Long Island commuters will pay more to ride the LIRR, subways and buses, or to drive across an MTA bridge or tunnel, by the end of this summer, as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday approved its first fare hike in four years. Alfonso A. Castillo reports on Newsday.com that at a meeting in Manhattan on Wednesday, the MTA board unanimously voted in favor of the plan to raise fare revenue by 4% and tolls by 6%. The new rates will take effect on or around Aug. 20.

Defending the increase, MTA chairman and CEO Janno Lieber noted it was part of a budget deal with the state that pulled the transit agency out of potential insolvency, and also was lower than the originally planned 5.5% increase. He said regularly scheduled, modest rate increases remain important, and noted that the LIRR last year reduced monthly fares by 10% to lure back lapsed riders lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The fares are still lower than they used to be, even though everything else in life has gone up,” Lieber said. “We all need to accept that the MTA raising fares 4% when surrounding inflation over the last several years is well in excess of that is responsible, and what it delivers is a balanced budget that preserves service.”

On the LIRR, weekly and monthly tickets would rise, on average, by 4.3%. One-way, off-peak tickets would rise by 4.6%.

On New York City subways and buses, the cost of a single ride would increase for the first time in eight years, from $2.75 to $2.90.

Tolls on MTA bridges and tunnels will rise by 6% for E-ZPass customers, and 10% for others.

Southampton Town’s transfer stations, most of which were closed over the weekend and early this week due to what officials have called “a perfect storm” of truck breakdowns, have begun to reopen. Stephen J. Kotz reports on 27east.com that Town Engineer Tom Houghton said the Hampton Bays transfer station had reopened on Tuesday, joining North Sea, which remained open during the short crisis.

The Sag Harbor station, which is closed on Wednesdays, will reopen today, and Westhampton, which was scheduled to be closed most of this week anyway for curb repairs, should be back in business by Friday, Houghton said.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d lose two trucks in one day,” Houghton said of the backup that began Friday.

One of three semi-tractors the Waste Management Department owns was already in the shop for repairs when the two remaining trucks broke down. The department was already short one semi-tractor, a 2018 Mack, the newest in its fleet, which was destroyed in a fire at the North Sea transfer station in April. A second truck, used to deliver large roll-off containers, also was destroyed in that blaze.

By Tuesday, Houghton said he had rented one semi-tractor and was looking for more, so the backup could be cleared.

The Southampton Town Board will hold a special meeting at 10:30 this morning to authorize more truck rentals.

Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara, who said she learned of the closures on Facebook on Sunday, said the town has money earmarked for new vehicles and trailers.

“We have the money to buy the trucks — it’s sourcing them that’s the issue,” she said on Monday.

Houghton agreed, but added that since the pandemic, prices have also surged. Large trailers equipped with compactors that once sold for about $90,000 now command about $175,000, he said.

A long-standing effort to bring a YMCA to Riverhead is getting a new push by town officials and the nonprofit. Tara Smith reports on Newsday.com that the town board on Tuesday approved a resolution that would make way for the town's first Y facility at the shuttered state armory building on Route 58 in Riverhead. The resolution also authorized the town’s Community Development Agency to begin negotiations with the YMCA of Long Island.

Plans to bring a YMCA to Riverhead date back more than a decade.

“This has been going on for years, trying to find the perfect location for the YMCA,” said councilman Tim Hubbard. “To see it come to fruition would be awesome.”

The armory site connects to Riverhead’s Stotzky Park, which has picnic areas, soccer, baseball and softball fields and a dog park.

The National Guard Armory, located between car dealerships on Route 58, was given to the town by New York State after bills passed in both houses of the State Legislature in 2011.

There are six YMCA locations on Long Island: Bay Shore, East Hampton, Holtsville, Huntington, Glen Cove and Patchogue.

On August 7, long-vacant units that were once home to Coast Guard families in Westhampton will go on the auction block. The bidding for the entire 14-acre site starts at $5 million. That might be a little too rich for the Town of Southampton’s blood. Kitty Merrill reports on 27east.com that the town had hoped to buy the site to house affordable housing, and while an initial offer to buy it was rejected, officials haven’t given up hope.

“We’re trying to figure this out,” Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said. “We made an offer and got rejected. I thought it was a good offer.”

The offer, which lawmakers refrained from disclosing, was based on an appraisal the town authorized in 2021.

By law, the town is bound by its appraisal and can’t offer more, even as participants in the online auction. Other legal hurdles could stand in the way as well.

If the town’s bid is accepted, according to the supervisor, the Town of Southampton would have to move forward with taking ownership, according to the auction’s rules. But, officials can’t commit to a purchase without holding public hearings and undergoing its own municipal process.

Located off Stewart Avenue in Westhampton, the property is home to 24 duplexes, ranging in size from 1,948 to 5,917 square feet, plus two single-family units, and an office/workshop, according to the auction website. Built in 1977, it underwent renovations in 2011. Half the units underwent asbestos remediation, half did not. Southampton Town Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara acknowledged that many units were worse for wear. She said that if the town wins the auction, officials would most likely partner with a nonprofit organization to make nice, affordable units.

A deadly early morning wrong-way crash that killed two drivers forced the closure of the westbound Long Island Expressway, as well as the eastbound HOV lane, on the Holtsville-Farmingville border for more than six hours earlier today, according to Suffolk County police.

Police said Thomas Raimondo, 61, of Holbrook, was driving a 2013 Chevrolet Silverado east on the westbound LIE when he crashed head-on into a 2005 Acura driven by Jose Ferreira, 32, of West Babylon, at 12:43 a.m. There were no passengers in either vehicle, police said — and both drivers died at the scene. John Valenti reports on Newsday.com that it was the second wrong-way crash on a Long Island highway in as many days. A wrong-way driver, allegedly impaired by drugs, yesterday afternoon on the Northern State Parkway near Roslyn struck multiple vehicles leaving four people with non-life-threatening injuries, state police said.

As a result of this morning’s crash in Suffolk, the L.I.E. was closed between Exit 63, North Ocean Avenue, and Exit 62, Nicolls Road. Police said the road was reopened at 6:56 a.m. this morning.

Police are asking anyone with information to contact Sixth Squad detectives at 631-854-8652. Both vehicles were impounded for safety checks.

The Suffolk County Water Authority will place liens on properties of customers with accounts at least 90 days overdue and in excess of $1,000, an effort, agency officials said, to collect more than $10 million in delinquent fees after the state disallowed service shut-offs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authority added, though, that it plans to work with customers on payment plans.

"We understand that many of our customers have faced financial hardships during these unprecedented times,” Jeffrey Szabo, the authority's chief executive, said in a statement. “We want to work with them to find viable solutions.” Olivia Winslow reports on Newsday.com that the SCWA, which serves about 1.2 million Suffolk residents, said it will begin placing liens on properties with outstanding water bills on active accounts exceeding $1,000 and 90 days past due as of May 31 as well as all unpaid closed accounts.

The water authority said before the pandemic, it "typically" had about $4 million in past-due payments across fewer than 4,000 accounts. Now, it said past-due payments amount to more than $10 million across 30,000 accounts.

Retired science teacher and geologist Robert Mozer has been sampling water at ponds on the western edge of Southampton Town since 2019. Kitty Merrill reports on 27east.com that through the Adopt-a-Pond program, the Remsenburg resident collects samples from freshwater bodies and, in collaboration with Dr. Chris Gobler’s lab at the School of Marine Sciences at Stony Brook Southampton, has them analyzed for harmful algal blooms, or HABs.

HABs have been a scourge in some eastern Southampton ponds and lakes; Lake Agawam has festered with blue-green algae regularly for years.

When he began his volunteer effort, Mozer’s goal was to characterize study areas of West Pond, East Pond and Mill Pond in Speonk, Beaverdam Pond in Westhampton, Old Ice Pond in Quogue and Wildwood Lake in Northampton.

Recently, he’s added new technology to his effort through a collaboration with the Farmingdale State College Geographic Information Science program — drones. Last week, assistant professors John Gross and Doug Gallaway, along with students from the college, flew a drone over Lake Agawam, as volunteers paddled out in kayaks taking samples. The previous week, they conducted the same test over Wildwood Lake.

To help continue his quest to characterize the ponds, Mozer is founding the Citizen Science Learning Center, with the goal of qualifying for grants to continue the work.

“The Town of Southampton has between 30 and 50 ponds alone,” he reckoned.

Lecturing at the Westhampton Free Library recently, Mozer spoke of the reasons for starting the Citizen Science Learning Center: “To support our specific mission to provide a resource for the environmental education of our children, to keep our residents informed of the health of our natural resources, and to notify them when a potential health risk occurs in near-real time.”