By GREGORY ZELLER //
From the Third Time’s a Charm Department comes the Long Island Rail Road’s long-debated “Third Track,” finally open for business.
Designed to dramatically improve system-wide capacity – and uncork a nearly 10-mile bottleneck between Hicksville and the Queens border, a legendary pressure point for LIRR service disruptions and delays – the addition is now running alongside the two tracks of the railroad’s main line.
At least, its first section – from Queens Village to Merillon Avenue in Garden City – is open, with additional Third Track segments set to follow.
The project was championed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who overcame years of NIMBYism and political infighting to push the Third Track forward. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved a roughly $2 billion deal in 2017 to design and build the LIRR’s first significant expansion in decades.
Costs have since risen closer to $2.6 billion – and it was the disgraced Cuomo’s successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, taking the victory lap Monday during a “ceremonial first ride” alongside MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber, who was nominated for the post shortly after Hochul assumed office.
Taking credit: New MTA Chairman Janno Lieber (left) and Gov. Kathy Hochul celebrate the Third Track.
The current governor, who called the Third Track “long overdue,” predicted that “hundreds of thousands of riders every single day are going to benefit from this.”
“Just about 30-some years in the making,” Hochul said, after that “very fun” first ride. “Finally, we’re here to celebrate this tremendous milestone.”
Despite that $2.6 million price tag, Hochul – who said construction crews have “been working on this since I became governor intensely” – pronounced the Third Track project more than $100 million under budget and well ahead of schedule, with another segment set to open this month and a third in October.
“I want to thank everyone who’s been involved in this: the community members, the stakeholders and the men and women of labor,” the governor added. “So, now I’m not going to call you ‘on time, on budget’ anymore – I’m going to expect you to exceed all of my expectations.”
Andrew Cuomo: Where credit is due.
The Third Track project involved more than the creation and installation of the track itself. The work – which incorporated various environmental-protection protocols – included the elimination of eight street-level railroad crossings, improvements to seven existing rail bridges and the installation of new signaling equipment throughout Nassau County.
Several of the affected railroad stations, meanwhile, have been made over with WiFi service, USB charging stations, new weatherproof shelters, longer platforms – allowing riders to stay in their car before disembarking – and even commuter-parking improvements.
Lieber, who took the press-event podium after Hochul, called the first-stage opening a “really, really big day for the MTA, and more importantly for Long Island.”
“It’s been a massive undertaking – a two-and-a-half-billion-dollar megaproject over a 10-mile stretch through the most developed part of Long Island,” the MTA chairman marveled. “And it was undertaken always working closely with local communities, to make sure that we were minimizing impact to people’s everyday lives.
“Third Track proves that we are delivering projects at the MTA differently than in the past,” Lieber added. “As the motto goes, ‘Faster, better, cheaper.’”
