MTA boss touts LIRR expansion to East Side

MTA executive director Jay Walder made a pitch Friday for the Long Island Rail Road's East Side Access project, which he said could help turn Long Island into "a business center" with greater access to New York City.

The approximately $8.1-billion project, scheduled to be completed in 2018, is about $800 million over budget and some 18 months behind schedule, according to Federal Transit Administration projections. The MTA, however, maintains the project remains within budget and on schedule. But also weighing against the project is the state's $10-billion deficit in its 2011 budget. About $1 billion of the project cost must still be found before the project is completed.

Walder, one of three panelists at a Transportation Summit at the Melville Marriott organized by the Long Island Contractors' Association, said the "biggest challenge" is to "regain our aspirations," which seem to have been lost in the decades of squabbling over funding and other issues surrounding the East Side Access, which will connect the LIRR's Main Line in Queens to a new LIRR terminal at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. Currently, the LIRR terminates in Manhattan only at Penn Station.

"I think we have under way a program of enormous significance," Walder told an audience of about 100. "We've been very focused on funding," Walder said, "and we should still be. But it's time to turn our vision . . . [to] focus on Long Island development."

But aside from funding issues, Walder said, there is "NIMBYISM." Thomaston village residents object to MTA plans to extend a nearby "pocket track" -- a parallel track where trains could pull off and idle. Residents say the extended track would contribute to noise pollution. The track would help give the LIRR capacity for direct service from Great Neck to Grand Central Terminal. LIRR president Helena Williams said the line will explore sound-absorbent materials to mitigate any noise.

Newly appointed state Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald and Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Charles J. Fuschillo Jr. (R-Merrick) acknowledged state funding for infrastructure projects would be harder to come by, but said they were confident money would be found for road improvements and new projects.