County OKs Rails to Trails Agreement With LIPA

Rails to Trails – a proposed bike and jogging path running along Long Island Power Authority transmission lines – will be moving forward to the next stop after Suffolk County Legislators unanimously approved an agreement with LIPA on Tuesday, which also has the support of County Executive Steve Bellone.

The 25-year agreement between LIPA and the county would allow Suffolk to move forward in utilizing the underused land – and former rail spur – as a lengthy route for recreational, and even pedestrian, use running parallel with a busy Route 25A corridor.

"My understanding is that this is a big hurdle we've overcome," said Legis. Kara Hahn, D-Setauket.

Her colleague in the legislature and co-sponsor of the bill, Mt. Sinai Democrat Sarah Anker, said that with a right-of-way agreement in place, final engineering plans can be drawn back up and sent back to the federal government for a green light after the project previously was granted $6.5 million in federal funds.

However, she noted, the high cost of the original proposed route – from Mt. Sinai to Wading River – was too much to move forward with currently, and a shorter route running from Wading River to Shoreham will instead be laid out to start.*

"If we don't move forward, we will lose that funding," she said. "That's meant specifically for this kind of project. And the South Shore would love to see this kind of funding."

A spokesman with U.S. Rep. Tim Bishop, D-Southampton, said hat as far as he knew, the money is still there for the Rails to Trails project. Delays had held the project up over the years as LIPA and the county grappled with liability issues on the land, as well as determining what would happen in the future in the instance that LIPA needs to reclaim part of their property to continue servicing their customers. In the end, the county has agreed that on the off chance LIPA has to expand their service, the county will pay to move the trails. Other bumps in the road have included a new administration coming into office on the county level, and other public officials at various levels of government coming and going, not to mention LIPAs change over to PSEG as a service provider.

Anker said that in making the route shorter, she did want to ensure access to the westernmost point of the new trail: Wardenclyffe, the final laboratory of scientist Nikola Tesla, which has taken steps of its own moving forward after an online fundraiser brought in $1.3 million for a local nonprofit to purchase the land – which abuts LIPA property. Pam Donavan, a legislative aide with Anker, said on Thursday that as more funding becomes available, the 3.5-mile route from Wading River to Shoreham will be expanded westward over time.

In addition, Anker said that moving forward, concerns raised in downtown Rocky Point over the trail running between Prince Road and King Road could likely be assuaged, instead suggesting that the trail run straight through downtown and loop back onto LIPA land past the intermediate school.

"The county executive is good with it. The state's good with it," Anker said. "This is the furthest we've gone with this project. It seems to be going."

Officials have said that they plan a press conference in mid-August to celebrate the recent step.

* Correction: This article previously stated that the original route would run from Mt. Sinai to Shoreham. However the trail will begin from the eastern boundary of the project, and move west as more funding becomes available, rather than starting west and moving east.