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Massive plans inch forward in Ronkonkoma; Amtrak on the way

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Update: Amtrak says it’s way to soon to start setting timelines on ‘potential’ service to Ronkonkoma

All aboard!

Amtrak trains will soon enough be pulling into Ronkonkoma station.

So said Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine on Wednesday.

“They’ll start the work in 2026 and shortly after that” the Amtrak trains will be operating on Long Island, he said, noting Ronkonkoma was just one of two stations in the country Amtrak was considering for service expansions.

An Amtrak spokesperson confirmed to GLI that the trains will stop in Hicksville and Jamaica before arriving in Manhattan, where they will connect to the Northeast Corridor — Amtrak’s primary 457-mile rail line running north to Boston and south to Washington, DC.

This means riders can enjoy a one-seat ride from Long Island without needing to transfer trains at Penn Station, which is the current process for Long Island Rail Road riders using Amtrak.

[Update: Sources within Amtrak tell us that after planning studies, trains wouldn’t actually start running until 2028 the earliest, but more likely later.]

“Amtrak wanted to be adjacent to an airport” and Ronkonkoma, which sits adjacent to Long Island MacArthur airport, fits the bill, Romaine said. “To them, that’s golden.”

Editor’s note: Our original story and headline regarding Amtrak has been updated in light of new source information.

An Amtrak train at Newark Liberty Airport in Newark, N.J. in December 2020. (Credit: Dipanjan Chatterjee)

The Amtrak news comes as the early planning stages of the $2.8 billion Midway Crossing plan, to be built on county-owned land south of the station, moves forward. That plan calls for a hotel and convention center, health sciences offices, sports, entertainment and retail components, according to Crawford Architects renderings.

Part of the proposal also calls for moving the MacArthur Airport Terminal away from Veterans Memorial Highway and over to Midway Crossing — though the move would need Town of Islip approvals, as it controls the airport.

Crawford Architects would design what the architectural firm calls an “intermodal, transportation-oriented hub,” by modernizing and moving MacArthur Airport’s terminal to the property’s north side. (Rendering Credit: Crawford Architects)

The Islip Town Board in December rejected authorizing some seed money, to the tune of $872,000 from earmarked airport funds, to support studies for the terminal move.

Romaine told Greater Long Island “the plan did stall a bit, but it is moving forward.”

Even though the new terminal would be built on Suffolk County-owned land, Islip Town would retain control of the airport, he said.

(Greater Long Island has reached out to Islip Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter. Check back for updates.)

Romaine also insisted funding for the terminal project would come from the federal government.

All that, and the county is looking to build a bus depot south of the station.

“Ronkonkoma is going to become a regional transportation hub and we’ll probably see the fruits of [the current planning work] within the next five to 10 years, and this will be a major game changer,” he said.

He said Ronkonkoma will soon enough turn into a major regional business hub as well.

“Suffolk County will create jobs, economic opportunity and economic growth at a time when the rest of New York State is losing population,” said Romaine, in a phone interview as he headed back to Long Island from Albany, where Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered her State of the State remarks Monday.

“As I told the governor, we have the opportunity to be one of the major economic drivers in this state,” he said.

The Ronkonkoma train station with the ongoing Station Yards development in the background. (Credit: Nick Esposito/GLI)

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    Top: The railroad station at Ronkonkoma as seen from the Smithtown Avenue overpass. (Credit: Nick Esposito/GLI)

    Editor’s note: Our original headline was since changed slightly for style.

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