The following is the statement submitted by Legislator Richard Nicolello to the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) regarding the Truck and Rail Intermodal Facility (LITRIM). Re: Project Identification Number 0339.12 & 0339.13:

"I am submitting this comment in opposition to the segmentation of the Department of Transportation's review of the Long Island Truck and Rail Intermodal Facility (LITRIM) project from the Third Track project currently under consideration by the MTA. The two projects are inextricably linked. By separating the environmental review of these two projects by these two agencies, the State of New York is ensuring that the true impacts of neither project will be adequately considered.

"My Legislative District includes many communities that are adjacent to the "Main Line" of the LIRR, including Bellerose Terrace, Bellerose Village, Floral Park, Floral Park Centre, New Hyde Park, Garden City Park, Mineola, Carle Place and Westbury. The proposed Third Track project will have severe adverse impacts on all of these communities. While the MTA has asserted that the Third Track is needed to create greater capacity for reverse commuters, it is clear to everyone involved that the project is intended to increase freight traffic on the Main Line.

"It is the goal of both the New York State DOT and the MTA to shift freight traffic from Long Island's roads to the rails. Thus, the LITRIM project and the Third Track project are two of a number of projects on the drawing board to accomplish this goal. The draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) seeks to avoid a review of the regional environmental impacts by limiting itself to the current Main Line capacity and operation. This artificial separation is a disservice to the residents of Nassau County.

"The LITRIM proposal highlights certain benefits including 'highway congestion relief, economic development, and reduced vehicle emissions.' All agree that these are worthy goals. Yet, increased freight operation will have quite different impacts on the communities along the Main Line of the LIRR. These communities will suffer decreased residential homes values, loss of businesses, homes and tax base, environmental pollution from extensive construction, increased noise and vibration from trains carrying freight, and the potential for waste or other harmful cargoes traveling through the fully developed communities that surround the LIRR Main Line.

"In other words, by removing consideration of this project from consideration of the Third Track proposal, the DEIS claims benefits that will allegedly flow to some Long Islanders, while ignoring the harm that will be suffered by other Long Islanders. This segmentation of the related projects subverts the very purposes of the State Environmental Quality Review process. On behalf of the constituents I represent, I urge you to end the fiction by which these two projects are separated. The Third Track and the LITRIM must be considered together in order to evaluate the true environmental consequences."