FRA Certification Helpline: (216) 694-0240

(The following story by Steve Ritea appeared on the Newsday website on November 14.)

NEW YORK — A pair of options for the Long Island Rail Road’s plan to establish a third track along a 10-mile stretch of its Main Line will be unveiled at a series of public hearings this spring, agency president Helena Williams said Wednesday.

While stressing the controversial project’s importance to improving service and reliability on the railroad, Williams departed from previous railroad officials’ contention that a growing number of reverse commuters is one of the primary reasons for an additional track.

Even though the number of commuters from New York City on weekday mornings has grown 76 percent, from 7,350 to 12,917, since 1998, 109,425 commuters take the traditional route into the city for work.

While a third track could help accommodate more reverse commuters, Williams said the track will mainly benefit a much greater number of traditional commuters.

“There are no major employment centers yet in Nassau that generate the type of reverse-commute market that a place like White Plains generates,” she said.

On Metro-North, which offers service to White Plains, just 49 percent of their commuters travel into the city weekday mornings, said spokeswoman Donna Evans, with White Plains, Stamford and Fordham growing exponentially as commuter hubs in the past 15 years.

Neysa Pranger, a spokeswoman for the Regional Plan Association, noted that Long Island needs to be similarly prepared. “Those places kind of popped up very quickly,” she said. “That could happen in Long Island as well.”

The third track plan will improve on-time performance by the LIRR, Williams said, by providing a “passing lane” around disabled trains, since stalled locomotives currently hold up train traffic in many places.

“We do not want to become the Long Island Expressway of railroading,” she said.

That’ll be especially true by 2014, when the LIRR plans to bring up to 24 trains per hour into Grand Central as part of its East Side Access plan.

Still, Williams stressed that East Side Access will move forward with or without a third track. “We’re going to run those trains anyway,” she said. “Can I run them more efficiently with a third track? Yes.”

The project has generated opposition from some local communities with properties that the LIRR would need to encroach upon or take entirely, but Williams said they have worked to reduce the number affected.