While NY State DOT’s Long Island press officer was on a recent leave, the Campaign found that it rendered the agency into even more of a black box than usual.

Long Island DOT’ers ("Region 10" staffers) are covered by a several year-old ban on discussing anything with the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. Questions to people like the well-meaning Region 10 bike-pedestrian coordinator about the status of a traffic calming project are met with a nervous "I can’t talk to you."

With the communications boss out, we were virtually alone on Long Island. There was no one to talk to about highway projects.

Nonetheless, we tried. We called the press office and explained the Tri-State ban. A secretary there acknowledged that "this could be a problem."

A replacement press officer called back the next day, and suggested we submit FOIL requests detailing our questions.

But sending FOILs to Region 10 is almost more fruitless than trying to be nice to the bike-ped coordinator or finding something good to say about the LITP 2000 plan. FOIL requests, when they are acknowledged and acted upon (generally taking 6 weeks or more), yield bureaucratic documents that raise further riddles, rather than providing answers to basic questions like what phase of environmental review a project is currently in. Standard boilerplate on Region 10 FOIL responses has for several years informed the curious that "We are currently processing an unusually high volume of FOIL requests." If interest in the agency’s work is indeed at an all time high, it seems past time the group added a few information officers.

Back to the dialogue: Instead of submitting yet another FOIL letter, we sought to briefly meet with someone in Hauppauge. The DOT staffer said this was not possible: "we are very busy." 

"We need to know what is going on with these projects," we explained.

"Submit another FOIL request," she said, "we can’t meet with you."

Groups like the Middle Country Road Renaissance Project similarly have felt like, with Region 10, there is no loop to be in or out of.

These practices and attitudes can only further discredit the New York State DOT on Long Island at a time when it is having a hard time getting new initiatives underway, and when multi-party dialogue is becoming increasingly the way effective planning gets done.  Long Island and the downstate region deserve better. v