LIRR effort to fully electrify gets good push from NYU report

Full electrification has long been the holy grail for the Long Island Rail Road. Generations of advocates, rail executives and elected officials have tried but failed to electrify the entire system — about half of which still relies on diesel power.

In that endeavor, the LIRR also has lacked a comprehensive, updated analysis of what electrifying the system would cost and entail, making progress elusive.

Now, we have some answers. As part of a broader effort to assess the future of public transit and railroad infrastructure nationally, a recent report from New York University's Marron Institute analyzed every LIRR branch still operating at least partly on diesel to determine what would be required to upgrade the unelectrified portions, how much it would cost, and what the potential benefits would be. The results provide a blueprint the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should use to tackle one of Long Island's critical goals.

Electrifying the entire LIRR system would cost between $12 billion and $13 billion, the NYU report found. That includes additional necessary infrastructure work to maximize the benefits of electrification, from double-tracking some lines to removing dangerous grade crossings. The new price tag includes cost savings achieved by changing the source of power, where possible, to utilize overhead catenary systems rather than the third rail, a move the researchers say could reduce the price from $62 million per mile to as low as $27 million per mile. It's worth examining whether future technology improvements, and the use of renewables, could help reduce those costs even further.

The report suggested the electrification effort could be divided into more manageable segments that would cost from $610 million for the LIRR's Central Branch up to $3.5 billion for what the report calls the "inner Montauk" line — between Babylon and Speonk. Since the MTA usually puts together five-year capital plans, the authority could — with careful planning — spread those branch-by-branch efforts across several future capital plans. It also could combine some future state-of-good-repair work with upgrades like double tracking or grade-crossing eliminations.

The NYU report clearly spells out the very real impacts electrification could have for LIRR commuters. It would save significant time for riders on every diesel line — trimming 20 minutes off the Penn Station to Oyster Bay commute, for example, turning it into a 58-minute trip. And it would add ridership to every line. The Port Jefferson Branch, for instance, would gain 218,000 new trips annually; some of that would be riders moving from other lines, but 65,000 trips would come from new riders.

Even at its current moment of fiscal uncertainty, the MTA should begin future-thinking now — assessing the report's findings, establishing priorities, and developing a long-term road map that could finally achieve the dream of LIRR electrification, piece by piece, line by line.

For a region where public transit is an economic life line, that's the spark Long Island needs.