Why It Makes Sense for Long Island to Rethink the Parking Garage

In the incremental business of retrofitting suburbia, it’s helpful to think of the lungfish.

Back in the day a few million years ago, the eel-like creature sprouted limbs and emerged from the surf for forays on the beach, before returning again to the water. Later, tetrapods equipped themselves to make land roving a steadier habit, and the rest is evolutionary history. The transition from the ocean to land, ultimately leading to humankind, didn’t happen all at once.

So it is that the Rauch Foundation, a nonprofit trying to foster innovation in Long Island, looked at the 4,000 acres of surface parking in a dozen or so villages anchored by Long Island Railroad train stations, and hoped to spark a slow-and-steady transformation to transit-oriented development.