(The following article by Joie Tyrrell was posted on the Newsday website on July 28.)
NEW YORK — The Long Island Rail Road’s hotly contested plan to build a third track on the Main Line is the only one of hundreds of recently approved projects that must go back before a state panel for further review.
After completing the project’s design, the LIRR must bring the final plan to a three-member Capital Program Review Board for a vote.
Yesterday, Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member Mitch Pally, of Suffolk County, blasted the agreement.
“It is basically telling the railroad: ‘Go ahead, spend millions to prepare and we will get around to telling you at a future time whether we are going to allow the project to happen,'” Pally said.
To add capacity on the railroad, LIRR officials propose building the project in two stages, with construction of a third track to Mineola and elimination of three grade crossings in the first $202-million phase. The next phase would extend it to Hicksville.
State Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre), a member of the Capital Program Review Board, said the clause was needed because the project impacts “thousands of lives.”
“We felt it would be appropriate that there would be a total vetting of it,” Skelos said. “It’s a little bit more legislative oversight over an authority.”
The plan has met with fierce opposition from hundreds of residents and elected officials speaking at hearings in June.
MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said MTA officials had no choice but to consent to the review if they wanted the capital plan passed. The review board had approved the five-year plan earlier this month.
“We don’t agree with it, we don’t like it. We don’t like the precedent it sets,” he said. “We colluded with them because we thought it was important … [for the capital plan.]”