By Steve Levy
We at the Center for Cost Effective Government are extremely proud that our call for Long Island to have its own transportation council has been adopted by a bipartisan group of elected officials, trade unions and business organizations.
Our center was commissioned by the Long Island Contractors Association to undertake a study to see how Long Island fared in receiving aid from the federal government for transportation needs. We found that, compared to comparably sized areas such as Chicago and Los Angeles, Long Island was woefully underfunded.
While all three regions host approximately 3 million residents, Los Angeles and Chicago are able to set forth tens of billions of dollars respectively in their long-term plans, thanks to generous federal aid packages. On the other hand, Long Island is slated for just a fraction of those amounts.
This is primarily because Long Island falls under the umbrella of New York City, which swallows up the lion’s share of the funding that comes through the New York Metropolitan Transit Council.
We recommended that Long Island break off from the city so that the federal government no longer includes those city funds as going toward Long Island.
It was heartening to see support from the Suffolk County executive and a bipartisan coalition of the congressional delegation, including Democrat Tom Suozzi and Republicans Nick LaLota and Andrew Garbarino. The state legislation to initiate the process of creating a Long Island Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) has been introduced by Assemblyman Steve Stern (D-Dix Hills) and state Senator Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood). A number of Republicans, including state Senator Mario Mattera and Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick, joined in.
Long Island union groups, including the Long Island Building Trades Council, lent their support, as did the major Long Island business organizations, such as the Long Island Association and the Hauppauge Industrial Association.
Through the introduction of this bill, the state legislature has taken the first step in allowing Long Island to break free and attain the level of funding it deserves to mitigate the gridlock on Long Island.
Steve Levy is Executive Director of the Center for Cost Effective Government, a fiscally conservative think tank. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.”