Winters Rail Newsletter #5: Moving Toward A Cleaner Future With Rail!

Mar 4, 2021

March 4, 2021 – Update #5
The Winters Rail Terminal is on track, and we appreciate your interest in this important project. In this issue of the newsletter, we discuss the need for increased, off-island transportation capacity. The Winters Rail Terminal provides an integrated, comprehensive solution to managing Long Island’s waste through the use of rail. For more information, visit our website!


The Path to a Cleaner & Greener Long Island

Long Island’s overwhelming solid waste management crisis has further emphasized the need for increased capacity of off-island waste transportation. This need is only exacerbated by the imminent closure of the Brookhaven Landfill in 2024.

The use of trucks alone is not sustainable in the removal of Long Island’s waste. The region will need to utilize trucks and rail to move society’s waste in a cost-effective, environmentally sound manner.

In the present marketplace, the truck capacity required to successfully manage Long Island’s waste has diminished, as the number of trucks to meet the demand is no longer available. The lower number of trucks available is due, in large part, to the enforcement of limiting truck drivers’ hours on the road by Electronic Logging Devices. As a result of this decrease in infrastructure capabilities, the cost per ton for truck transportation has doubled within the past several years. We are paying more for less.

Alternative modes to trucking for off‐Island solid waste transportation must be developed and expanded. And we have a plan.

Increasing the use of rail transport materials, such as municipal solid waste (MSW) and construction and demolition (C&D) debris, off-island is an essential part of the solution to our waste problems.