RPA Weighs In On Cross Sound Link
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- January
- 25
A couple of weeks ago, I called the Regional Planning Association to see if they had an opinion on a proposal by Garden City developer Vincent Polimeni build a $10 billion, 16-mile tunnel that would from Syosset, Long Island to Rye. A six-mile length of the tunnel would be underneath the Long Island Sound.
The ambitious project would be privately funded and completed by the year 2025, if Polemeni secures all the approvals.
The RPA, which does extensive transportation studies in the tri-state metropolitan area and issues recommendations told me at the time that they hadn’t formulated any thoughts about the Cross Sound Link.
But today, they did issue a statement.
It said, in part: “While the proponents are projecting a number of substantial beneifits, there are also a number of unexplored public costs.”
The RPA said those costs and benefits would need to undergo “substantial scrutiny” before the project can get a go ahead.
The follwing are the RPA’s concerns:
•What would be the actual travel time savings and who would be the primary beneficiaries?
•How will this affect traffic throughout the transportation network, particularly on I-95 and I-287 and on local roads?
•What are the public sector costs? Even a privately funded road would have major public sector financial considerations because of its impact on transportation, land use and related services.
•How would it impact land use on both sides of the Long Island Sound?
•If a tunnel were to be built, is this the best location and configuration? Other alternatives should be compared for transportation, economic and environmental outcomes.
•What would be the actual CO2 emissions, and is making it easier to stay in our cars really the best way to reduce these emissions?
•Where and how would you vent the tunnel, and what would be the impacts on the Sound and neighboring communities?
•What if the funding ends before the project is completed? How would you structure a bonding mechanism to insure that financial responsibility doesn’t revert to the public?
•Who would be in control of the road, the state, the developer or some other entity?
•Will it use state police?
•Who handles emergencies?
•Will property owners need to be paid for the use of their underground property rights?
•Where will material from the tunnel be dumped?
•What will be the impact on sealife from underground boring?
This entry was posted
on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 8:18 pm by Phil Reisman.
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Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
