Get Route 110 Suffolk bus rapid transit line plan rolling

For about seven decades, there’s been talk of improving public transit along one of Long Island’s busiest stretches: the Route 110 corridor.

Some plans never got off the ground. Others failed to garner significant ridership. Oftentimes, local advocates and elected leaders didn’t get past the “study” phase.

Now, Suffolk County officials are ready to try again, with an $80 million proposal to establish a bus rapid transit line along Route 110.

With the rare combination of ongoing development in the area, business and rider interest, and, potentially, the political will to make it happen, they may have finally found the right moment to get it done.

The idea has been a long time coming. In the 1960s, there were pleas for bus routes. In 1979, one Newsday Opinion essay writer suggested a monorail “extending from the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa to the Huntington railroad station.” In the 1980s, a task force tried to address traffic congestion with public transit responses. The 1990s brought efforts to establish a transit hub in East Farmingdale, and a coordinated, but limited, train-bus service out of Farmingdale’s Long Island Rail Road station, connecting the LIRR to specific businesses along Route 110. Then, more than 15 years ago, former Babylon Town Supervisor and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone began pushing the notion of bus rapid transit along Route 110, later introducing his Connect Long Island proposal, which would have created bus rapid transit routes along multiple north-south pathways, including Route 110.

That Bellone plan morphed into the latest proposal, which now seems to have the ingredients necessary for success. The details: Buses would run from Amityville to Huntington every 7½ or 15 minutes, with bus-only lanes and longer green lights to keep the buses moving. They’d connect three LIRR lines — at the Huntington, Farmingdale and Amityville stations, along with key locales in between. Importantly, they’d operate along a corridor now primed for new development, especially in areas like Melville and East Farmingdale.

The Federal Transit Administration has provided initial environmental approvals, federal and local funding is in place, and the county is seeking more through grants and other means. Beyond the money, however, there’s more to do. Such a plan would go even further if it could dovetail with the reopening of the old LIRR Republic station on the Ronkonkoma line. County and Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials should begin a conversation and evaluate the feasibility of reopening the station, especially in light of the ongoing attempts to redevelop the area around Republic Airport.

Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine has called the most recent bus rapid transit proposal “the next generation of transportation for Suffolk County.”

He’s right. Now, he’ll have to work with New York State to do what generations of local officials before him have been unable to do: Turn an old, great idea into a modern reality.