(Newsday posted the following article by Joie Tyrrell on its website on March 17.)
NEW YORK — In a daily game of transit hopscotch, Long Island Rail Road commuter Robert Audette takes the railroad to Queens then jumps to the No. 7 subway, then catches the 4 or the 5 downtown.
To get to his lower Manhattan office, “it’s over two hours and 15 minutes one way,” said Audette, of Shirley. “It’s definitely an inconvenience to change trains. Each one is a separate mini-commute and they have their own separate problems.”
That all may change over the next decade, as the Long Island Rail Road readies for what could be the biggest expansion in its 170-year history. In store are multimillion-dollar capital projects, from new cars to storage yards to changes in routes that could, for the first time, connect Long Island commuters to the East Side and possibly lower Manhattan.
It’s an incredible wish list reaching into the billions of dollars, with target completion dates reaching into the next decade. Yet competition for transit dollars will be fierce, and some close to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the parent agency of the LIRR, say that funding for all of them may be reaching for a “pie-in-the-sky.”
MTA executives are confident the capital projects for the LIRR eventually will be funded, offering commuters more service and travel alternatives. The last major LIRR expansion took place in 1898 with construction of the track from Great Neck to Port Washington.
“One of the major reasons is to take a 19th-century system and bring it into the 21st century,” said MTA executive director Katie Lapp. “I think we can get these projects off the ground and get the funding for them, which I am optimistic we will.”
But transit watchers, worried about future fare hikes, say state and federal governments are kicking in fewer dollars than they have for past capital projects. And the MTA has already borrowed so much that debt service is expected to grow to $1.7 billion annually by 2007.
“The real worry is how are you going to fund them?” said Beverly Dolinsky, executive director of the LIRR Commuters Council, a riders’ advocacy group. “You can’t keep borrowing and have this huge debt service, because the fare will go so high that nobody will use the system.”
The project most likely to move forward is East Side Access. In the works for three decades, it will mean a one-seat rail link from Long Island to Grand Central using an existing, but unused, tunnel at 63rd Street.
So far, preliminary construction has started in Long Island City. Railroad officials are awaiting full funding for the project. The price tag has ballooned over the years from $4.3 billion in 1998 to $6.3 billion now. Federal officials say that $800 million in state and federal money has already been committed. It is scheduled to be completed by 2012.
“Certainly, the MTA is optimistic and I’m optimistic,” said Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford). “The MTA is going forward with its plans, anticipating it is going to be done.”
LIRR President James Dermody said he is awaiting a funding grant from the Federal Transit Administration. He’s hopeful the agreement will be in place by this summer.
“Then it becomes almost automatic” in President Bush’s budget, Dermody said.
John Scofield, spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, said, “It is extremely unlikely that those funds would stop flowing.”
There have been a few snags, including modifications to the Sunnyside Yard, which is owned by Amtrak. Dermody is negotiating with Amtrak to resolve the issues, including modifications to the Sunnyside yard and allowing access to the nearby Arch Street yard and shop.
The railroad needs East Side Access, Dermody said, because the railroad is at capacity at Penn Station and can’t add any more trains.
“It’s a better option,” said commuter Margaret Domenech of East Islip, whose office is between Park and Madison avenues. “Plus you don’t have to have extra expense of the subway.”
But along with the added capacity comes the need on Long Island for rail improvements to handle more trains. The railroad is trying to site a 16-track storage yard on the Port Jefferson line east of Huntington that would allow the LIRR to add service on the branch.
Public hearings last year were attended by many residents who opposed the construction of a yard in their neighborhoods. The railroad has narrowed the selection down to six sites in Huntington and Smithtown.
Earlier this month, Dermody told a Suffolk County business group that all the comments are being tallied and the list of potential sites could be further cut by the end of the year.
While a yard will allow the railroad to add service on the Port Jefferson line, a major overhaul of the Main Line is in the works as well. LIRR officials call it the Main Line Corridor Improvement project, and what it would mean is building a third track along the Main Line from Bellerose to Hicksville.
Dermody said it would allow the railroad to operate an expanded service for commuters who travel against the rush hour and also could handle freight, taking some trucks off congested highways. It would also mean the elimination of five grade crossings in Mineola, New Hyde Park and Westbury and substantial station rehabilitation.
“If we can get through the [environmental study] and get a … decision, the only other drawback is the question of funding,” Dermody said.
He’d like to see it done no later than 2015.
Sources close to the MTA say it could be a tough sell. The double-track Main Line travels right through the heart of Long Island, and community opposition could be strong.
“For a significantly lower cost than East Side Access, it provides significant and so many different benefits for the LIRR,” said Mitch Pally, vice president of government affairs at the Long Island Association, the region’s largest business group. Pally, however, had harsh words for a recent proposal announced by the MTA and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. that could link the LIRR to lower Manhattan. Considered a priority of Gov. George Pataki, the plan would allow passengers to board trains at Kennedy Airport or the Long Island Rail Road’s Jamaica station and ride through Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn.
The plan differs in how riders would be sped from Brooklyn to Manhattan. They include building and enhancing tunnels under the East River.
A final design plan should be picked next month. It could cost up to $6 billion, with supporters saying funding could come from Sept. 11 redevelopment money.
Pally said it’s an expensive project that would save only about 90 seconds in commuting times for about 3,000 Long Islanders.
Downtown business leaders said an LIRR link to lower Manhattan would help draw a labor pool to the region. But critics question whether the cost is worth it. One source close to the MTA called the project a “pie-in-the-sky” proposal.
Other projects planned for the railroad in coming years include completion of the purchase of new M-7 cars, which, by 2007, will transform the aging fleet.
Railroad officials are also looking to build a yard east of Ronkonkoma that would mean extending electrification farther into Suffolk County.
“Long Island has changed,” Pally said. “The railroad is trying to change. “The railroad does better now than it ever did before,” he added. “Now, we want to give it additional capacity to do what it has never done before.”