Elected officials and school district leaders are lobbying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to carry out much-needed train track improvements on the East End. They want the M.T.A. to include money in the next five-year capital plan, on which the agency is scheduled to vote in October, for a specific set of upgrades and repairs that would enable an expansion of the train program known as the South Fork Commuter Connection.
The goal, according to an Aug. 8 letter to the M.T.A. from the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association, is to take a meaningful bite out of the choking traffic conditions on Montauk Highway and County Road 39.
“Traffic congestion in our communities is a major and worsening concern for residents and visitors alike,” the letter reads. “This year has been the most severe on record and accompanied by a marked increase in constituent complaints. It is not only a quality-of-life issue, but also a matter of sustaining our region’s economy.”
According to Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., the price tag is somewhere around $260 million. “If you want to talk about a project that could make a big difference on the East End, that’s it,” he said in an interview this week. “This is our top priority for transportation, and when I think about capital projects, I think it’s one of the most important priorities of all.”
It’s a well-known fact that traffic is impacting the ability of businesses, municipalities, and schools to hire and retain employees. If the South Fork Commuter Connection is expanded, officials argue, more people would be able to leave their cars at home — also an environmental benefit — and take the train to work at times of day that make more sense.
“The road infrastructure can’t handle this many cars,” Adam Fine, superintendent of the East Hampton School District, said. “This is money well spent. It benefits everybody. It doesn’t just benefit educators. Getting more people out here by utilizing a more effective means of transportation works.”
In the East Hampton school system, one of the town’s largest employers with some 370 teachers and support staff, only between 30 and 50 employees take the train to work each school day. Mr. Fine has no doubt that number would increase significantly if commuter trains ran more frequently and lined up with people’s working hours. He said his peers in other districts, including Montauk, Hampton Bays, and Springs, are lining up behind the cause, too.
“It’s much easier to do sidings and make transportation better than to put in affordable housing,” another pervasive problem, Mr. Fine said. “There are fewer hurdles. . . . It’s a worthwhile endeavor.”
The East End Supervisors and Mayors Association is lobbying for a specific set of improvements: adding a new platform, sidings, signals, and crew facilities at the Speonk train station to accommodate more trains, adding a passenger platform at the Hampton Bays station to permit double-berthing and passing of trains, reconnecting a freight track to the main line at the Bridgehampton station and adding a pedestrian overpass there, adding signals and extending sidings at the East Hampton station, and adding signals to the existing sidings east of the Amagansett station.
“Collectively, we endorse these efforts and urge their inclusion in the M.T.A. capital program,” the supervisors and mayors wrote. “They are long overdue and should be expedited, particularly at a time when there are unprecedented federal infrastructure dollars available and the State Legislature has acted to stabilize M.T.A. finances. These improvements are needed now and cannot wait another five or 10 years to move forward.”
One challenge, Mr. Thiele said, is that the M.T.A. initially planned to pay for capital projects using revenue from the congestion tolling system that was to go into effect in June in Manhattan’s central business district. After countless hours of review and planning on the part of the M.T.A. and advocates, Gov. Kathy Hochul shelved that plan indefinitely at the last minute.
“When congestion pricing was put on pause, that created a hole in the M.T.A. budget for capital funding,” Mr. Thiele said. “The governor said she will come up with another plan by the end of the year.”
Mr. Fine said there are other creative money sources to consider, too. Could community preservation money be extended to transportation uses? Could a special transportation taxing district be created to support improvements in specific hamlets and villages?
“We need community support and pressure on the M.T.A. to do the track upgrades and infrastructure upgrades out here,” he said. “I don’t think it brings more people to the East End — it brings the work force.”
