While NYS DOT Commissioner Astrid Glynn and other Albany officials are rolling out new smart growth programs, NYS DOT Region 10 is clinging to business as usual.

The dissonance was clear at last month’s Long Island Smart Growth Working Group meeting, where approximately 50 participants discussed the role smart growth, and transit-oriented development in particular, can play as a tool to transform transportation and land use policy on Long Island. The group was first convened by Vision Long Island, Long Island Neighborhood Network, Long Island Progressive Coalition, and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign in the spring.

Speaking at the Working Group meeting was Paul Beyer, director of New York’s Smart Growth Cabinet, which was created last year to review how state agency policies could be adjusted to discourage sprawl and encourage smart growth. Beyer released some of the Cabinet’s draft policy recommendations, which included a “Smart Growth Priority Growth Center Bill” that would prioritize smart growth efforts when state dollars are being allocated and spent, and a transit oriented development (TOD) tax credit/priority funding measure that would promote walkable/bikable development around transit. Both ideas could help drive smarter development on Long Island if they are approved by the Legislature.

At the meeting, state leaders also discussed NYSDOT Commissioner Astrid Glynn’s role in promoting smart growth, emphasized by her recently announced “Green LITES (Leadership in Transportation and Environmental Sustainability)” program. Similar to LEED certification for buildings, Green LITES is a rating system which NYSDOT will use to evaluate its road and bridge projects through a lens of environmental sustainability. The ratings consider, among other things, whether a project uses Context Sensitive Solutions, incorporates a community planning process, and is well sited. For example, a project scores more points if it avoids greenfields, provides good bicycle and pedestrian facilities, promotes transit use, and includes community charettes as part of the planning process.

But these ideas have failed to trickle down to NYSDOT Region 10, Long Island’s regional office. Although Region 10 will soon be administering federal funds for the “Safe Routes to Schools” program, it continues to contradict Albany’s emphasis on smart growth by pursuing outdated and expensive projects like the Route 347 and Route 25 widenings, among others. These projects fail to incorporate land use into their decision-making models and represent a continuation of the thinking which has led to the sprawl and congestion plaguing much of Long Island today.