I hope to shed some light on some of the phooey that “journalists” and other op-ed writers seem to be spewing in editions of this paper about the third track for the main line.
It is one thing to have an informed opinion and another to make outlandish, extravagant claims to instill fear where there should be none, which only leads me to believe that the writer has an agenda.
It is as if no actual research was done whatsoever since no citations are ever made.
I’m writing in to debunk some of those myths that have been circulating, beginning with the ridiculous claim that freight would increase.
If you go to your local library, pick up a book on the railroads of Long Island, you will quickly learn that freight railroad used to be a major industry on Long Island.
However, once industrial and commercial businesses moved overseas and elsewhere, plus after the strain on resources put on railroads after WW II, freight has nearly come to an irrecoverable, grinding halt in comparison to what it once was.
All you have to do is look out the window of an LIRR train today and you will see countless spurs of tracks leading into weeds, long disconnected, never to be reinstalled.
Today, most of the freight through Long Island carries away our trash because we filled our own landfills.
Long Island has, instead, become a land of service industries, carrying thousands of residents into the city every day. Freight railroad, even if it were to pick up in business a little, would never even begin to catch up to the commuter rail industry we have today.
Plus, the LIRR owns the tracks on Long Island and had sold its freight department to New York & Atlantic Railways years ago, meaning LIRR gives its own trains priority over any freight.
The LIRR would never allow NYAR to use its tracks when it has its own traffic to deal with.
Yes, train traffic exists, too. It’s not just on the LIE.
Why? Because the population of Long Island has been exploding, if you haven’t noticed, and LIRR ridership is at an all-time high.
To remedy this logistics problem, the LIRR will be opening a new western terminal in Grand Central Terminal in approximately 2023.
This will undoubtedly go hand-in-hand with a demand for increased service.
How can the LIRR which is already operating at capacity during rush hour possibly run more trains?
They may as well hitch them up from Suffolk to Manhattan and pin the doors open so passengers can walk their way through.
The trains need a place to go, to change direction and to pass each other. This is only done by adding track.
The LIRR is working to add a rail yard in Ronkonkoma and a second track to Ronkonkoma to accommodate increased service.
This is all for naught if the busiest section of that main line only has two tracks, servicing four different branches eastbound.
Rush hour trains could run on a local track, an express track, and have a 3rd track for the opposite direction.
A need for more track was recognized many, many years ago and continuing to stand in the way of this progress is damning to all the businesses LIRR commuters contribute to.
As a resident of central, western Nassau County I know that rail expansion in New York is for the greater good.
I also know my community likes to shoo away any idea that it could be overtaken and turned into eastern Queens, but stopping rail expansion will actually back up traffic on the roads and on the rails and will cause a worse reaction in time than if we put in a third track now to alleviate the logistics problem we obviously have. We have put this off for too long. We need not create another Oyster Bay-Rye Bridge cessation, where now, years later, we are looking at spending millions more on a tunnel, instead.
Furthermore, the track in Floral Park is already elevated, and has minimal interference with villagers’ lives on the ground.
To make claims that quality of life would suffer dramatically with these conditions in place prompts me to draw my bow on the world’s smallest violin. I don’t buy it.
For once, the LIRR is actually trying to be a proactive railroad, rather than a reactive one. For once, let it.
The endeavor to increase rail service on Long Island is not just a necessary one, it is an inevitable one.
This is not a “build it and they will come” scenario. They’re here, and the railroad is already backlogged.
Lorena Rea
New Hyde Park.
