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Mr. William Hillman
Suffolk County Department of Public Works
Chief Engineer
335 Yaphank Ave
Yaphank, NY 11980-9744

On Wednesday, November 28th a public forum was held by Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker and Department of Public Works Chief Engineer William Hillman at the Rocky Point VFW to discuss a Rails to Trails project from Port Jefferson to Wading River. The County is considering the construction of a 10 mile long pedestrian and bicycle path within the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) property.

The event was standing-room only with about 150-200 people in attendance. Several SBRA members attended and spoke in support of the project along with many local residents. About half of the attendees seemed to support the project and half seemed to strongly oppose it. Those in opposition are mostly residents whose properties would be adjacent to the proposed Trail.

Three main hurdles exist before the project can go forward:

• Liability issues between Suffolk County (who will “own” the Trail) and LIPA (who currently owns the land the proposed trail will be on)
• Funding issues –  The total cost is estimated to be $14 million. About half of that money is available for this project from federal funds that can only be applied to this project. If we don't use it, we lose it. It should be noted that the Setauket Trail didn’t have full funding upon start but once phase 1 was done, other money was made readily available to complete the project.
• NIMBYism - (Not In My Backyard) Nearly every Rail to Trail project is met with the following concerns, which were clearly heard at this public forum.

- fear of increase in crime
- fear of loss of privacy
- fear of property value loss
- fear of high price tag
- fear of litter/trash

• There is a plethora of data available debunking the above myths and many testimonials from people who opposed other projects, but now are in support of their local Trails. See for example:

https://www.railstotrails.org/resources/documents/resource_docs/tgc_safecomm.pdf
http://128.175.63.72/projects/DOCUMENTS/bikepathfinal.pdf
https://www.ptny.org/pdfs/greenways/publications/LandownersGuide.pdf
https://www.railstotrails.org/resources/documents/resource_docs/RTC_FactSheet_WorkingwTrailOpponents.pdf