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Long Islanders Offer a New Direction to NYS DOT
Over 100 people from around the region turned out for a special meeting of the NYS Department of Transportation's new “Advisory Panel on Transportation Policy for 2025”. The purpose of this committee is to gather input to shape new regional transportation plans.
Attendees included mass transit and government officials, regional transportation groups, community representatives, business representatives, and other interests. Their primary call was for better coordination between agencies, such at the DOT and the MTA.
Another major issue that must be addressed is pedestrian safety. Of 1500 areas across the nation surveyed by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, Nassau County was rated as the 14 th and Suffolk County the 37 th most deadly for walkers and bicyclists. Another recent study conducted by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign identified New York State's top 20 roads for pedestrian fatalities. The top five deadliest roads are all on Long Island.
Major voices calling for improved traffic and pedestrian safety were Jon Orcutt of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, Connie Kepert, leader of Affiliated Brookhaven Civic Organizations (ABCO), and Lisa Tyson of the Long Island Progressive Coalition.
VLI Director, Eric Alexander, also presented, calling for:
- The scrapping of LITP2000. This transportation program fails to address Long Island's needs, threatening to make them worse through obsolete, short-sighted, multi-billion dollar “solutions”.
- An Island-wide audit of pedestrian safety hotspots by an independent firm that possesses specialized expertise in walkability.
- DOT to update its thinking and incorporate cutting-edge Smart Growth principles. The agency's models are clearly outdated, relying on solutions that have been proven ineffective and municipal data that is routinely 8-10 years old.
- State incentives for municipalities to embrace transit-oriented land-use codes. Long Island will never be able to even begin easing it's transportation woes until it makes effort to better coordinate land-use and transportation planning.
While there's always plenty to complain about, positive steps that DOT has taken deserve recognition. We applaud them for creating the $2.7Million pedestrian safety fund, and encourage them to double it. Dave Glass of NYS DOT is been an excellent administrator who shows real interest in improving pedestrian and bicycle safety on Long Island. We also commend New York State's Quality Communities Initiative, though the products of that effort have yet to be realized here in Region 10.
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