Denise Civiletti

All aboard!  Brookhaven Town has joined the effort to establish a new public transit authority to serve eastern Suffolk County.

Brookhaven's endorsement of a new public authority to serve the region — to replace of the MTA — came at a press conference convened Friday in Riverhead by State Senator Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) to call for the repeal of the controversial MTA payroll tax and announce introduction of a bill that will allow a referendum on the creation of the Peconic Bay Transportation Authority.

Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko made the announcement near the end of  the press conference, following Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter's call for the East End towns to renew a push to secede from Suffolk and form Peconic County.  See video.

"I don't know if I'm going to speak about a county," Lesko said, referring to Walter's call for Peconic County, "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."

Riverhead has awarded a $3.5 million contract to Railroad Construction Co., Inc. of Paterson, N.J., to refurbish the long-defunct rail spur that used to serve the old Grumman manufacturing plant in Calverton, the site of the Calverton Enterprise Park. The contract is funded by the state department of transportation with federal aid obtained by Rep. Tim Bishop last year.

The rail spur, which connects with the Greenport branch of the LIRR, will be used to transport freight in and out of the enterprise park, known as EPCAL. Its refurbishment has been cited by officials as essential for the full redevelopment of the site, which was transferred by the U.S. Navy to the town in 1998, two years after Northrup-Grumman, once the town's largest employer and taxpayer moved out.

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