Officials say about 20,000 trucks now rumble along the often-jammed Long Island Expressway each day. That’s one in nine vehicles. 
The New York Metropolitan Transportation Council expects the number to go up.
Chris Jones of the Regional Plan Association says action is needed to curb the impact on Long Island’s already stressed roadways.
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The percentage of LIE crashes involving trucks has nearly doubled, from 5.9 in 2002 to 10.8 in 2008.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler says “hypercongested” roads also cause pollution.
More than 90 percent of goods delivered to Long Island come by truck. Nadler wants to move more goods by train. He has long called for a rail tunnel between New Jersey and Brooklyn.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.
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Paul, I moved away 8 years ago- helped me immensely- but LI still seems to be on the skids!
The LIRR needs to be improved. Unfortunately there aren’t enough rails left to handle commuter AND freight traffic and that will be the biggest stumbling block. I take the positive outlook that we need improvements although I also admit to a negative feeling that nothing will actually happen. Kind of like those investigations to allegations that so and so did such and such during his/her administration. We all lost out and that individual essentially got away with whatever they did.
As for negative feeling people, I say why don’t you just move away now? If we got rid of all the negative residents we could probably solve a good portion of the transportation and tax problems in one felled swoop.
A rail tunnel from Jersey to Brooklyn? Oh…great! Another multi-billion dollar project in a bankrupt, overtaxed state, which will take 30 years to complete….. not to mention that LIRR tracks are already overcrowded, and their would need to be built frieght handling facilities on the Island….yeah…sounds like a real plan! It’s sad that these idiots are paid with tax money to sit around and dream up these pie-in-the-sky ideas! They should think of the lgoistics before they let an area get so densely populated. Now that that condition already exists, just let things play out naturally- i.e. let the traffic be what it is, and then people will eiother learn to work closer to home or move.