(Newsday posted the following article by Eden Laikin on its website on November 7.)
NEW YORK — A board member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has thrown his support behind a local civic group’s bid to close the Syosset train station and build a new one nearby to reduce the number of gap-related accidents.
Mitch Palley, one of two Long Island representatives on the MTA board, said that he would back the proposal by Residents for a More Beautiful Syosset if the town of Oyster Bay supported it as well. Town Supervisor John Venditto said yesterday he supported a feasibility study.
“I told [the civic group], if you can get town representatives to look at it, I will try and get the railroad to look at it,” Pally said in an interview.
“I would be in favor of seeing if the proposal is workable and viable for the town,” Venditto said. “I am not in favor, however, of moving a problem somewhere else in the town.”
The Syosset station has been the site of at least 36 gap-related accidents since 1989, according to a Newsday analysis of court and LIRR records. It ranked seventh among the 123 LIRR stations for gap incidents, higher than others with more commuter traffic, LIRR records from 2004 through July 2006 show.
The new station would fix the gap problem by allowing for a straight platform instead of the existing curved platform, according to the residents and officials.
“It would eliminate a dangerous station,” said Laura Schultz, a member of the civic group. “We saw the story about the Minnesota girl, a tragic story, and then Newsday started measuring the gaps. Lo and behold, we had one of the biggest gaps.”
The LIRR and the MTA espoused a similar plan in the mid-1980s that was designed to add more parking for commuters in Syosset. But the project never materialized, amid local complaints that it would cause more traffic congestion.
The LIRR is raising and shifting tracks at other stations following the death of Natalie Smead, 18, who was hit by a train after falling into the gap at Woodside in August.
Because the Syosset station is curved, such fixes aren’t possible, LIRR officials say.
Proponents of relocating the Syosset station want to revive a decades-old plan to reopen an old station about a mile and a half away that until the 1970s was used to transport workers to and from a now-closed landfill. The proposal would use the north service road of the Long Island Expressway and Gordon Drive as access routes to new parking facilities.
In 2000, town officials who were trying to solve parking problems at Syosset estimated that a new platform at the old Landia Station site would cost the LIRR about $1.5 million. They said the town would be responsible only for the asphalt coating of the new parking lot.
LIRR officials said yesterday they could not respond before researching the issue further.
Commuters at the Syosset station were divided yesterday about the civic group’s proposal.
Rhonda Spiegel of East Norwich said she favored the idea if the new station included more parking.
“As long as there’s ample parking, I would be agreeable to anything,” she said.
But Shuja Bhatti just purchased the Trackside Smoke Shop and Convenience Store two weeks ago, and most of his customers are commuters who walk from the station for candy or a magazine.
“That would be very much a negative,” Bhatti said of the idea of moving the station. “I would be losing all of my business.”