STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - At last, we have movement on a plan that could actually do something to relieve Staten Island's of some of its chronic traffic congestion: Opening up the road system in the old Fresh Kills landfill, which is transforming into Freshkills Park.

In a welcome move, Borough President James Oddo has thrown his weight behind a plan that would connect Richmond Avenue to the West Shore Expressway through the nascent park.

It's a plan whose time has come.

Traffic is Staten Island's most vexing problem. It affects the quality of our lives every day, multiple times a day. And yet it's one of the more difficult problems to actually attack. The number of cars on the Island seems to increase by the day, but we're not building any more roads. Staten Island's plethora of parkland had made vast swaths of the Island off-limits.

Decaying, neglected infrastructure has left many of our roads littered with potholes, and no matter how much we pave, baby, pave, we can never seem to truly get ahead of the problem for good.

A plan from the city Department of Design and Construction calls for a four-lane road that would stem from the Yukon Avenue intersection at Richmond Avenue and traverse the former landfill site's East Park.

At the heart of the park, northbound and southbound traffic would spit onto two bridges over the site's main creeks that would connect to each direction of traffic on the expressway.

It's estimated that the project will cost around $120 million. It would be money well spent. In addition to easing traffic in the surrounding community, it would also help those who actually want to use the park.

And attention all you Vision Zero people out there: The DDC plan includes roadside greenery flanked by a bike path on one side and a pedestrian pathway on the other. There would be enough room in the 2,200-acre park to accommodate cars, bicyclist and pedestrians.

See? We can all get along.

Former Borough President James Molinaro wanted to build out the existing road system in the old landfill as a way to ease the borough's traffic congestion, but faced stiff opposition from the city Parks Department. It was one of a number of flashpoints in Molinaro's contentious relationship with former Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe.

But that slowly began to change. In 2009, the city applied for $50 million in federal grant money aimed at opening the roads.

As Benepe said at the time, "We are committed to building these roads through and getting these communities connected."

And now Oddo has said that the road system is one of his administration's "top priorities" when it comes to Freshkills.

The landfill was the biggest blight on Staten Island for 50 years. It was a scar on our landscape and on our psyche. It was one of the few things that a lot of people knew about when it came to Staten Island, and it was the absolute worst thing about our borough.

Nobody thought things would ever be different, but the landfill was eventually closed and is now becoming something that the Island can be proud of.

It would make a good story even better if the old landfill, which was once our shame, could actually help us solve one of our community's most enduring problems.