What a difference a couple days makes… This time last week the prospects for the LIRR’s plan to eliminate grade crossings on the Main Line between Floral Park and Hicksville and add a third track didn’t look super bright. An imminent veto of the MTA’s proposed Capital Program amendment that included funding for the controversial project by the Capital Program Review Board prompted the MTA to withdraw its proposal and immediately resubmit it, buying them another 30 days to win support for the project.
But late last Tuesday, things turned around pretty quick when, at the direction of the Senate Temporary President, Sen. John Flanagan, Sen. Martin Golden, the State Senate’s representative on the CPRB, sent a letter approving the MTA’s capital program amendment. Sen. Flanagan hopped on the third track train less than two weeks after nearly having his chamber’s representative kill the amendment for good. What wheeling and dealing it took to get the Senate’s thumbs-up is not quite know…
In his statement announcing the decision, Sen. Flanagan stressed carefully the need for not only long-term expansion, but upgrades and repairs to the existing infrastructure in the short-term, saying in part:
“There have always been short and long-term issues to consider, and it was wrong for some to pit the promise of something new against incredibly important repairs that exist every day in the lives of real people and real taxpayers.
“We can and should have transformative investments that benefit Long Island - - that goes without saying. However, on a very basic level the MTA must get people safely from point A to point B. That too is extraordinarily, and perhaps beyond, important…
“There is more work to be done to ensure Long Island Rail Road commuters have the short-and-long-term transit fixes they need and deserve, and it is my hope that Senate Republicans can be part of the solution…"
The MTA swears that it can effectively manage the balance between short-term repairs and long-term expansion. In a Newsday editorial, MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said “we don’t have to choose between short-term fixes and long-term expansion. We can do both.” To date, the MTA has failed to effectively strike that balance, getting us to the situation where we are today. Past performance is the best predictor of future success, so I have strong doubts that they can effectively do both…but I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
With the passage of the amendment, the MTA is arranging funding for some of those long-term expansion projects, but they are also further piling onto their massive debt load, adding about $1.6 billion in new debt, and bringing the MTA’s outstanding debt load to about $42.5 billion. And while they say they are going to do both, the amendment did cut $291 million in funding for other short-term LIRR projects, like station construction for Babylon and Hunterspoint Avenue, components of Phase II of the Jamaica Capacity Improvements, switch and signal equipment upgrades at BABYLON Interlocking, and the signalization of the Main Line between Ronkonkoma and Greenport.
With the passage of the amendment, the MTA can now move forward with awarding contracts for the project. While I still think there are some significant flaws with the project and that we could get a much better bang for our buck with some other alternatives—like four Main Line tracks instead of three, or a restoration of the Central Branch through East Meadow, Levittown, and Plainedge—if they were properly evaluated. But I will eagerly wait and watch to see if this project is the silver bullet many of its proponents talk it up to be, or if this will be another ESA-style money sieve that leaves us with the same old problems, and $2 or more billion poorer. My fingers are crossed!
