The environmental review process for the Long Island Truck-Rail Intermodal Facility (LI TRIM) in Suffolk County finally got started this month with the first public scoping meeting.

The LI TRIM facility would sit on the former Pilgrim State Hospital site in Suffolk County and allow more freight trains to serve Long Island. Currently, only 1% of freight tonnage on the Island is handled by rail. The facility would reduce truck traffic, pollution and noise, and would ensure that Long Island reap the benefits of the Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel, if it is built. NYSDOT found that the project is economically feasible with or without the tunnel.

Options to connect the site with the nearby Long Island Expressway include opening a portion of the car-only Sagtikos State Parkway to trucks, new service roads along the Sagtikos, or using local streets like Campus Road, Commack Road, and Long Island Avenue.

The community of Brentwood is already expressing concerns over the project, worried that it will increase truck traffic in the neighborhood. It should be noted, however, that the Pilgrim intermodal facility fits in quite well with nearby land uses. Just south of the site sits the soon-to-be-expanded Heartland Business Center, which includes large-scale distribution centers and office facilities, and an expansion of this development is planned. The closest residential unit to the truck-rail facility site is one fourth of a mile.

Somewhat less consistent with existing development is the proposed Heartland Town Center Project, still waiting approval by the Town of Islip, which would lie just north of the proposed facility. Using 450 acres of the former Pilgrim Hospital site, the development would create a densely developed "downtown" type area, with and 27,000 parking spaces, 9,000 apartments, and millions of square feet for stores and offices. Last year, (MTR 426), the Campaign expressed concern that new residents at the Heartland Town Center (a high end development) would try to stop the rail freight facility.

Scoping documents also clearly lay out the benefits of rail freight over trucks. Rail freight is four times more efficient, half the cost, and has less than half the fatalities of truck freight. Rail freight also has a six-fold capacity advantage: one track can serve 216 million tons of goods per year, whereas trucks can only carry 37.8 million tons annually on one highway lane.

According to project documents, the EIS will be completed in 2006, with construction then taking place between 2008 and 2010.

Chart adapted from NYS Department of Transportation LI TRIM Scoping Documents. 

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