By Dan Murphy
WESTCHESTER, NY — For many Westchester residents, the most important public transportation system in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which gets them into the city via the Metro-North Railroad, and then to their workplace in Manhattan by subway xxxxxxxxx. Ever since the “summer of hell,” which had railroad line closures and lengthy delays, commuters have been playing a game of chance on the subways in the hopes that they can get to work on time, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio blame each other and search for a couple of billion dollars to fix the mess.
With this MTA-subway mess as a backdrop, Cuomo presented his budget plan last month, which has a $4 billion deficit to close, and proposed a tunnel running from Westchester to Long Island. Two years ago, Cuomo allocated $5 million for a study to be conducted for the tunnel, or funnel as some call it.
Now, with a $55 billion price tag, most Westchester residents are telling their state representatives “no” to the tunnel-funnel because of the price tag, traffic issues, and environmental concerns. One Westchester resident, Dan Schorr, who is also a candidate for State Senate in the 37th District, which includes all of the Sound Shore communities that would be affected by the funnel, jumped on what many believe is simply a nonsensical idea.
“No. The Long Island to Rye ‘funnel’ isn’t a new Playland attraction – it’s a traffic nightmare, and it’s coming down the pike if we don’t stop it,” said Schorr. “How about spending those infrastructure dollars on safeguarding our drinking water, fixing our crumbling bridges, and filling our potholes? Those projects may not be sexy, but they’re supposed to be the priority of state government.”
Schorr also highlighted the fact that on the other side of Westchester, work continues on the Tappan Zee Bridge-Mario Cuomo Bridge – a $5 billion project that has yet to be completed or paid for.
“The Tappan Zee Bridge had to be replaced, but there’s no need for a traffic funnel from Long Island to Westchester,” said Schorr. “Let’s put away the pencils and schematics, bid the consultants adieu, and get back to fixing the things we and our children use every day. Those are expensive enough.”
Westchester County Legislators Jim Maisano, Catherine Parker and Nancy Barr issued a joint statement on the proposed new tunnel:
“As the Westchester County legislators that represent the districts on the Sound Shore, we remain open-minded on the proposed tunnel from Long Island to Westchester under the Long Island Sound, but we are opposed to a request for proposals being done by New York State, based only on its own study, without any input at all from Westchester’s elected officials, municipalities, community and environmental groups, and residents. There needs to be much more review and due diligence conducted by all interested and affected parties before New York State starts reviewing any bids to build this tunnel. We will push for more transparency and an open and objective review process. The communities we represent need more information about this proposed tunnel, and therefore, we will reach out to our colleagues in the New York State government to offer our assistance in setting up the necessary review meetings here in Westchester County.”
While Maisano, Parker and Barr remain “open minded,” which is generous to the governor’s plan, when we wrote about the idea two years ago when Cuomo spent $5 million to study the idea, here’s what we wrote and what some Sound Shore legislators said about the idea:
“I think we can build a tunnel from Long Island to either the Bronx, Westchester or Connecticut,” said the governor. “It will shave hours and hours from a commutation standpoint.”
The concept of a Long Island Sound Shore bridge or tunnel has been proposed by famous New Yorkers, including Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and New York parks and roads creator Robert Moses. None of those proposals ever got started. The most recent Sound Shore span concept came in 2007, when a Long Island developer proposed a 16-mile tunnel from Long Island to Rye at a $10 billion cost.
Cuomo’s plan was questioned by Sound Shore elected officials and government groups. The Empire Center posted online: “Talk of even studying a new L.I. Sound crossing is especially questionable given the governor’s failure to detail how he intends to pay for the one big mega-project he actually has under construction,” referring to the $3.9 billion Tappan Zee Bridge project, which is well underway but still has questions about how it will be paid for and how much the toll will be for Westchester residents.
Assemblyman Steve Otis, who represents Rye and the Sound Shore, opposed the plan when he was mayor of Rye in 2007, and questions its viability today. “What we found back when the tunnel had been proposed previously, specifically for Westchester, was it brought Interstate 95 and I-287 to volumes of vehicles that would create traffic failures, and any study for the region would demonstrate that again,” said Otis.
Assemblyman David Buchwald added: “Obviously, the details of what’s being looked at are going to be important,” and the new study “can help answer once and for all whether this is an idea worth pursuing.”
To understand the opposition that a Rye-Sound Shore tunnel would face in Westchester, one only has to look at the opposition to recent proposals to enhance and expand Playland Amusement Park. The powerful and influential Rye, and neighboring communities, wanted no part of a year-round Playland, or an expanded footprint that would turn Playland into a mini-Great Adventure because of traffic and noise concerns.
Those concerns about Playland pale in comparison to the millions of cars that would travel through the Sound Shore tunnel, and negatively impact the lives of thousands of Westchester residents and turn I-287 into a parking lot. Because it will never happen, Westchester residents would like to see a better use of the $5 million proposed to study a tunnel – which is nothing more than a pipe dream.
State Sen. (now County Executive) George Latimer summed up the sentiment of most Sound Shore, and Westchester, residents by stating: “Whatever the benefit to Long Island, Westchester residents see a real downside in the creation of this tunnel. The dramatic increase of traffic on I-287, the disruption and dislocation to the lives of shoreline residents, and the potential for environmental impacts on the L.I. Sound make this unwelcome news for the people who live in our home area. And it remains to be seen if this project is even remotely feasible financially, given construction costs.”
