Opposing a $100-miliion Procurement for the New LIRR Boondoggle - MTA Capital Prog. Cmte. 11/29/22

"MTA Construction & Development requests Board approval to award a publicly advertised and competitively solicited contract for design-build services for a new railroad bridge and two new mainline tracks in Hall Interlocking."

The procurement is described thus three times in the Capital Program Committee Book for 11/29/22, and will be voted again on 11/30/22, when the full board convenes. Unanimously, as it was today, no doubt.)

The very long bridge, to rise over the LIRR embankment in Jamaica starting at about Parsons Boulevard, will bring two westbound mainline tracks up and over the place where a grade-separated connection with the Atlantic Branch enters, then set them down somewhere east of the platforms. Presence of the westbound Atlantic Branch track as currently situated crowds the other westbound tracks - although at the time it was built there was no need for additional tracks, and there's an advantage to having fewer tracks and switches to control.

A simple way to address the problem would be to move the entering Atlantic Branch track over a few feet. There is already a lot of extra space there, and there is a considerable broadening of the existing curve of the entering track as it enters the main line and comes to grade, so that moving it might be accomplished by just moving the bridge (about 90' long) over - rather than building a two track bridge about 1500' long running over all the existing tracks on the embankment, as currently planned. Due to property machinations of the various railroad proprietors over time it is no longer possible to build a fourth track to the north, as was likely foreseen.