SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Bridge Over Sound Discussion Decades Old

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Heading off Long Island and being stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway, I daresay most people have thought about why there’s no tunnel or bridge extending north before one reaches New York City and the Throgs Neck and Bronx-Whitestone bridges.

Indeed, following Governor Andrew Cuomo’s call in his 2018 State of the State speech for a tunnel north off Long Island, Newsday editorialized: “Unless you have time for a ferry to Bridgeport or New London, there’s only one way out of here—through New York City. That’s life on the giant cul-de-sac that is Long Island….Whether you are visiting a college in Boston or vacationing upstate…chances are at some point you’ve asked yourself the same question that’s vexed generations of Long Islanders: Why do I have to go west to go east? Or to go north.”

The answer to that is despite repeated drives, there’s been strong public opposition on Long Island, the cost has been high, and in the case of the first push exactly 80 years ago, the death of the man behind that scheme.

He was Royal Copeland, a three-term U.S. senator from New York. His plan advanced in 1938 was for an island-hopping span from Orient Point and across Plum, Great Gull and Fishers islands landing in Groton, Connecticut or Watch Hill, Rhode Island. But he died that year and his plan with him—for a while.

Two decades later, in 1957, a former New York State superintendent of public works, Charles Sells, advanced a proposal for two bridges—one from Orient Point in Suffolk to Watch Hill, and a second, from Oyster Bay in Nassau, to Rye in Westchester County.

Suffolk’s first county executive, H. Lee Dennison, was supportive of a Long Island bridge during his term in office from 1961 to 1973. An engineer, he loved bridges—for example, he pushed for the construction of bridges on the north and south sides of Shelter Island but was stopped by the then Suffolk Board of Supervisors. “If Dennison wants to rape Suffolk County, we want him to leave Shelter Island alone,” said Shelter Island Supervisor Evans K. Griffing.

But it was an even bigger fancier of highways, tunnels and bridges, Robert Moses (the person responsible for the LIE and instrumental in insufficient resources going towards a balanced mass transit system for this region) who was central to the biggest battle over a Long Island bridge. That was in the mid-1960s when Mr. Moses, whom that Newsday editorial identified as the “original master builder,” pushed anew for a bridge from Oyster Bay to Rye. 

Intense public and governmental opposition stopped this Moses plan. A leader was former Congressman Lester Wolff of Muttontown. Two weeks ago, Congressman Thomas Suozzi, who represents parts of Nassau and Suffolk, announced he was introducing a bill to rename the Oyster Bay National Wildlife Refuge in honor of Mr. Wolff. Creation of the refuge helped block the bridge. Mr. Wolff, at 99 the oldest living former U.S. congressman, was at a meeting a day later in Locust Valley, at which hundreds gathered to organize against the Cuomo tunnel plan, recommended having Congress designate the Long Island Sound as a marine park to aid in stopping the tunnel. “The Long Island Sound is a national treasure,” he said.

Governor Hugh Carey in 1979 set up a tristate advisory committee that considered bridges from sites at Port Jefferson, Wading River, Riverhead, East Marion and Orient Point. But its report found expanding ferry service as preferable.

Governor Cuomo, whom the Newsday editorial referred to as “New York’s modern master building,” said of a Long Island tunnel in his State of the State speech: “It would be underwater. It would be invisible. It would reduce traffic on the impossibly congested Long Island Expressway and would offer potential significant private investment.”

A study released since by the state, done by WSP of Montreal, determined that a tunnel or bridge, or a bridge-tunnel combination, would cost $31.5 billion to 55.4 billion. It recommended as “feasible” two routes—from Oyster Bay to Rye or Port Chester in Westchester, or from Kings Park to either Bridgeport or Devon in Connecticut. It dismissed a link between Wading River and New Haven or Branford, Connecticut as not fostering economic development and being too expensive.

The Kings Park link would necessitate an extension of Sunken Meadow State Parkway. This, said State Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick of St. James, “would destroy Sunken Meadow State Park. That’s not going to go over.” As to other environmental damage, at the gathering in Locust Valley, James Gaughran, chairman of the Suffolk County Water Authority, warned of damage to the underground water table on which Long Island depends for its potable water from the tunnel and its construction. It would be, he said, “an environmental disaster.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.