Prospects for a third track along the LIRR Main Line were met with vociferous opposition by officials and residents of the village of Floral Park in Nassau County.

The campaign against the project is being whipped up by Floral Park mayor Phil Guarnari, who attended all three EIS scoping hearings for the project, but it has also received support from at least two Nassau County state senators, and the NY Times reported yesterday that the issue could impact the third track’s status in the 2005-2009 MTA capital program.  Floral Park’s official web site urges citizens to fight the project and makes several false claims, including charges that the LIRR did not discuss the project with village officials prior to the recent hearings, and that the third track is a “money-making” scheme by the LIRR.

The LIRR “Main Line Corridor Improvement Project,” which would add a third track in the corridor between Bellerose and Hicksville and eliminate a number of street level grade crossings is needed to add train capacity in both peak and reverse-peak directions. LIRR projections show the system operating significantly over capacity in the near future without system expansion.  The grade crossings are needed to prevent additional train travel from further snarling local street networks, and would in fact improve local circulation over today’s conditions. 

Although initial news coverage highlighted Floral Park’s narrow point of view, a Newsday editorial today said the project was essential to Long Island’s economy and criticized both the NIMBY effort to shout it down, and the State Senators attempting to pull the funding plug. 

The LIRR should certainly do all it can to minimize local impacts, but the local complaints about it to us seem very overblown, and ignorant of the project’s benefits.  The local position seems to be one that would like to freeze time, but the fact is that the labor force, jobs and car and truck trips are going to increase significantly in the coming decades.  Queens, Nassau and Suffolk are going to choke on traffic, chase away private investment and sacrifice their qualities of life if efficient mass transit capacity is not added in key travel corridors.

We think Floral Park residents will in fact see significant benefits from the project, including:

• More scheduled train service, since the project will permit more peak-direction as well as reverse-direction train runs.

•  mproved traffic flow in western Nassau County due to the grade-crossing elimination elements of the project.

• Avoided traffic growth as railroad service becomes more convenient and flexible

• Reduction in train-horn soundings from grade crossing elimination

 Additionally, the land acquisition needs of the project seem to be focused more in the grade-crossing elements of the project, which are generally supported locally, than in the addition of the third track itself.  

The legislature has until June 30^th to approve or veto the 2005-2009 capital program. If vetoed, the Plan goes back the MTA with recommendations.

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