Walking/biking path in Amityville links LIRR station, Route 110

A new bike and pedestrian pathway has been completed in Amityville, the first piece of a connectivity plan for the downtown that has been nearly a decade in the making.

The new stamped-concrete path is 600 feet long and runs alongside the Long Island Rail Road viaduct from John Street near the LIRR station to Broadway/Route 110, to the east.

The path, which has new lighting, fencing and landscaping alongside it, was finished three weeks ago and village officials held a ribbon cutting for it earlier this month.

“People are using it, so it seems to be already doing what we hoped it would do,” Mayor Michael O’Neill said.

Planning for the connecting walkway started in 2017 but hit several snags through the years among the invested parties: the village, the state Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. As the delays ensued, costs grew, village officials said.

“It’s the longest gestation period of any project I know of,” O’Neill said, noting the project had some “fits and starts and funding problems” along the way.

The finished pathway cost $838,000, he said, with $400,000 secured by Gov. Kathy Hochul's administration, $288,000 coming from a DOT grant and the other $150,000 through a community benefits package from the Village by the Bay rental complex.

An LIRR rider link to downtown

The walk from the LIRR station to Broadway was considered by many to be dark and uninviting, village officials said. The new path was designed with the intention of creating a safer, more pedestrian-friendly way to connect train riders with the downtown.

It also aligns with broader plans to improve the village’s central corridor through a $10 million downtown revitalization initiative the state awarded to the village in 2022. Part of that work includes building connections between the train station and Oak Street, and installing traffic calming and pedestrian safety measures along Broadway and nearby streets.

“This really dovetails nicely with everything that we’re doing,” O’Neill said, noting the village is working with the state on design and engineering for those projects. Now that the path is finished, the village will work with the MTA to pave parking near the train station, he said.

Need cited for walk/bike connections

A transportation study completed by the village in 2024 found a desire for sidewalk improvements, more lighting and other steps to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety. The study also found that at that time, 1 in 12 working residents in Amityville lacked access to a vehicle, highlighting the need for more walk/bike connections, officials said.

“Just having safer ways to walk to the train is important,” said Rosemary Mascali, a co-chair of the Long Island chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council's sustainable transportation committee and the Drive Electric Long Island coalition. “If it’s dark or not level ground, people won’t use it.”

Mascali said the new path and revitalization initiative work the village is doing also provides “an anchor” for Suffolk County’s reinvigorated plans to bridge Amityville with Huntington with a bus rapid transit system.

“When you get a piece done and people look at it and say, ‘This is great,’ then you get support for extending it,” she said of connectivity plans.

She said additional walk/bike options have other benefits.

“The more that people are active, the better they are healthwise and the less they’re using their cars, the better our air quality, which affects other health issues,” she said. “So it’s really a health issue as well as a safety issue.”