June 19, 2020: Leslie Mesnick, the Community Outreach Manager for the LIRR Expansion Project reached out to the Village to clarify a few points of misunderstanding based on several recent inaccurate media stories about the Village of Garden City utility poles and resulting calls received.
Size / Material of Utility Poles
Some media stories have reported that the size/height of the poles was originally planned to be much smaller and was dramatically increased recently. This is not the case. The new steel poles were always envisioned to be approximately 90 feet tall and this was disclosed in the EIS. Further, as reflected in the EIS, they were always envisioned to be steel, which is a Post-Sandy resiliency measure.
Ownership of the Utility Poles
While the poles will carry PSE&G-LI utilities (to serve the surrounding communities), they are being built for MTA by MTA's design-builder on MTA property. We've coordinated extensively with PSE&G and have designed the poles to their specifications, but PSE&G is not installing these poles and does not currently own them.