Zeldin: Plan to increase East End truck traffic by 3,000 trucks per year is a ‘serious safety issue’

More trucks on the North Fork? Not if Congressman Lee Zeldin has anything to say about it.

Zeldin wrote to the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council today requesting that the Cross Sound Enhancement Project be removed from a regional freight transportation plan passed in 2010, which has caused controversy since it came to the public’s attention last weekend.

The plan has a provision tucked inside that calls for the expansion of truck capacity on ferry services out of Orient that would increase tractor trailer traffic on local roads by an estimated 3,000 trucks each year.

The plan has been in effect since 2010, but it went unnoticed by local supervisors until an Orient resident discovered the obscure paragraph which describes the “Cross Sound Enhancement Project” in the plan’s 2015 update documents.

The project aims to allow tractor trailers to take the Orient-New London ferry line and use Long Island roads instead of the “congested” Interstate 95, which travels through Connecticut to the boroughs of New York City.

The project was proposed and sponsored by the Connecticut Department of Transportation.

“The plan is ill advised, as it obviously fails to properly assess the North Fork’s road system,” Zeldin wrote in his letter. “The North Fork road system cannot accommodate an additional 3,000 trucks per year that would travel the 30 miles of rural road between Orient Point and the entrance of I-495.”

He believes that the project poses a “serious safety issue” to Riverhead and Southold residents as well. “Route 25 is a two lane rural route, which has a designated bicycle route,” he said. “This leads to concerns regarding pedestrian safety during the summer months.”

Zeldin said he would work hard to “prevent this scheme from unfolding to the detriment of my constituents.”

Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone also both sent letters of opposition to the state council. Bellone, who is the council’s current co-chair, says he knew nothing about the project’s inclusion in the regional freight transportation plan when it was approved five years ago.

An overview of the proposed freight plan will be presented at two public meetings on March 18 at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., at the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council offices at 25 Beaver Street, Suite 201, New York, NY 10004.

The agency asks people who wish to attend to RSVP by calling 212-383-7200 or writing to Shawanna.Brown@dot.ny.gov.

Interested persons can also attend online webinars at those times.

Register for the 3 p.m. session here.

Register for the 6:30 session here.

Written comments are due in writing by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31 and may be mailed to:

New York Metropolitan Transportation Council
Attn: Howie Mann
Nassau/Suffolk Transportation Coordinating Committee
Room 6A19
250 Veterans Memorial Highway
Hauppauge, NY 11788

Comments may also be sent by email to:
howard.mann@dot.ny.gov