Late Friday Links 3/7

We're another Friday closer to getting away from this Winter, and I'm counting down the days until we get some warmer weather for once.  Anyways, here are some Late Friday Links to finish off your workweek:

• After Sandy: LI to get $240M for infrastructure 
• Many Long Island Communities are slated to get funding for infrastructure improvements from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.  South shore towns like Long Beach, Oceanside, and Freeport are among the towns who will be getting the biggest shares of the money.  Some of the money will be going towards raising LIRR equipment (the things like traction power and signal system, not the actual tracks or railcard) off of the ground to reduce impact after flooding events like Hurricane Sandy.
• Town wants state to scrap plans at contaminated Yaphank LIRR site
• After hearing not long ago that the LIRR would work to clean up a site that had been contaminated by their operations decades ago.  Fears are that the remediation work will either not do enough or will impact the nearby "ecologically unstable" Carmans River, which the Town of Brookhaven has been working to preserve over the past few years.  Currently, the MTA is kicking around the letter of protest, but have not made any decision either way just yet.
• Belmont Park redevelopment decision due soon, says state
• Plans to redevelop parts of the grounds at Belmont Park, including plans for a new soccer stadium for the revived New York Cosmos soccer team, are due to the state soon.  It would be a pretty good place for a stadium, especially with the LIRR station so close!  If only they could use that station better.
• MTA seeks second Obama emergency board in LIRR contract impasse
• The MTA has officially requested a second Presidential Emergency Board in an effort to smooth over talks with the LIRR's many unions after negotiations hit a dead end in October.  This officially pushes back the earliest possible start date for a potential LIRR strike to mid-July of this year, so there will be no strike this month as we might have been warned.
• Mayor should consider Rockaway line reactivation
• An open letter to Mayor DeBlasio from Phillip McManus, president of the Queens Public Transit Committee about how the mayor should reconsider reactivating the LIRR's former Rockaway Beach Branch.
• Flower Hill plans village bike route
• Flower Hill, a neighboring village to Plandome, "allocated $3,000 for consultant services to prepare an application for a federal grant that would enable the village to construct a bicycle path" to the LIRR's Plandome station.  It's great to see communities taking an interest in getting their residents out of their cars all-together, in addition to taking public transportation.  All the NIMBYs in Port Washington should take note!
• Islip Town wants parking meters in Bay Shore commercial areas
• Shortly after we learned that the Town of Hempstead has approved a plan that would require resident permits to park at the Merrick station, we move a bit further east along the Montauk Branch to Bay Shore, where the Town of Islip wants to install paring meters at the station (and in other parts of the town) there.  The town says they need to start charging for parking in some parts of Bay Shore in order to be able to keep up with the expense of maintaining the lots.  Just like in Merrick (and the majority of LIRR stations), the towns own the parking lots at the train stations and they are responsible for maintenance, snow removal, etc.  The town plans to still offer a flat-fee pass that commuters and residents can get to park at the station and in town.
• Even More LIRR Links

Barring another major snowstorm this weekend, the Mainline Concrete Tie Project will knock out westbound service at Queens Village, Hollis, and Hillside for all of this weekend (and a bunch of other weekends in March and April).  The work begins around 10:00pm tonight and runs through Monday Morning.  We were also supposed to have some schedule adjustments on several late-night trains due to ESA High Tension Cable work in HAROLD interlocking. The outage was mentioned in the February LIRR Committee Meeting notes, but we have not heard another word about it from the LIRR since.  There's no special timetables or announcements online about it, so I doubt it is going to be happening this weekend.  The outage was scheduled to occur on multiple weekends through April, so we'll see if they do come out with anything in the coming days.

As always, the Trackwork Calendar has the latest on planned service changes on the LIRR.  Enjoy your weekend!