The third track project is coming along quite nicely throughout the village according to the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and 3TC.
As most residents will recall, 3TC closed Covert Avenue in early April to begin the elimination of the Covert Avenue grade crossing—one of just three grade crossing eliminations that will affect the village. After nearly four months of work, the construction team will reach a significant milestone by preparing for the execution of pushing the new bridge into place on Covert for the brand new overpass. During that time, there will be no train service between Floral Park and Hicksville in both directions beginning in the late evening on Friday, Aug. 23 through early morning, Monday, Aug. 26.
According to village officials, Covert Avenue is expected to reopen to vehicular traffic in October where work on New Hyde Park Road grade crossing will start soon after. Originally, there were discussions with the village and the LIRR to close down all four lanes of New Hyde Park Road, which is not the case anymore.
“On the New Hyde Park Road situation, they’re going with Plan A with what they presented in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and with everything we’ve seen so far,” said Mayor Lawrence Montreuil at a recent board meeting. “They did make a press on us to concede to this change because obviously it would save them a lot of money, resources and time if they could do the full closure of New Hyde Park Road. There’s also a safety element from a construction standpoint. I would tend to agree that it probably is safer if they had the complete closure of New Hyde Park Road, but really again the burden to New Hyde Park is too much to ask for. New Hyde Park has warranted too much of this burden for this regional project as it is.”
In addition and complementary to 3TC’s activities, residents may see or hear LIRR forces working along the rail road’s right-of-way. Those activities that residents may experience include regular track inspection and maintenance, rail tie replacement and grade crossing elimination preparatory work. In order to avoid LIRR service interruptions during peak commuting hours, LIRR work along the rail road right-of-way may take place overnight and on weekends.
