Long Island Contractors’ Association Supports LIRR Expansion Project

Long Island Contractors’ Association (LICA) Executive Director Marc Herbst announced the Association’s strong support for the Long Island Railroad Expansion Project at the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) Public Meeting at the David S. Mack Student Center on the Hofstra University Campus.

In relating the Third Track Project to the recent completion of the Second Avenue Subway Herbst said, “For what seemed like a generation, the residents along that subterranean stretch of construction in Manhattan had to live with the constant presence of a massive underground public works project. Deep beneath their feet, dynamite was set off to propel excavation. There were street closings, barricades, construction equipment and a convoy of trucks required to build the subway beneath them.”

Herbst continued, “But as a result of the completed project, the area has become one of the most sought after residential and retail addresses in Manhattan. The street surface, underground utilities and related infrastructure are now all 21st Century standards.”

“The Third Track project won’t require anywhere near that level of disruption. If this project falls victim to politics – we all lose. The communities along the right way will continue to live next to the Main Line. The new double track out east and the East Side Access in Manhattan guarantee that train volumes will increase. But there will be no means to resolve any of their current issues,” said Herbst.

Herbst added, “Long Island will lose. It will not be able to make effective use of new mass transportation assets and our future will lose its ability to strengthen the region that needs to be reinvented to recognize the realities of the 21st Century.”