Peconic Bay Transit bills will include Brookhaven

If a referendum is held this year on whether the state should create a new East End transit agency, the measure will be on the ballot in Brookhaven too, an aide to State Senator Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) told RiverheadLOCAL yesterday.

The bills introduced earlier this month in both houses of the State Legislature authorizing a permissive referendum on replacing the MTA in the five East End towns will be amended to include Brookhaven Town, Ann Eisenstadt, an aide to LaValle said yesterday.

Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko announced on Friday that Brookhaven would join forces with the five East End towns in a move to cede from the MTA in favor of a new, local public transportation agency for the East End.

“I don’t know if I’m going to speak about a county,” Lesko said, referring a renewed call for the creation of Peconic County by Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter, “but I am going to speak about a transportation authority.”

Lesko said Brookhaven’s support of a new local transit authority to replace the MTA would “get their attention.”  

“Do they want to lose the 17,000 riders a day that every day use the Ronkonkoma station?” Lesko asked. “So I think it’s an interesting idea to think about Brookhaven joining a Peconic Transporation Authority, and let’s see if the MTA…what their response would be to losing the almost 20,000 riders a day that go through Ronkonkoma.”

Lesko’s announcement, at the Feb. 19 press conference organized by LaValle at Digger O’Dell’s restaurant on West Main Steeet, took the senator by surprise. LaValle had sought Brookhaven’s participation in the move, but did not know the town would join the effort until Lesko announced it at the microphone Friday. See video.

The local state legislative delegation also have bills pending in both houses authorizing creation of the Peconic Bay Regional Transportation Authority. The measures are supported by Five Towns Rural Transit, a group that advocates for improved public transportation on the East End. It has proposed a new light rail and bus system to serve the Twin Forks, which have minimal LIRR and Suffolk County Transit bus services.

“[T]he East End is an insignificant part of the behemoth MTA’s responsibility for New York City, and we are continually short-changed. We have become a ‘donor region’ for them, providing far more in tax revenues than we get back in the form of service,” according to a statement by Kathy Cunningham Faraone, president of 5TRT, Inc.

LaValle called Friday’s press conference to announce the bills authorizing the referendum, and allow local leaders to renew their call for repeal of the controversial MTA payroll tax passed by the State Legislature last May. The tax, 34 cents per $100 of payroll, was generally opposed by suburban legislators, but gained passage in the State Senate when two Democratic senators from Long Island, Nassau’s Craig Johnson and Lesko’s predecessor in Brookhaven Town Hall, former supervisor Brian Foley, were persuaded to vote with NYC Democrats in support of the tax.

The payroll tax, along with other new fees and surcharges on drivers licenses and auto registrations, was supposed to plug the MTA’s operating deficit and avert massive fare hikes and service reductions.  But the crisis worsened as the year wore on, as the state realized it had underestimated the payroll tax revenues by $200 million and the Legislature cut $143 million in MTA funding as part of an emergency deficit reduction plan. Facing a new $400 million deficit, the MTA board voted in December to make the service reductions that had been threatened last spring, including eliminating service on the LIRR Greenport branch.

The MTA will hold a public hearing on the proposed service reductions at the Riverhead county center March 8 beginning at 6 p.m. It is the only public hearing scheduled by the MTA in Suffolk County, which will see significant cutbacks to all LIRR lines if the  service changes approved by the MTA board in December are implemented. The local venue came as a result of complaints by County Legislator Ed Romaine (R-Center Moriches) and other local officials, when they learned that the only MTA public hearing scheduled on Long Island was to be held in Carle Place, in Nassau County.