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Big trucks bill supported by Zeldin, contrary to aide’s statements at Riverhead meeting last night

7/30/2015

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Katie Blasl Jul 29, 2015, 5:54 pm

The possibility of 84-foot-long double-trailer trucks barreling down local roads was an issue of concern among community leaders yesterday, but a representative of Congressman Lee Zeldin assured them last night that Zeldin would do whatever he could to stop it.

“There is no way we would support that,” Mark Woolley, Zeldin’s district director, told the meeting of civic association leaders when they asked him about the bill. “You all know where the Congressman stands on that.”

But Zeldin did support the bill that would allow such trucks on the East End. When it went before the House of Representatives last month, Zeldin voted “yes” in a narrow 216-210 vote.

Woolley, when confronted with this information by a reporter after last night’s meeting, refused to answer any additional questions.

“You’ll have to call the communications director,” he said.


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The bill would allow trucks like this 82-foot-long tanker on roads in the national highway system, which includes parts of Sound Avenue, Route 25 and the Long Island Expressway.

The bill in question is part of a special class of legislation called appropriations bills, which are passed annually to approve spending on things like education, national defense and agriculture.

This particular appropriations bill approves funding for the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) agencies in the 2016 fiscal year, which begins in October.

But it also contains many unrelated pieces of legislation, such as the controversial provision that increases the permitted length of twin-tractor trailers by almost 20 feet and overrides preexisting length limits set by 39 states, including New York.

The bill would allow multi-trailer trucks up to 84 feet long on roads in the federal national highway system network, which includes a route through the East End.

If the bill passes the Senate, tandem tractor-trailers up to 84 feet long would be allowed to travel from the Long Island Expressway to Route 58, where they would turn left onto Northville Turnpike and head toward Sound Avenue. The trucks would then make a right-hand turn from Northville Turnpike onto Sound Avenue and head east until Sound Avenue becomes Route 48 and eventually turns into Route 25.

The national highway system route continues east all the way to Orient Point.

“If there was a separate vote on the trucking proposal, I would have voted no,” Zeldin said in an email this afternoon. “Every single budget proposal I have been presented with during my four years in the New York State Senate and now in the United States Congress has included something I wished wasn’t in the bill.”

He pointed out that the bill included his own amendment to prevent the Federal Aviation Administration from taking action against East Hampton Town for its recent enactment of noise restrictions.

“So if I voted no, then you could be reaching out to me asking why I voted against [that],” Zeldin said. “Instead of 535 members of Congress, if you and I were the only ones who got to write the entire federal budget, I am very confident it would look very differently and would be nearly perfectly to our liking.”

Thirty-one Republicans departed from the Republican party line to vote against the bill last month, several of which had their own amendments struck from the bill. Zeldin was not one of them.

“That’s how Congress works,” said Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter. “Sometimes, they attach unpalatable provisions onto bills that must be passed.”

Even though the bill will override current state limits on truck length, it does allow states to request exemptions for segments of roads affected by the bill if they aren’t capable of safely accommodating trucks of that size. States could formally apply for such exemptions to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, which would review the request and perform an analysis to see if it is justified.

“We would absolutely get on top of the state to seek an exemption,” said Walter.

Zeldin did not respond to a question about why his district director publicly assured community leaders yesterday that their congressman did not support the bill.

“It’s unconscionable to have a representative from a congressional office lie to the public,” said Angela DeVito, president of the Jamesport/South Jamesport Civic Association. “This raises the question of the veracity of what comes out of Lee Zeldin’s office in the future.

“Are we all going to spend time doing fact-checking every time he claims he’s doing something?” she said. “That’s just sad.”

“[Woolley] was very, very clear that they were going to help us,” said Neil Krupnick, president of the Northville Civic Association. “Lee put in an amendment for the FAA, but he didn’t put in an amendment for the trucks. He decided to pick his battles. But I’m disappointed that Mark said he supports our efforts when he’s picking his battles and not getting on board with this one.”

When Mike Foley, president of Sound Park Heights Civic Association, was told by a reporter that Zeldin voted for the bill, he burst out laughing.

“A new congressman has apparently learned very quickly that flip-flopping is the way of doing business in Washington,” Foley said. “It seems like [Woolley] was sitting there listening and trying to figure out the best thing to say. Which is something I really despise about politicians.”

“Even if he was backed into a corner and there was no way a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote would get what you wanted to accomplish, his representative should have explained that to us,” DeVito said. “He should have told us the truth.”

Link: 
http://www.riverheadlocal.com/2015/07/29/big-trucks-bill-supported-by-zeldin-contrary-to-aides-statements-at-riverhead-meeting-last-night/
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Multi-trailer 84-foot-long trucks could be coming to local roads, thanks to federal bill

7/30/2015

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by Katie Blasl Jul 27, 2015, 9:12 pm


Extra-long trucks with double trailers could soon be riding on local roads like Sound Avenue, Northville Turnpike and Route 58, thanks to a proposed federal transportation bill.

The bill, which has already made it through the House and is being considered by the Senate, would allow multi-trailer trucks up to 84 feet long on roads in the federal national highway system network.

New York State currently bans trucks more than 65 feet long on its roads, but the proposed federal bill would override state law, allowing trucks more than 80 feet long to ride on state highways across the country.

That’s about the size of an eight-story building turned on its side, according to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who announced today he will do everything in his power to block the provision.

The double tractor-trailers would be allowed to travel on National Highway System roads, which include a route through Riverhead. Tandem tractor-trailers up to 84 feet long would travel from the Long Island Expressway to Route 58, where they would turn left onto Northville Turnpike and head toward Sound Avenue.

The trucks would then make a right-hand turn from Northville Turnpike onto Sound Avenue and head east until Sound Avenue becomes Route 48 and eventually turns into Route 25. The national highway system route continues east all the way to Orient Point.


“We have older roads here, and a lot of them aren’t built to handle that kind of traffic, the weight and size of the truck,” Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski said tonight. “As much as I like Queens, we don’t want to let our towns turn into Queens. If we have to address this at the county level I’m sure we’ll have a lot of support to limit the size of the trucks.”

Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter said the length increase would be “catastrophic,” not only in terms of impacts to town road infrastructure but also in terms of public safety.

“There’s no way a truck that size could make the right turn onto Sound Avenue from Northville Turnpike without entering the oncoming lane,” Walter said. “It’s dangerous.”

There is also the matter of keeping the trucks off town roads and making sure they stick to the route designated by the national highway system.

Although the proposed federal bill doesn’t explicitly give the double tractor-trailers permission to drive on roads other than those in the national highway system, Riverhead Town only prohibits trucks from driving on a handful of town roads. That could become a major issue with larger multi-trailer trucks in town.

In May, the Riverhead Town Board said they were considering a “truck route” to require large trucks to use only certain roads after dozens of residents packed a public hearing complaining about truck traffic. The town board had just recently voiced their opposition to any federal measure that would increase the length or weight of tractor-trailer in a May 5 resolution.

But town board action on a designated truck route anytime soon is unlikely, according to Dunleavy.

“The problem is that we have a lot of local people, farmers and growers, that use tractor-trailers,” said Dunleavy, who is chairman of the town board’s traffic safety committee. “We don’t want legislation to hurt our local people. We already restricted them from going up Mill Road. If we restrict them much more, you’re going to put local people out of business. It’s taking us time to think of what we’re going to do.”

With the possibility of significantly larger tractor-trailers driving through town, however, Dunleavy acknowledged that the issue is even more pressing.

But tonight Walter questioned whether the town could ban tractor-trailers from roads that are part of the federally designated national highway system, which includes the route on Northville Turnpike and Sound Avenue.

The proposed federal bill would permit twin 33-foot trucks on the National Highway System (see map), increased from the 28-foot trailers currently allowed. Combined with the length of the truck’s cab and the section connecting the two trailers, double trucks under the new law could be 84 feet long.

“The fact of the matter is, these longer, double-hitched tractor-trailers are a tremendous road safety risk to people and infrastructure alike,” Schumer said in his announcement today.

He pointed out that larger trucks require larger stopping distances of about 20 additional feet, and that longer trailers make merging and passing “very difficult” for other drivers on the road.

The larger trucks permitted by the proposed federal bill would increase the turning radius for trucks even further – by an additional six feet, according to Schumer.

Multi-trailer trucks are also more deadly: A study by the U.S. Department of Transportation found that multi-trailer trucks had an 11 percent higher fatal crash rate than single-trailer trucks.

Truck traffic on the North Fork has been a topic of heated debate recently. Just a few months ago, local residents successfully fought a regional proposal that called for diverting some 3,000 tractor-trailers per year from Connecticut highways to Long Island via the Orient Point ferry. That plan was eventually scrapped by the N.Y. Metropolitan Transportation Council.



Link: 
http://www.riverheadlocal.com/2015/07/27/multi-trailer-84-foot-long-trucks-could-be-coming-to-local-roads-thanks-to-federal-bill/

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As historic downtown church nears collapse, congregation seeks donations

7/14/2015

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Note: NBCA member Sandy Gruner is very active in this church. Donations can be made here: gofundme
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The big white steeple of the First Congregational Church has towered over East Main Street for more than a century. It is a town-designated landmark that houses generations of memories of weddings and holidays. It houses the only soup kitchen in Riverhead, serving warm meals to the needy three nights every week.

But the church’s roof nearly collapsed last month. The historic building’s east wall was never reinforced to handle the weight from the roof, so after years of pressure, the wall began pressing outward. The roof’s support system started to crumble under the weight.

And it would have come caving down into the sanctuary, causing unimaginable damage to the church’s interior, if a construction crew had not gotten there in time. The very same day that Calverton-based RC Construction finished building emergency wooden support towers to prevent a total collapse, the 25-foot ceiling of the church came down and rested on the towers.

“We basically avoided a complete [roof] failure by just a day,” said Ron Blake, the church’s chairman of building and grounds. “We would have lost the whole building.”

The sanctuary has now been transformed into a construction zone. Dust hangs in the light cast by the huge stained glass windows as hammers bang and power tools whir. The four wooden support towers are the only things keeping the historic building standing.

“We avoided what could have been a total catastrophe,” said James Wooten, trustee chairman of the church.

The cost of stabilizing and restoring the church’s roof will be more than $400,000. Additional repairs and restoration efforts will cost an additional $100,000. “We’re looking at more than $500,000 worth of work here,” Blake said. “That’s a lot of money for a congregation with about 70 active members.”

The church is seeking the community’s support to help keep one of downtown Riverhead’s landmark buildings standing.

“We’re hoping that the people around us will rally to support us,” said Reverend Sean Murray, “so that we can stand strong as a beacon of hope so that people can continue to find what they truly need here.”

A GoFundMe page has been set up for online donations. Murray says the church is planning to organize additional fundraisers to drum up the money for the repairs.

“We know we’re making a difference here,” he said. “We’re feeding the hungry. We’re giving hope to the hopeless. This has been a place of recovery and renewal. This has been a place of spiritual welfare for so many.”


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