Long Island Railroad representatives and East End officials will meet at Riverhead Town Hall next month to discuss public transportation needs on the East End, State Assemblyman Fred Thiele announced yesterday.
Thiele and former Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, now a Democratic candidate for Congress, called a press conference at the Riverhead train station to announce the upcoming meeting.
Throne-Holst faces East Setauket businessman Dave Calone in a Democratic primary election next Tuesday. Thiele has endorsed Throne-Holst in the race; Calone did not attend the press conference. Also absent were officials from any of the East End towns and villages.
Thiele has for many years been an advocate of expanding public transportation on the East End, where public transit options for people moving around the twin forks continue to be limited at best and traffic congestion on local roadways is a perennial — and ever-worsening — problem.
“The roads on the North Fork and South Fork are over-capacity, while the Long Island Railroad is under-capacity,” Thiele said, referring to a 2009 report prepared by John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“We’re seeing this not just as a quality of life issue but as an economic issue,” he said. Traffic-clogged roadways will soon begin to have a negative impact on the important tourism industry, the assemblyman said.
“We’ve been ignored by the MTA and the Long Island Railroad for way too long,” Thiele said.
He renewed calls for an East End shuttle to transport workers on the twin forks and a restoration of year-round service from Ronkonkoma to Greenport, as well as enhanced Suffolk County Transit bus service to complement expanded rail service to connect rail travelers with their ultimate destinations.
Funding remains the biggest problem with implementing the needed changes, he said.
A bill introduced in the State Legislature in April that would have guaranteed to suburban counties a share of revenues from the MTA payroll tax died in committee in both the Assembly and Senate this session.
Thiele said he was a co-sponsor of the bill, which he said was “brought up near the end of the legislative session.” He said the bill would be reintroduced in the future.
Enacted in 2009, the MTA payroll tax of up to 34 cents per $100 of pay is levied on employers in seven suburban counties, including Suffolk, and in the five boroughs of New York City. The tax generates about $1.3 billion in revenue annually for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has a budget of about $13 billion. The MTA operates the LIRR, Metro North and the NYC subway and bus systems.
In January 2010, the MTA announced plans to eliminate all service on its main line east of Ronkonkoma effective that September, citing a $400 million budget shortfall it said had “developed” in December 2009. The elimination of service on the Greenport branch, which was part of the original main line of Long Island rail service connecting Hunts Point Market in L.I. City with Greenport in 1844, would save the MTA a projected $991,000 in annual operating costs, the authority said.
Residents and elected officials rallied against the cuts and the MTA capitulated, agreeing to continue weekday service on the main line to Greenport, but eliminating weekend service during the “non-summer” months — when, according to LIRR officials, ridership levels don’t justify the expense of running the North Fork trains.
Through the efforts of South Fork County Legislator Jay Schneiderman, who was elected Southampton town supervisor in November, Suffolk County Transit implemented Sunday bus service on the East End’s S92 route in 2011, initially on a trial basis. The Sunday service was expanded thereafter expanded into other areas of the county.
