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Taste NY Market, which puts the spotlight on Long Island farms and encouraging agritourism throughout the region. The market will feature a selection of fresh made breakfast and lunch items, including soups, salads, sandwiches and desserts using Long Island-sourced ingredients. It will feature grab-and-go snacks and specialty local items for sale.
Community Room, which includes a DMV kiosk and travel features from I LOVE NEW YORK that highlight Long Island's diverse tourist attractions. The room can also double as a safe refuge for travelers and residents in the event of a storm or a catastrophic event.
Five I LOVE NEW YORK touchscreen kiosks will provide travelers information and suggested destinations about Long Island's tourism region.
Department of Motor Vehicles self-service kiosk at the Welcome Center will be the first kiosk to be permanently located outside of a DMV office. Customers can quickly renew their vehicle registrations, as well as conduct other transactions without having to visit a DMV office.
Enhanced Security will feature fully operational New York State Police and the Suffolk County Police satellite offices at the welcome center. Each satellite office is 600-square feet, and equipped with multiple desks and LED screens showing footage from security cameras inside and outside the building. These offices allow officers to quickly respond to emergencies on the Long Island Expressway. The center is monitored by staff 24/7 using a video monitoring system. Law enforcement departments will also have direct access and constant communication with the Department of Transportation's nearby Traffic Management Center.
In response to community concerns, there will be no tractor trailer or bus parking allowed at the Welcome Center. These vehicles will also not be allowed on the service road that supports the facility. However, accommodations for trucks and buses have been provided on the LIE:
Eastbound—Trucks and buses will be redirected to a recently renovated NYSDOT truck inspection site at Exit 66.
Westbound— a NYSDOT maintenance facility at Exit 56 was renovated to accommodate trucks. Improved lighting and portable restroom facilities will be provided at both renovated truck and bus locations.
"It's remarkable to see what can happen when state agencies come together with the community on a project which dramatically improves quality of life," said New York State Department of Transportation Commissioner Matthew J. Driscoll.
Many residents did not approve of the rest stop. Legislator Steve Stern penned a Letter to the Editor regarding his problems with the facility in August 2015.
Aha ! I stand corrected !! No wonder I never see any trucks there.
So we have a 20.5 million dollar welcome center that doesn't welcome truckers. The last time I passed the "renovated" facility at eastbound exit 66 there were a few outhouses and some dead potted pine trees there, and there were no lights at night. It didn't look too "upgraded".
One would think a rest area would be built for the thousands of trucks that use the LIE daily, not day/weekend trippers from NYC heading to the vineyards (as mentioned in the article) or the Hamptons.
Must be hard on truckers, especially those coming from Jersey that have stops before exit 66.
Last edited by lifetimeliguy; 01-13-2022 at 06:57 PM..
Update on the "recently renovated NYSDOT truck stop" at eastbound exit 66 on the LIE.
There are two (2) porta potties (one blue, one orange) at the rest area.
The four potted plants, which I observed as dead last trip out there, still appear to be dead.
I seem to remember there was a rest stop years ago and it attracted homosexual activity. Is this one sufficiently busy and staffed so that won’t be a thing?
There are literally police substations there for state police and Suffolk PD. Not going to happen.
If memory serves me correctly, there used to be a Long Island tourist information area on the Southern State Parkway just east of the Cross Island Parkway.
I would imagine real estate would be more expensive in western Nassau or Queens if it needed to be acquired in order to build a facility. Also, at least considering the L.I.E anyway, traffic can often be bumper to bumper congested further west and into the boroughs, making entering/exiting a facility more challenging.
Building the center further east gets people out on a more rural, scenic, less congested area that may give a better visual impression of Long Island, easier entrance and exit access, etc. And if travelling out to the north fork or hamptons, etc. the more easterly bathroom/food stop would likely hold people over better to make their destination without an additional stop.
You are correct on the SS stop. It's just sitting there, dilapidated and rotting, I'm sure the defense is there is no money to run it. The usual BS. Embarrassing, if you ask me.
You are correct on the SS stop. It's just sitting there, dilapidated and rotting, I'm sure the defense is there is no money to run it. The usual BS. Embarrassing, if you ask me.
Agreed. It’s obvious they shut it down and moved to the new rest stop. They should just demo it at this point.
Exit 66 used to be a rest stop for truckers. It had payphones of apparently which were used for "restful" activities. That and the stench of urine (because there were no bathrooms there) forced the rest stop to be closed down. It was later used by police to have truckers pull in for inspection. Of what type, I don't know. I believe around the time of the opening of the new welcome center in Dix Hills, it was reopened as a rest stop.
There used to be a rest stop with a passenger train car at the site of where the welcome center is now on the eastbound side, and on the westbound side (diagonally across from each other). You could go inside the train car and they did have brochures on Long Island from what I recall. Don't recall if they had porta potties all the time, but I believe in its later years they did. Eventually they removed the train car. Truckers used to stop at both in this area. However with the creation of the welcome center, truckers were then directed to use exit 56 or 66 areas and welcome centers were to be for cars only. The westbound side in this area was closed.
There are literally police substations there for state police and Suffolk PD. Not going to happen.
Yep. The original one that was there before this one was a Mecca of gay guys that parked and met up. That’s all it was. Kinda like the park and ride at exit 50 and 49. Had some nut jobs pull up and just stare at me waiting for me to give them the go ahead when I was just meeting my friend their to go to city field.
Yep. The original one that was there before this one was a Mecca of gay guys that parked and met up. That’s all it was. Kinda like the park and ride at exit 50 and 49. Had some nut jobs pull up and just stare at me waiting for me to give them the go ahead when I was just meeting my friend their to go to city field.
My reference to the Dix Hills post office came from the strange geographic shape of postal designations. I would have called the location of the Welcome Center Commack, but post office boundaries slide all over the map, and so its postal location is Dix Hills. Or we could ask which fire district or which school district. Whether the Welcome Center is in the Town of Babylon or Town of Islip, I cannot determine.
Walter Greenspan would have had a field day with this!
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