LIRR 3rd track may yield billions for region, advocates say

Ten miles of new track on the Long Island Rail Road could generate $5.6 billion for the region, supporters of the LIRR’s third-track proposal said Tuesday.

Addressing the Long Island Regional Planning Council Tuesday at a Hofstra University meeting, Dave Kapell, co-chairman of the newly formed Right Track for Long Island Coalition, said the plan to construct a third track on the LIRR’s Main Line between Floral Park and Hicksville would bring several major benefits to the region, by adding $3 billion in personal income, $103 billion in property tax revenue and $5.6 billion to Long Island’s gross regional product 10 years after it’s built.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in January resurrected the $1 billion project, abandoned by the LIRR in 2008 amid local opposition.

Kapell, who used figures from a 2014 Long Island Index study, said the third track would generate the money by expanding tax bases in Nassau and Suffolk counties, saving commuters’ time traveling back and forth from Manhattan, and attracting 35,000 new residents to Long Island — 44 percent of whom would be between the ages of 25 and 44.

The project would also create 2,250 new construction jobs and 14,000 total jobs, according to Kapell, who called it “the most important infrastructure investment on Long Island.”

“The two tracks that exist now along the 10-mile project corridor are the same two tracks that were laid in 1844. The population then was 50,000. Today it’s 3 million,” said Kapell, whose coalition already has 120 members, including major employers, research institutions and universities. “If we don’t invest in [the LIRR’s] modernization over time, we’re going to suffer the consequences as a region.”

Long Island Regional Planning Council chairman John Cameron Jr. pledged his group’s support for the project, saying he believes “Long Island will not be able to survive without third track.” But council member Barbara Donno — president of the Nassau County Village Officials Association — voiced the concerns of several communities abutting the LIRR’s Main Line.

“I think the issue right now is the development of the plan. There is no plan. It’s a concept . . . I don’t know that anyone can at this point oppose or approve. The details are what’s important, and the questions need to be answered,” Donno said. “Yes, there’s benefits for all of Long Island. But there’s going to be impact to these villages. And what benefit are they getting?”

Kapell and Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member Mitchell Pally of Stony Brook, who attended the meeting, both promised their agencies’ support in working with those communities to minimize the impact.

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.