1.0 PURPOSE AND NEED FOR THE PROPOSED ACTION...By the end of that century trucking had become the preferred means of shipping. Today, with deregulation, new shipping technologies,

Long Island Truck-Rail Intermodal Facility 1-1 May 2007

1.0 PURPOSE AND NEED FOR THE PROPOSED ACTION

The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), proposes to construct and operate the Long Island Truck-Rail Intermodal (LITRIM) Facility in order to improve the efficiency of freight service to Long Island and reduce the region’s dependency on long-haul trucking.

The proposed facility site is located on a portion of the property formerly used by the Pilgrim State Hospital in the Town of Islip, New York, which lies within Suffolk County. By utilizing the existing Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) Main Line and an abandoned rail spur, freight would be delivered via train to the facility and then transferred to trucks for delivery to businesses in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Currently, freight movement on Long Island is handled almost exclusively by trucks. Only one percent of freight delivered to Long Island is currently handled by rail, compared to a national average of almost 15 percent. With a population of 2.8 million people, Long Island has a significant consumer market that demands the shipping and receiving of an estimated 45.2 million tons of commodity annually.

Long Island, as its name suggests, is a linear island connected to the mainland with tunnels and bridges only at its most western end. Traffic to and from Long Island, including long haul trucks carrying freight bound for Long Island, must travel through the heavily congested New York metropolitan area. This bottleneck constrains freight movement, reducing delivery reliability and increasing costs. The current system’s dependence on highway tunnels and bridges as its only means to transport goods to Long Island communities also poses a security risk for the region.

The alternative is to deliver freight by rail in conjunction with short-haul trucking for local distribution to improve the efficiency, quality, and cost of freight service for Long Island’s producers, shippers, and consumers in both Nassau and Suffolk counties. Diversion of long-haul truck trips to rail would also serve to reduce truck Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), relieving congestion and reducing vehicle emissions.

The following sections provide background information and discussion of:

Environmental classification and agencies involved;

Project site location and site description;

Project evolution;

Existing need for improvements;

Project goals and objectives;

Draft Environmental Impact Statement Purpose and Need


Proposed action; and

Project planning context.

1.1 ENVIRONMENTAL CLASSIFICATION AND LEAD, COOPERATING, INVOLVED, AND PARTICIPATING AGENCIES

The project is classified as Class I project under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), and a Non-Type II (Environmental Impact Statement [EIS]) project under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR). Pursuant to Article 8 of the Environmental Conservation Law of New York State, NYSDOT prepared a Notice of Environmental Determination in June 2004 stating that the project may have a significant effect on the environment and, therefore, an EIS would be prepared. A Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an EIS was published in the Federal Register on June 10, 2004 (Appendix C).

FHWA is the lead federal agency for the NEPA process. NYSDOT, the agency with principal responsibility for carrying out or approving the project within the State, is the lead agency pursuant to Part 15 of Title 17 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of New York State. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be a cooperating agency under NEPA, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) will be a SEQR involved agency.

1.2 PROJECT LOCATION AND SITE DESCRIPTION

Centrally located on Long Island in the Town of Islip, the project site is currently owned by the State of New York (Figure 1-1). It consists of approximately 105 acres of land on property previously occupied by the Pilgrim State Hospital. The site is situated in the southwest corner of the original Pilgrim property (Figure 1-2).

The northeastern portion of the original Pilgrim property has been sold to a private developer who has proposed the Heartland Town Square project, a mixed-use residential, commercial, and retail development. The central portion of the original Pilgrim property is occupied by the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center, which will remain in operation.

The proposed freight facility at the Pilgrim site would be designed to handle both containerized intermodal freight and bulk freight such as lumber, building materials, and paper goods. The facility would include: loading tracks, where containers or freight are removed from or placed on flat cars; a trailer and container storage area; a storage and loading area for bulk freight; an equipment maintenance area; and an administrative building and control gate. Receiving yard rail tracks connecting the southeastern corner of the project site with the LIRR Main Line would be constructed in the same location as an existing rail spur that once serviced the Pilgrim State Hospital’s coal-fed power plant. This spur, which presently is not used, would be expanded and upgraded to connect the proposed facility to the LIRR.

Adjacent to the western portion of the proposed project site are three electric utility facilities: the New York Power Authority (NYPA) Brentwood Generating Facility, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) Edgewood Generating Facility, and the LIPA Brentwood Substation. The areas immediately adjacent to the site within the Pilgrim property are generally unoccupied and sparsely vegetated. To the east of the proposed site it the Sagtikos Parkway.

LONG ISLAND TRUCK-RAILINTERMODAL FACILITY SITE

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The Pilgrim site alternative was found to be the best possible location because:

The site is currently owned by New York State and is currently unused;

The site has direct access to the Long Island Rail Road;

The site is easily accessible to the Long Island Expressway;

The site is centrally located near the core of Long Island’s developed areas; and

The site provides sufficient space to construct and operate an intermodal freight facility that can meet Long Island’s projected demand for increased freight deliveries.

1.3 PROJECT EVOLUTION

In January 1999, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC) produced a white paper at the request of NYSDOT to highlight the potential use of the site as an intermodal freight facility (see Appendix D for a copy of this paper). At that time, the Pilgrim site was recognized by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) as a critical opportunity for the development of an intermodal freight facility on Long Island because the site was owned by New York State and available for alternate use.

In addition to the Pilgrim property, the white paper also evaluated 17 other potential locations for an intermodal yard on Long Island. These properties were identified based on information contained in an earlier Long Island Rail Road Freight Business Plan and on the recommendations of the Cargo Subcommittee of the Long Island Transportation Plan (2000). The Pilgrim property was further evaluated in a feasibility study, Pilgrim Intermodal Freight Transportation Center, Study of the Feasibility of Developing an Intermodal Freight Transportation Center at Pilgrim State Hospital Property on Long Island (June 2001), conducted by NYSDOT. Based on these reports, the Pilgrim site was selected for development as an intermodal facility.

The community was asked to participate in the scoping process at a NEPA Public Scoping Meeting held at Brentwood North Middle School on June 30, 2004. In February 2005, a Stakeholder Working Group (SWG) comprised of a broad range of neighborhood groups, local business organizations, potential facility users, and agency officials was assembled to provide input to the project and to the development of the EIS. Members of the SWG, as well as participants in the public scoping meeting, cited several of the same properties evaluated in the NYMTC white paper, including the Pilgrim site, as possible locations for an intermodal freight facility. Participants also suggested the possibility of meeting the region’s intermodal needs by developing several facilities in multiple locations.

In response to the participants’ comments, NYSDOT re-evaluated the 17 sites in the NYMTC report as well as additional sites that met basic size and location criteria that were not previously identified in the NYMTC analysis or during the project’s scoping process. A long list of possible site alternatives was developed and screened (see Section 2.1). Five screening criteria were developed to narrow the list of 19 possible sites to a short list of feasible sites, including:

Sufficient available land;

Rail system access;

Suitability of site for the proposed intermodal operations;



Access to major east-west truck routes; and

Centrally located to effectively distribute goods.

The Pilgrim State Hospital property was the only site that met all five criteria. The site is strategically located to meet the demand of intermodal and bulk freight forecast for the region, ensuring that truck trips along the Long Island Expressway and throughout the region are reduced to the greatest extent possible.

1.4 NEED FOR IMPROVEMENTS

At the beginning of the twentieth century, railroads were the primary movers of freight throughout the region and the country. By the end of that century trucking had become the preferred means of shipping. Today, with deregulation, new shipping technologies, and congestion on the nation’s highways, railroads have made a comeback. In many parts of the nation, long-haul railroad and short-haul trucking have combined as an effective means of shipping freight.

Over the past several decades, the railroad industry in the United States has undergone major changes in order to be cost-competitive with the trucking industry. Since the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 removed many of the regulatory constraints on the rail industry, railroads have divested themselves of unprofitable spurs, sidings, and operations and have forged synergistic relationships with companies, freight handlers, and truckers to provide cost effective long-haul operations. These operations utilize the best efficiencies of railroads—i.e., cost effective movement of large loads over long distances—in conjunction with the efficiencies of trucks—i.e., specific loads delivered to specific facilities. This intermodal approach to freight handling has also changed the rail operations themselves. Where years ago rail operators constructed sidings serving specific companies and delivered freight along their own rights-of-way for direct unloading onto warehouse platforms or into facilities, today trailers on flat cars (TOFC) and containers on flat cars (COFC) are delivered to large yards where the containers and trailers are efficiently transferred to highway vehicles that deliver the freight to companies in dispersed locations.

An analysis of potential freight markets in the region, 2030 Freight Rail Forecast Update: Pilgrim Intermodal Freight Transportation Center, Cambridge Systematics (May 2005), indicates that there is significant market potential for intermodal containers, and bulk commodities. Construction of a truck-rail intermodal freight facility at the Pilgrim site is forecasted to process one million tons of freight by rail per year in 2010. That tonnage is predicted to consist of a miz of bulk and intermodal freight. Bulk goods will include 398,000 tons of bulk transload and 54,000 tons of bulk carload. Freight transport using TOFC and COFC are forecast to be approximately 354,000 tons.

Between 2010 and 2030, rail tonnage at the Pilgrim site is forecast to increase by approximately 52 percent to 1.52 million tons per year, which would translate to approximately 600 local truck trips (300 inbound and 300 outbound) to and from the facility in 2030. It is predicted that this tonnage primarily would serve inbound traffic to Nassau and Suffolk counties. This tonnage would come from the diversion of long-haul truck traffic to rail trips, which, in turn, would reduce the number of truck vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on the region’s highways.



1.4.1 Area Needs

Over the next 25 years the Long Island Transportation Plan forecasts that Long Island’s population will increase by 15 percent, with 25 percent more households and 30 percent more vehicles on the highway system (NYSDOT and NYMTC, 2002). Without further investments in Long Island’s transportation system and improved management of travel demand, the following indicators of increased traffic congestion are projected for the year 2020:

Person Hours of Delay (Auto): 148% increase

Vehicle Miles of Travel: 29% increase

Vehicle Hours Delay: 136% increase

Congested Lane Miles: 70% increase

Average Travel Speed: -17% decrease

There will be a greater demand for goods, thus increasing the number of trucks on the road as well. Moreover, many of Long Island’s controlled access highways, including the Sagtikos Parkway, prohibit trucks, exacerbating truck volume on the Long Island Expressway and other roadways where trucks are allowed. The growth in traffic will heighten congestion on the regional highway system, degrading the environmental conditions, the air quality in the region and the quality of life for Long Island residents. Nassau, Suffolk, and the five counties of New York City had been designated as severe non-attainment for the ozone 1-hour standard. By utilizing the existing rail infrastructure that has excess capacity in off-peak hours, some of the long-haul freight trips on Long Island can be made by rail as opposed to truck helping to improve air quality in the region.

An improvement to the current system of goods movement is necessary to create a balanced system that enhances efficiency in freight transport. Increasing travel demand in the New York metropolitan region has resulted in significant congestion along major routes used by trucks to deliver freight. According to the Long Island Transportation Plan, the total vehicle miles traveled on Long Island increased by 110 percent between 1970 and 1995 and continues to increase at a rapid rate (NYSDOT and NYMTC, 2002). The increased congestion on Long Island has resulted in poor travel times and reliability of freight service; this has in turn driven shipping costs up. With wholesale and resale shipping costs on Long Island well above the national average, an intermodal facility would reduce shipping costs as well as overall travel time which would benefit businesses, consumers, shippers, and receivers.

1.4.2 Transportation Needs

As a result of changing markets and the failure of the rail freight system on Long Island to adapt to new patterns and technologies, rail freight operations have been reduced to approximately 1 percent of Long Island’s freight market. Cost-efficiency will improve if rail freight crews handle more than one or two carloads of goods at single sidings, as is currently done on Long Island.

The projected growth in the Long Island region will increase the amount of freight traveling to and from the area. According to the New York Downstate Rail Freight Study, the total downstate market size is 90.6 million tons of freight. Rail carries only 3 percent of this downstate freight, with an even lower percentage of Long Island freight. Of the total downstate freight, 22.9 million tons is considered divertible to rail, 8.8 million tons from Nassau and Suffolk counties alone.



An improvement to the current system of goods movement is needed to reduce Long Island’s dependence on long-haul trucks, which increases highway congestion, fuel consumption, vehicle emissions, and wear-and-tear of highway infrastructure. Diverting freight from long-haul trucks to rail would help to alleviate highway congestion and improve environmental quality on Long Island. In order to accomplish this, freight would be shipped via rail in the LIRR’s off-peak windows to a single yard strategically located in central Long Island. There the freight would be transloaded onto trucks and taken to its final destinations. By increasing the rail mode share on Long Island, there would be an improvement in the overall freight movement and reliability in the region, at the same time contributing to air quality improvements in the New York metropolitan area.

1.4.3 Project-Level Needs

The LITRIM Facility requires a suitable site that meets basic size and location requirements for the proposed intermodal operations. In order to handle the projected intermodal demand, the site must be at least 50 acres, have access to both the Long Island Rail Road and one of Long Island’s main east-west highways, be flat and well-configured to support the various functions that would occur at the site, and be centrally located on Long Island. As described in Section 2.1, these project level needs drove the selection of the Pilgrim property as the proposed site for the LITRIM Facility.

Constructing the proposed facility at the Pilgrim site would require roadway improvements to reduce the potential for trucks to use residential streets to access the facility and establish a preferred route for trucks to travel between the intermodal facility and the Long Island Expressway. The Expressway has several access/egress points in the vicinity of the site: Commack Road, Crooked Hill Road, the Sagtikos Parkway, and Wicks Road. The Sagtikos Parkway, which runs in a north-south direction adjacent to the proposed site, currently prohibits truck traffic, while Commack Road and Wicks Road run through or adjacent to residential neighborhoods. For these reasons, Crooked Hill Road was determined to be the best access route to the site.

In order to encourage use of Crooked Hill Road by trucks traveling to and from the facility and decrease their incentive to take short cuts through residential neighborhoods, several roadway improvements (described in detail in Chapter 2) are planned to facilitate movement between the site and the Long Island Expressway. These include new ramps at the Long Island Expressway/Sagtikos Parkway interchange to provide direct access between the Expressway and Crooked Hill Road. The new improvements and the use of Crooked Hill Road in the immediate vicinity of the site would minimize the project’s impact to the surrounding community.

No improvements to the existing rail network are required to provide rail access to the site, other than the reconstruction of the Pilgrim State Hospital power plant rail spur connecting the hospital property with the Long Island Rail Road Main Line.

1.5 PROJECT GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The LITRIM Facility was initiated to address four problems related to freight movement on Long Island:



Increased Long-Haul Truck Traffic – Long-haul truck traffic continues to increase on Long Island roadways.

Highway Congestion – Recent growth on Long Island has resulted in delays in the transportation of freight due to increased highway congestion.

Rising Costs of Freight Transport – The cost of shipping freight via long-haul trucking continues to rise as trip travel time increases and schedule reliability decreases.

No Alternative to Truck Freight – Long Island is dependant on long-haul truck freight as the only effective means for the distribution of goods.

In conjunction with the project’s purpose and need, three goals and associated objectives were identified at the outset of the project (Table 1-1).

These goals and objectives were used to develop the screening criteria that were used to identify possible site alternatives and determine which of these sites are feasible locations for the proposed LITRIM facility. They will continue to guide all stages of the project to ensure that all priority results for the Long Island region are achieved. Removing long-haul truck trips from the Long Island Expressway and other east-west truck routes will not only improve mobility and reliability in the region, it will also improve safety and security on Long Island’s highways.

1.6 PROPOSED ACTION

The proposed action involves the development of an intermodal freight facility on the Pilgrim property (see Section 2.1 for a discussion of the site screening and selection process). Rail freight operators, as mentioned previously, will connect to the site by an abandoned rail spur linking the southeastern corner of the project site with the LIRR Main Line. In order to mitigate the potential impact of LITRIM Facility truck trips on existing residential neighborhoods, the proposed action will also include a combination of roadway improvements that facilitate direct

TABLE 1-1: PROJECT GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

GOAL 1: IMPROVE THE MOVEMENT OF GOODS ON LONG ISLAND Objectives: Develop improvements to the current transportation system that will alleviate the shortcomings of goods

movement in the present network. Reduce the overall travel time for shippers and improve reliability. Reduce the transportation cost to businesses and consumers by alleviating delay due to congestion and

creating competitive transportation alternatives.

GOAL 2: CREATE A BALANCED SYSTEM FOR GOODS MOVEMENT ON LONG ISLAND Objective: Develop rail freight shipping alternatives as a means of diverting traffic from congested highways of Long

Island to the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR).

GOAL 3: IMPROVE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY AND REDUCE ENERGY USAGE ON LONG ISLAND Objectives: Develop project alternatives that result in regional improvements in air quality and reduce the number of long-

haul truck trips, thereby reducing traffic congestion on Long Island’s highways.



access between the Long Island Expressway and the proposed site using Crooked Hill Road, reducing the need for trucks to travel through residential communities.

1.7 PLANNING CONTEXT

The LITRIM Facility is being developed in a context that includes regional rail, intermodal initiatives, and local development projects that could impact the roadway network serving the facility. Although the proposed facility is an independent project that has separate and independent utility from the other ongoing rail and intermodal projects in the region, it nevertheless is important to consider the proposed project within the context of other ongoing rail studies and development projects.

This project is located within a four-town area that includes several large-scale development plans for residential, office, and recreational areas. In a coordinated effort, NYMTC and the Suffolk County Planning Department are jointly funding a study that will evaluate the cumulative effect that these developments will have on the area and identify traffic mitigations for the roadway network as a whole. This study is scheduled to begin the in spring 2007.

The project is currently being incorporated into NYMTC’s Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP).

1.7.1 Rail and Intermodal Projects

The other major rail initiatives underway in the region include three LIRR projects—the East Side Access Project, Main Line Corridor Improvements EIS Project, and the Port Jefferson Branch Yard—and the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s (NYCEDC) Cross Harbor Freight Movement Project. All of the projects described below have separate and independent utility from the proposed LITRIM Facility project.

East Side Access Project. The East Side Access Project will connect the LIRR’s Main Line (west of the LIRR Jamaica Station) to Grand Central Terminal via a new tunnel. This project is currently in the Final Design stage with some early project elements in construction or already constructed. When completed (currently projected to be 2014), the LIRR will increase the number of west-end terminals serves and the number of trains it operates by approximately 25 percent. The Main Line Corridor Improvements EIS Project (see below) will increase rail capacity in the corridor, and accommodate both the full operation scenarios for the East Side Access Project and provide enough excess capacity in the off-peak periods to accommodate the volume of freight trains projected for the LITRIM Facility project.

Main Line Corridor Improvements EIS Project (Third Track). The LIRR is currently preparing an EIS for the construction of a third track between Queens Village and Hicksville. The LIRR operates at capacity in the peak periods, with the majority of trains traveling in a single direction westbound in the a.m. and eastbound in the p.m. The third track will enable the LIRR to increase capacity on this critical rail corridor and to provide reverse commute service. Because freight trains traveling to the proposed LITRIM Facility would travel in this corridor, the increased capacity would be beneficial to the proposed intermodal facility. However, the LITRIM Facility could meet its demand potential without the third track project.



Port Jefferson Branch Yard Project EIS. In addition to increasing the operational capacity on the Main Line, the LIRR is studying a proposed yard to increase the lay-up capacity for the maintenance of passenger trains on the Port Jefferson Branch. The Port Jefferson Branch, located to the north of the proposed LITRIM Facility, utilizes the LIRR Main Line from Jamaica to Hicksville. The potential yard project would have no impact on the proposed LITRIM Facility project.

Cross Harbor Freight Movement Project. In April 2004, the Cross Harbor Freight Movement project team completed a Draft EIS that looked at improving the movement of goods throughout the metropolitan New York region. The Draft EIS considered the construction of a new rail freight tunnel and an intermodal rail terminal in Queens. These proposed improvements, which currently are not funded, would be completed in approximately 2020.

While both the Cross Harbor and LITRIM projects share the overarching goal of improving freight movement in downstate New York, these two projects have independent utility. A marketing study conducted as part of the 2001 Feasibility Study of the proposed LITRIM project found that a market currently exists for an intermodal facility on Long Island based on the existing infrastructure in the New York City/Long Island region. This study acknowledged that the development of a Cross Harbor Tunnel could increase the benefits of this facility; however, the LITRIM Facility would not be dependent on the Cross Harbor Tunnel to operate.

1.7.2 Local Development Projects

In the immediate vicinity of the LITRIM Facility are three major development projects (Figure 1-3) in various stages of development and approval, as well as one recently completed development. Depending on the progress of each project and status in the approval process, projects or phases of projects were included in either the No Build Alternative or considered in the cumulative effects analysis in Chapter 7. The development projects include:

Heartland Business Center Expansion. This project is an expansion of the existing Heartland Business Center that will include approximately 1.3 million square feet of light manufacturing and commercial development. The 87-acre site is located immediately south of the proposed intermodal yard site, west of the existing Heartland Business Center. Vehicle access to and from the site will be via Pine Aire Drive. The project is currently under construction.

The Arches. The Arches, a Tanger outlet center, is located in the Town of Babylon at the southeast corner of Commack Road and Grand Boulevard. The proposed development would include approximately 805,000 square feet of retail space and would be accessible from the Long Island Expressway via Commack Road and the Sagtikos Parkway via Pine Aire Drive. The project has received environmental clearance from the Town of Babylon and is currently under construction.

Crooked Hill Commons. This project, which opened in early 2007, includes a Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Kohl’s Department Store on a 40-acre site in Smithtown along the Huntington border. The site is located east of Crooked Hill Road, north of



the Long Island Expressway. Access from the Expressway is from Crooked Hill and Commack Roads.

Heartland Town Square. A major mixed-use residential, commercial, and retail development is proposed for 452 acres that border the intermodal facility site to the north and east. The development would be located on both the east and west sides of the Sagtikos Parkway, south of the Long Island Expressway, east of Commack Road, and west of Crooked Hill Road in the Town of Islip. The development is proposed to have access directly from the Sagtikos Parkway, Commack Road, and Crooked Hill Road. The developer has applied for rezoning, and the project is under environmental review. The project would be built in multiple phases, with the portion east of Sagtikos Parkway scheduled to be constructed first.

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Documents

1.0 PURPOSE AND NEED FOR THE PROPOSED ACTION...By the end of that century trucking had become the preferred means of shipping. Today, with deregulation, new shipping technologies,