By Hank Russell
A group of local elected officials has sent a letter to Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chairman/CEO Janno Lieber calling for the MTA and Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) to look at ways to improve their infrastructure when it comes to transportation and rail access in the Mastic-Shirley area.
The letter — signed by Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, Suffolk County Legislator James F. Mazzarella (R-Mastic), New York State Senator Dean Murray (R-Patchogue), New York State Assemblyman Joseph P. DeStefano (R-Medford) and Brookhaven Town Councilwoman Karen Dunne Kesnig — requested that the MTA and LIRR conduct a comprehensive engineering and transportation evaluation to identify potential improvements for additional north-south connectivity across the railroad right-of-way and help alleviate congestion in the area.
The request follows a September 16 meeting of the Mastic Park Civic Association, where residents and community leaders discussed traffic congestion throughout the area and the limited opportunities for motorists to travel between communities north and south of the railroad tracks. The officials said the existing transportation network funnels traffic toward a limited number of crossings, placing additional pressure on already congested roadways.
In the letter dated September 17 and obtained by Long Island Life & Politics, the officials told Lieber that the LIRR tracks in the Mastic and Shirley “bisect” the area, resulting in “extremely limited opportunities for vehicles to travel between the communities north and south of the tracks.” Madison Street and Hawthorne Street end at the LIRR right-of-way and continue on the other side of the tracks. This means motorists must go either east or west to reach Mastic Road or the William Floyd Parkway.
“This is more than an everyday traffic inconvenience,” they said in the letter. “The lack of adequate north-south connectivity has implications for emergency response, evacuation planning, public safety and the overall resiliency of the community. Mastic-Shirley is particularly vulnerable to coastal storms and flooding, making efficient and reliable evacuation routes essential.”
The officials said it gets worse during the summer as traffic from Smith Point County Park “places additional pressure on an already constrained transportation network. … That cannot continue to be accepted as the status quo.”
In the letter, the officials called on the MTA and LIRR to take the lead in solving this problem and perform the following:
- undertake a comprehensive engineering and transportation evaluation of the existing conditions in the Mastic-Shirley area
- identify viable improvements to provide additional connectivity across the railroad right-of-way
- relieve the significant pressure the limited existing crossings place on the surrounding community and roadway network
- establish a clear path toward funding and implementing those improvements
In addition, they wanted the agencies’ representatives to visit the area so they can see the conditions up close and personal, especially during rush hour on the weekday or traffic to Smith Point County Park on the weekend.
“Seeing these conditions firsthand will provide important context that cannot be fully conveyed through traffic counts, maps or correspondence,” the officials said. “We are prepared to meet with your team on site, identify the areas of greatest concern and discuss the challenges residents and emergency responders face as a result of the existing transportation network.”
LILP reached out to the MTA for comment.
In response, MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan said that it is the agency’s belief that “the best way to improve safety and traffic throughput is to eliminate at-grade crossings, not create additional ones.” the LIRR eliminated eight grade crossings in 2019 through 2022 as part of the megaproject to add a third track to the main line in Nassau County.
“That is why, in conjunction with Suffolk County, the MTA is studying ways to eliminate four separate crossings,” Donovan said. “The MTA also welcomes the construction of underpasses or overpasses to replace at-grade crossings, provided they are funded through non-MTA sources by the appropriate road jurisdiction.”