Programmatically read Access files (.mdb) in R for Windows and Mac

Question

I am trying to write an open data packet that reads New York State data into R. This data is provided as an Access database.

I want to write a function that downloads, reads, and imports these files, and I want it to be supported on different platforms. The current approach suggests installing a 32-bit version of R that does not comply with the bill for program access.

A review of #RStats suggests this is a common pain point ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 )

On OS X / Linux, you can use mdb.get from the mdb.get package , provided that you have a third-party library called mdb-tools . But for Windows it helps a little.

The accepted answer will read the .mdb file linked above in R via Windows, OS X and Linux.