William Floyd Parkway grade crossing renewal 3/4

Everyone:

This Saturday March 4th the LIRR will be renewing the William Floyd Parkway grade crossing at
Mastic-Shirley Station on the Montauk Branch between 10pm Fri. and 5am Sunday for a 31 hour period. WFP is a very busy roadway that is used by thousands of area motorists each day and
with this closure there are many that are apprehensive because of the potential for traffic problems
primarily due to the detours to two other area grade crossings at Smith Road (1 mile west) and at
Mastic Road (1 1/2 miles east) which are small local two lane roads. As a comparison WFP is a six
lane divided highway as it crosses the LIRR. A News 12 LI report about this subject aired this past
week (2/23) in which there was local apprehension because of the traffic problems that may result there. The LIRR has a single track going across William Floyd Parkway at this crossing.

Grade crossing projects like this one are necessary as road and rail infrastructure ages and for one
I believe that the LIRR does not take these projects lightly and wish to inconvenience motorists and
train passengers as little and for as short a time period as possible. This is arguably one of the most
toughest LIRR grade crossings to schedule work for because of how vital it is to the Mastic-Shirley
area and the number of how many may be directly impacted for its duration.

See: http://web.mta.info/supplemental/lirr/b ... march4.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MACTRAXX

holy hell it's gonna take these poor bastards 5 hours to get from neighborhood road to montauk highway

Dump The Air wrote:holy hell it's gonna take these poor bastards 5 hours to get from neighborhood road to montauk highway

If they know about it they can take Mastic rd or Smith rd.

The project was postponed.

I think this would've probably been the best time of the year to do it. With beach season around the corner, I don't think the people of this area realize how pointless it is to fight with a project that HAS to be done.

SM: Was the postponement the result of the abnormally cold (as compared to the recent weather
we have had so far this Winter season) weather this weekend - which is more like January with
temperatures well below freezing especially overnights and strong winds dropping wind chill
factors even lower? This would have been a problem for the work crews and all others involved.

I agree - this project needs to be completed before the end of May when traffic in the area will
increase significantly for the warm weather and beach seasons. From reading the timetable at
least the LIRR had a plan in place to renew the WFP crossing in a reasonable time period.

Another compromise I thought of would have been to renew this crossing in two halves with WFP
traffic routed onto one side and renewal work on the other to at least keep the route open.

The replacement buses would have had problems getting in and out of Mastic-Shirley thanks to
the station being on the south side of the track - getting stuck in the traffic trying to use the two
alternate crossing routes that would be necessary to use. A temporary bus stop near Montauk
Highway or the Sunrise Highway interchange could help serve Mastic-Shirley passengers along
with not having to directly serve the station similar to something from the Road-N-Rail bus days.

Moving this work to either later in March or sometime in April will buy the LIRR more time to fine
tune even further the WFP work plan. As we realize inconvenience will be a necessary evil as a
result of this project - and it needs to be done with sooner rather then later...

MACTRAXX

I doubt that it has anything to do with the weather. It appears that the outage is still going on, with additional non-crossing work, occurring.

It probably has to do with the politicians getting involved as usual. They are trying to look out for the best interest of their constituents however this is one of the crossings that sorely needed to be done, and there is no "good" time to do it. There are constant complaints due to the high traffic density on the surface of the road. How will the politicians answer to their constituents the first thing Monday morning if someone gets a flat tire due to the deteriorated surface?

Splitting it in half isn't really the best method either, the road would still have to be closed to surface, install rail, and other work to make the crossing complete.

It's a difficult project in a key area, the locals would just have to suck it up for a short period of time. What did the road signs say on Sunrise Highway, 10P Friday to 5 A Sunday? It's not pleasant but it's the price of progress.

This is one crossing that should be added to the list of those needing elimination.
The project could be done as part of a project installing a platform and interlocking at MO. And adding temporary length to Bellport.
Though tight there is room for a shoe fly track. And with the grade going down hill west of the crossing I don't see why the grade can't be lowered from the west switch of the Siding and the road raised enough to build a over grade bridge.

Though upfront the project will be annoying, Benifits superseded any temporary construction inconvenience.
With some creative engineering this could be done while maintaining a very minimum service to the station.
(Peak trains only)

Everyone:

With the postponement of the WFP grade crossing renewal project I noticed that the LIRR kept
the planned 31 hour Patchogue-Montauk service outage plan and scheduled other work for this
time period more then likely using crews that would have been working on the WFP crossing.

There is something that I have taken notice to when alternate bus service is offered during track
work periods is that it is rare for the LIRR to run buses to stations on other branches. In this case
offer the option of express buses to/from Ronkonkoma to allow a two seat ride alternative along
with the three seat ride that would be required from Patchogue and either Babylon and Jamaica.
Ronkonkoma offers hourly weekend service along with space for buses on the south side and for
those who wish to drive has ample weekend parking space available.

I also thought of adding train service between Ronkonkoma-Medford-Yaphank-Riverhead which
would use a second two car Greenport scoot trainset - which normally gets changed out Fridays
during a WFP crossing outage to operate along with the single train that operates on weekends
that makes two Ronkonkoma-Greenport round trips scheduled in a manner to offer an alternate
to the Montauk Branch east of Patchogue - but with the lack of stations east of NYS 112/Medford
this would only offer limited service options with regular train service available at both Patchogue
and Ronkonkoma a reasonable distance away.

WE brings up an interesting point concerning eliminating the WFP grade crossing altogether by
lowering the track and constructing a flyover WFP overpass noting the west downgrade towards
Smith Road. The only problem with lowering the track could be the height of the water table
below ground at that point which would need to be addressed were a project like this were to
be built. Adding a second track by extending the siding through the station west could be part.

What most of us realize is that in any replacement plan is that short term inconvenience for long
term gain is a must for any project like this to be successful - area residents and politicians need
to understand that instead of opposing necessary improvement that the benefits are worthwhile.

MACTRAXX

Everyone:

The William Floyd Parkway Grade Crossing Renewal Project has been rescheduled for Saturday
May 13th. Special timetables are now available and look similar to the previous issue which is
an outage of about 24 hours with all trains originating and terminating at Patchogue.

From past mention this important improvement needed to be completed before summer traffic
increases later this month beginning around Memorial Day. Let's hope all goes as planned and
that the weather in particular cooperates to help make this all possible.

MACTRAXX

workextra wrote:This is one crossing that should be added to the list of those needing elimination.
The project could be done as part of a project installing a platform and interlocking at MO. And adding temporary length to Bellport.
Though tight there is room for a shoe fly track. And with the grade going down hill west of the crossing I don't see why the grade can't be lowered from the west switch of the Siding and the road raised enough to build a over grade bridge.

Though upfront the project will be annoying, Benifits superseded any temporary construction inconvenience.
With some creative engineering this could be done while maintaining a very minimum service to the station.
(Peak trains only)

I've started to think about this myself and I agree. Keep the grade low after the line crosses Carmen's River. Then with only mild grade changes you'd be able to elevate WF parkway. There's enough space to run two parallel tracks from Smith Rd to where the current switches are, which if done right would allow service to continue throughout construction. I'd keep the grade low until after mastic Rd and make that a crossing as well. If you keep the grade low from before Smith you can even elimate the severe up and down that occurs there. I'm sure you'd need to install drainage and that would complicate my ditch digging, but overall it would be a massive improvement for the area. I work EMS and have been delayed by trains there more times than I can count.