Main Street grade crossing in Mineola closes to traffic permanently

The final highway grade crossing on the Main Line between Floral Park and Hicksville has closed to traffic—as of 12:01a this morning, February 27, the Main Street grade crossing in Mineola has closed permanently to traffic.  Similar to the South 12th Street in New Hyde Park, this grade crossing is being eliminated outright and is not being replaced with a roadway underpass—motorists will instead be detoured one block in either direction, to the Mineola Boulevard overpass about 450 feet to the west or the under-construction Willis Avenue underpass less than 500 feet to the east.  A new pedestrian overpass with elevators will be built at this location for people who need to cross to the opposite side on foot.

The last standing highway grade crossing on the Main Line
is closing in Mineola (Photo: The LIRR Today)

This closure of the final highway grade crossing is a big milestone for the project, as cars no longer intermingle with trains at grade anywhere on the Main Line between Queens and east of Hicksville.  All seven highway grade crossings along the project corridor have now either been eliminated already (Covert Avenue and New Hyde Park Road in New Hyde Park, School Street in Westbury, and Urban Avenue in New Cassel), have been closed outright (South 12th Street in New Hyde Park and now Main Street in Mineola), or have been closed and are in the process of being eliminated (work is continuing on the Willis Avenue elimination just to the east of Main Street now).  

The last remaining grade crossing along the corridor is the Mineola station pedestrian grade crossing, which will continue to remain open for now (subject to intermittent closures for construction activity in the area).

(Photo: The LIRR Today)

The Main Street grade crossing has always been a headache for the railroad—as it cuts across the point where the Oyster Bay Branch is diverging from the Main Line, this crossing has required a custom-built crossing structure to weave between the criss-crossing rails, and sensitive switch components and rails are subjected to constant impacts to car wheels traversing the crossing.  Given that there are crossings that have already been eliminated one block to the east and west, eliminating this crossing outright makes quite a bit of sense.