A $7,461,000 federal grant announced July 15 will fund preliminary design work to eliminate three at-grade rail-road crossings on the LIRR's Ronkonkoma Branch at Brentwood, Wyandanch, and Central Islip — the first formal step toward separation, with construction funding still to come.

The MTA announced July 15 that it has received $7,461,000 in federal funding to begin planning and preliminary design work toward eliminating three at-grade rail-road crossings on the Long Island Rail Road's Ronkonkoma Branch in Suffolk County: the Wicks Road/Fifth Avenue intersection in Brentwood, the Straight Path crossing in Wyandanch, and the Lowell Avenue crossing in Central Islip.

The three communities sit along the branch's western corridor between Penn Station and eastern Long Island, and are among its most transit-dependent stops. At each location, activated crossing gates interrupt surface-street traffic every time a train passes — and create the collision risk that grade separations are designed to eliminate. The federal money covers design only; a separate capital award would be required to fund actual construction.

The grant was championed by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Andrew Garbarino (NY-02), whose district covers the affected Suffolk County communities. Newsday reported that the three new projects join two other grade crossing eliminations already in planning on the branch, at Ocean Avenue and Pond Road in Ronkonkoma.

Wyandanch, one of the three targeted locations, has already seen significant LIRR investment — the station was rebuilt as part of a transit-oriented development push in the surrounding area, making a grade-separated Straight Path crossing a further safety upgrade to a corridor the agency has been working to improve.

The Ronkonkoma Branch is one of the LIRR's busiest, with frequent peak-hour service between Penn Station and eastern Long Island. Design work is the first formal step; for riders in Brentwood, Wyandanch, and Central Islip, the physical separation of rail from road remains a future project, contingent on a second round of funding.