Kill them with kindness seems to be the latest approach taken by LIRR President Helena Williams after a nostalgic recital of how wonderful Ms. Williams and the LIRR feel about our small town, its residents and our local businesses. This was the tenor of the article "LIRR Defends 3rd Track Plan" that appeared in local newspapers.

After showering us with bouquets of good will and massaging our sensibilities with an easy geniality, the article was striking in its omissions. After years of LIRR neglect, laxity and indolence, flattery will not change minds or hearts. Behind the facade of friendliness an army of demolitionists are posed to take the village by storm.

This may sound like a harsh and cynical assessment, but in light of recent history, it is easy to lampoon the heartwarming "we are the world" rhetoric that is now being voiced in our local newspapers by the proponents of the third track. I am by no means questioning Ms. Williams' desire (who unhappily for her, parachuted into this tempest long after it started) to avoid convulsing the communities along the Main Line corridor as much as possible. But the fact is, it's just not possible. The magnitude of the project lends itself to indiscriminateness and there is no doubt that if this project has legs, holocausts of havoc will plague our commercial zones, with construction promiscuously infringing on traffic and parking causing, at key locations, a general upheaval.

Meanwhile, the LIRR has apparently abandoned the reverse commute as the casus belli for the track expansion and apparently now maintains that this $1.3 billion project is necessary to bypass the trains that breakdown so that the other tracks remain open for ongoing train traffic, an about-face that has recklessly ensnared them into a web of deceit.

In addition, Ms. Williams argues that the LIRR must plan for a future that by some estimates will bring one million more residents to the New York metropolitan area. The population on Long Island grew by 189,000 from 1980 to 2006, which is reason to be skeptical that it could grow five times this number by 2030. Train ridership (not as a percentage, but in sheer numbers) has grown marginally in that same period. In fact, ridership peaked in 1949 when the population on Long Island was less than 950,000. Today, the population is about 2.8 million, more than two-and-a-half times greater than it was during the peak ridership year. Clearly, today many more people are working regionally and are opting to commute by car irrespective of emissions, traffic and congestion.

In terms of actual construction, it is indeed hard to understand why the third track has to be built in Floral Park at all since at South Tyson (where the third track is supposed to end) the trains will switch onto a single track going through Floral Park. Why can't they switch onto a single track further east? The East Side Access Project, which is being rightly trumpeted as critical for future transportation needs, will connect the railroad to the east side of Manhattan via Grand Central and would begin, I surmise, west of Woodside. I say surmise because the only way we can take the guesses out of the equation is by wrestling the Draft Environmental Statement from the clutches of the LIRR/FTA, who are not letting it go.

With the reverse commute explanation seemingly being disavowed by the same LIRR that gave it life, many questions arise that can only be cleared up when either the LIRR or the FTA furnish us with a copy of the DEIS. Instead of sharing this information, the LIRR chose instead to lob another stink bomb into an environment where pure oxygen is already in meager supply. A veil of secrecy has been drawn around this document with the poor excuse that they are reviewing it for mistakes or inadvertent errors.

Obviously, this explanation does nothing to pass the smell test. There is no law, rule or regulation prohibiting the release of this document to the public at this time. I would suggest that the real motivation for the LIRR not releasing this document is simply a continuation of the strategy employed since the scoping hearings nearly three years ago, to wit: give as few details or specifics about the project so that meaningful evaluation can be avoided at all costs.

The LIRR's present schedule calls for FTA approval of the DEIS by this May with public hearings to follow almost immediately thereafter during the summer months. The timing of these hearings and the delayed release of this document are clearly designed to limit input and public participation in the process. Forthrightness and not flight is what we want from the LIRR and we will demand nothing less. Floral Park views the LIRR's fancy footwork in the same way heavyweight champion Joe Louis saw his speedy challenger Billy Conn: He can run but he can't hide said the Brown Bomber.

Ms. Williams concluded her article by professing how much the LIRR "cares" about Floral Park and is "working hard to be a good neighbor." Unfortunately, this is not the time for the LIRR to be patronizing or to profess false hopes about not wanting to disrupt our village. What is needed at this critical time is candor and transparency.

Finally, I will be celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Long Island Rail Road that Ms. Williams notes in her article. The railroad was good for the United States and it was good for Floral Park. I never harbored any doubts that modern transportation made the modern world. That's the way I feel and the way Floral Park feels. I've never heard anyone say we should raze the railroad or even subtract one of the four tracks that traverse this village. What we are saying is we want to see the DEIS. Actions speak louder than words. The LIRR must release its draft environmental impact statement now!