Ridding LI of grade crossings
For decades, the attention of Newsday’s editorial board has drifted inexorably to elections at this time of year.
That was true in the second year of the newspaper’s existence, 1941, when the board asked several public officials to weigh in on an issue that still bedevils Long Islanders — grade crossings of the Long Island Rail Road.
In an Oct. 20, 1941 piece called “For and Against,” the board looked at a proposal on that November’s statewide ballot that called for the diversion of $60 million in previously approved bonding for the elimination of grade crossings to be spent instead on the “construction and reconstruction of state highways and parkways.”
Joseph Wackerman, the Democratic candidate for Nassau County presiding supervisor that year, was adamant: “If the diversion bill interferes in any way with the desperately needed Nassau grade crossing elimination I am very much against it … The present highways on Long Island are perfect; perfectly adequate and perfect in looks, but our crossings are horrible. I say eliminate all of the crossings and then worry about the roads.”
Alas, New Yorkers did not agree with Wackerman, and approved the proposal, 59.8% to 40.2%. That money is the equivalent of nearly $1.2 billion today. And even after the recent elimination of eight grade crossings via the Third Track project — the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says a single elimination costs about $50 million nowadays — there still are nearly 300 left, creating headaches and frustration just as they did in 1941.
Twenty-six years later, another transportation bonding proposal appeared on the ballot. Proposition No. 1 called for the state to issue $2.5 billion in bonds “for improvement of highways and mass transit.” The state highway network would get $1.25 billion, mass transit $1 billion, and general aviation airports $250 million.
In an Oct. 20, 1967 piece entitled “For Better Transportation,” the editorial board cast an enthusiastic “yes” vote, calling the proposal “of vital importance to Long Islanders.”
Specifically, the board argued that the money would “permit the speeding and modernizing of the Long Island Rail Road, as well as the swift completion of the Long Island Expressway, the Wantagh-Oyster Bay Expressway and Sunrise Highway.”
The board rooted its appeal in the everyday experience of Long Islanders.
“Long Island knows only too well the toll in time, temper and the movement of goods caused by inadequate highways,” the board wrote. “Long Island knows only too well how essential it is to transform the Long Island Rail Road into a fast, efficient carrier that will encourage commuting motorists to park their cars and to ride the train instead. A ‘yes’ vote is essential if Long Island is to continue to develop in an orderly fashion.”
This proposal, like the earlier one, passed easily, with 58.2% in favor and 41.8% opposed.
The generations of Long Islanders that followed undoubtedly would agree with the board’s 1967 assessment that “the economic well being of the entire state, and especially the metropolitan region, is heavily dependent on good transportation.”
But it’s also beyond doubt that there would be lively debate about whether that $2.5 billion produced adequate highways, a fast and efficient LIRR, or a region that developed in an orderly fashion.
— Michael Dobie and Amanda Fiscina-Wells
Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
