Long Island will bear the brunt of highway expansion projects planned by the New York State Dept. of Transportation for the downstate NY region for 2000-2004, according to a preliminary Tri-State Transportation Campaign analysis of the new NY Metropolitan Transportation Council Transportation Improvement Program.

Of roughly $860 million in highway expansion projects planned for Long Island, the lower Hudson Valley and New York City during the 5-year period, about $675 million is slated for Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

Within Long Island, the town of Brookhaven is ground zero for most of the projects. They are:

· Widening NY 347 along its entire length

· Widening NY 112 between the LIE and NY 25

· Widening NY 25 between Suffolk Routes 21 and 83

· Widening NY 25 between NY 111 and NY 347

· Widening Suffolk Rte 97 between NY 25 and NY 347

· Constructing LIE service roads between exits 63 and 64 and from exits 65 and 67

· Widening the Montauk highway east of Suffolk Rte 46

· Constructing service roads along a segment of the Sunrise Highway

In addition, the Transportation Improvement Program contains several other local arterial widenings and extensions in Brookhaven and other Suffolk towns (some are local rather than NYSDOT projects). Other segments of Route 25 are slated for rebuilding with smaller capacity additions such as new turn lanes.

A network of superhighways laid over northern Brookhaven will almost surely increase car dependence, sprawl pressure and overall traffic, and further crowd out transit, cycling and walking.

That prospect drew swift condemnation from civic leaders working to protect open spaces in Suffolk County from sprawl development: "Brookhaven is a nightmare of sprawl as it is - these proposed highway expansion projects would put the area down for the count," said Long Island Pine Barrens Society President Richard Amper.

State legislators have an opportunity to weigh in on the projects, since the DOT's multi-year capital program is up for renewal early in 2000. The Transportation Improvement Program is a document the region's agencies produce in order to receive federal funding.

NY State DOT is presently drafting environmental impact statements for the Routes 347, 25 and 112 projects. The projects may have start dates between 2000 and 2002. The Dept. has also looked at the road widenings' likely effects in its long range LITP 2000 study. However, the Campaign is still waiting to receive traffic modeling information associated with the projects that it requested from NYSDOT in early August.

For Nassau County, the Transportation Program lists completion of L.I. Expressway HOV lanes, an extension of a Meadowbrook Parkway auxiliary road, and several local arterial widenings and extensions.

In the Hudson Valley, NYS DOT highway expansion plans are to:

· widen the Taconic Parkway in Yorktown

· widen Route 120 along the Kensico Reservoir

· expand Route 9A in Elmsford and Greenburgh

· widen Route 22 in Putnam County

In New York City, the only significant highway expansion plan is related only to the construction of HOV lanes on the Long Island Expressway in Nassau County ¾ capacity will be added to the LIE between the Queens line and the Cross-Island Parkway, and the LIE-Cross Island interchange will be overhauled to accept the new lanes and traffic.