANNIE KARNI
Staff Reporter of the Sun
July 24, 2007

From charging wealthy drivers hundreds of dollars to cross the Shinnecock Canal to levying hefty taxes on New Yorkers arriving by helicopter, East End residents and their local officials are taking a cue from the city and floating congestion-pricing schemes to convince more New Yorkers to ditch their cars before heading to the beach.

"There's too many cars on the road, too many people who don't know how to drive, and the feeling here is, ‘Wouldn't it be lovely to keep some of them away?'" the editor of the East Hampton Star, David Rattray, said in an interview yesterday.

Hamptons business owners say the heavy traffic flow is damaging their livelihoods, and weekend beachgoers say they have become more inclined this summer to avoid driving into town to dine out.

"The traffic is beyond disgusting," the co-owner of Vered Gallery in East Hampton, Janet Lehr, said. "We see our clients from Southampton to Westhampton and Quogue in the winter, but they just don't come during the summer months, and I don't blame them."