In December, the Long Island 2035 Regional Visioning Initiative released a report describing the trade-offs of alternative growth strategies for Nassau and Suffolk counties. Long before most of America, Long Islanders were confronting the challenges of growth in a maturing suburban region. The initiative represents an initial step in bridging numerous municipal, county and community efforts to meet these challenges with an Island-wide effort being undertaken by the Long Island Regional Planning Council (LIRPC) to produce a Long Island 2035 Comprehensive Regional Sustainability Plan.
Funded by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC), a study team led by Regional Plan Association produced a baseline scenario and three alternatives for how the Island might develop over the next 25 years. Along with other study team members--the University Transportation Research Center, Vision Long Island and Sustainable Long Island--RPA worked with Executive, Municipal and Stakeholder Committees led by the LIRPC to move toward a greater public consensus for where the next generation of Long Islanders could live and work, the transportation systems needed to support these settlements, and the institutional actions required to ensure a prosperous, equitable and environmentally sustainable Long Island.
The alternative scenarios were developed using input from a region-wide visioning workshop held in March 2009. These included a Distributed Growth Scenario in which population and jobs would be most dispersed throughout Long Island, a Transit Communities Scenario that concentrated the most growth around rail stations in existing downtowns, and a Growth Centers Scenario that put greater emphasis on developing new centers of population and employment. Read the Long Island 2035 Visioning Initiative report and visit the Long Island 2035 website.
Download the Highlights (PDF 134K)
Download the Report (PDF 6.8MB)
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