Long Island is hardly tying its future to mass transit

Transit Jam

On LI, major ideas stuck in traffic

Science fiction no longer fits into the future of Long Island's mass transit.

There will be no hovercrafts, bullet trains or jet-pack propelled commuters. Forget "Back to the Future." Think "Planes, Trains and Automobiles." Long Island

The question is - is that a mistake?

As it is, there still will be sprawl and there still will be plenty of commuters driving cars in both directions on the Long Island Expressway. The HOV lane will be even more crowded. So if regional leaders want to implement alternatives by the year 2020, they might want to get started now.

"You really have to go out 30 years," said Eric Alexander, executive director of Vision Long Island. "These things take seven to 10 years of planning and then 10 years of construction and then you have to start over again. Some of these things take an enormous amount of time."

Alexander said in 1996, the state Department of Transportation put together the Long Island Transportation Plan 2000. It aimed to identify critical transportation investments for the Island. Remember that plan? Didn't think so. After numerous delays, the project fizzled out three years ago.

"I'm sure it's still in somebody's computer somewhere," he said.

Such is the fate of mass transit.

It seems most are content sipping coffee, eating breakfast and talking on the phone while inching through gridlock on the LIE.

"We are not where we need to be," Alexander said. "Look at the type of planning going on in the Maryland/Washington D.C. area. In San Francisco. We need to look at some of those creative examples of growth."

Both of those regions have integrated public transportation systems.

A mass transit renaissance in suburban New York is possible, Rep. Steve Israel, D-Huntington, said. But he added that the federal government must cough up money to make it happen.

"It's an uphill battle," Israel said. "One of the reasons Long Island has fallen behind in mass transit is that the federal government has turned its back on infrastructure funding to localities."

The list of projects is long and pricy. There's the Long Island Rail Road's third rail, East Side access, the Moynihan station, the Nassau Hub and the dream of transit-oriented development in Hicksville, Ronkonkoma and Freeport.

"Some of these things are already underway," said Mitch Pally, Suffolk County's representative to the MTA board. "They are in the planning stages."

There isn't a price tag, yet, for the third rail, though the East side access plan will set taxpayers back $6.3 billion. The Moynihan Station will cost $14 billion and the $2 billion Nassau Hub will be built with connections to light rail or the LIRR.

Pally's an optimist, but only to a degree. He sees carpooling as a piece of the solution.

"That's the closest many people are going to get to traveling with someone else," he said. "There are a lot of people who just don't want to get on a bus. Two or three people in a car is mass transit."

He also said the LIRR, which is currently used mainly to bring Islanders to the Big Apple, needs to be utilized for Island-to-Island transit as well.

Ernest Fazio, chairman of the Long Island Mid-Suffolk Business Action, said there needs to be a track connecting the Montauk and Port Jefferson lines, because that will make the main lines accessible to each other. It will also allow for more North Shore to South Shore transit. In addition, he said, a light-rail system needs to be built along Route 110.

All of that hinges on changes in building codes and zoning to allow more residents to live near train stations.

"There's a lot of things that can be done," Fazio said.

How much gets done is another question. Currently, LIRR projects are focused on making it easy for city commuters.

The third track seeks to add another rail to a 10-mile stretch between Floral Park and Hicksville. It will add a passing lane to the Main Line Corridor and separate express trains and local trains. The third track will also help add trains for the growing number of reverse commuters.

The other project is the $6.3 billion East Side Access project, which connects the LIRR to Grand Central Terminal. That project is slated for 2014 and is expected to save up to 40 minutes of travel time daily for commuters, said Kate Slevin of the Tristate Transportation Campaign.

She added that bus service must be improved, but that won't come cheap. She said residents would welcome better service.

"The cost of fuel is only going to go up," Slevin said. "Ridership is up. It's going to continue to go up during the next decade. It would make sense to get more money for existing operations, to buy new buses, expand the system and expand service."

But Israel points out that Long Island's culture flies in the face of public transportation.

"I'm not sure it's practical to create a widely-used mass transportation system within Long Island," he said. "We're a suburb. Like it or not, we're a suburb and people drive cars in the suburbs."

Slevin said that viewpoint may be changing. The recent Long Island Index released last month shows that residents are willing to live in apartment or condominiums as long as they are near a downtown or transit hub.

"We are seeing a shift in what we want as a society," Slevin said. "It's a very slow process."

Credit: Michael H. Samuels