The LIRR’s Big Bet on Midtown

The LIRR’s service plan that was put into place on February 27, 2023 obviously placed much of its emphasis on Midtown Manhattan. The service plan essentially had all trains that had ran to either Atlantic Terminal or Hunterspoint Av to be reverted to Grand Central, and while the new terminal in the Lower East Side is huge for many, it was detrimental to those that relied on those alternate terminals- those which were growing rapidly. 

Under the new service plan, the railroad has essentially sent 90% of its capacity to either Penn Station or Grand Central, with only the small 10 percent of trains for riders looking for a one-seat ride to somewhere else. The worse part is, of those trains, most of them run during very inconvenient times- the only one seat rides on the Port Jefferson and Ronkonkoma Branches leave at 4:54am and 5:30am respectively. Trains on some of the smaller branches run during better times, and, it’s great to see one-seat rides to Brooklyn during the earlier part of the rush hour, however, the most room for growth is during the center of the rush hour, and I don’t think it could hurt if the LIRR added a train or two to Atlantic Terminal or Hunterspoint Avenue on the larger branches during the center of the rush hour. It would also be great to see the LIRR extend some of the shuttle sets during the reverse-peak periods further out to Long Island. I’m not fully aware, but I’m sure many people would you use a reverse-peak from Atlantic Terminal to/from let’s say Long Beach.  

By putting all the emphasis on the two Manhattan terminals, your actually limiting growth to the entire city, since, the most growth right now is to trips other then from Manhattan to Long Island. Hunterspoint Avenue continues to be treated as pretty much a complete afterthought, as it’s used only when the LIRR has absolutely no other choice in order to not clog up Jamaica. While some people actually didn’t expect Hunterspoint Avenue to survive into the new service plan, it did and the LIRR still hasn’t done anything to improve it. Service to Hunterspoint Avenue had been cut by 9%, and they didn’t even go as far as converting the empty equipment runs over to revenue trains, something that could be easily done for zero cost, and would be a huge step in improving service out there. 

Then, there’s of course, Brooklyn. Brooklyn is personal to me, as many of my first train trips had me taking the train there opposed to Penn Station to see family there. When East Side Access opened, virtually all thru-service to Brooklyn was cut and riders ended up with a clumsy, very sloppily scheduled, and aggravating shuttle service which required customers to go up and over to a completely separate shuttle platform. Initially, as crazy as this is, the railroad actually slashed peak service between Jamaica and Atlantic Terminal by 20% over pre-pandemic service levels, but soon completely reversed that decision soon afterwards after they were proven wrong. 

The origins of East Side Access

The Long Island Rail Road first began its journey down the East Side Access route in the mid to late 1990s when both the MTA and New York State set their sights on reviving proposals to build a brand new LIRR terminal in Manhattan’s East Side. Proposals to build a new rail link had been proposed since decades before, however, those efforts had been abandoned due to the city’s financial problems. In 1995, when it was originally proposed, the city was a completely different place. New York had still been recovering from people moving out to the suburbs, and crime was still a huge problem, and it was still coming off of the worst decade in New York history. 

By this time, the city finally began turning around and employment was growing substantially. Attention to housing, urban decay, and crime (something Detroit really needs!) really helped the city improve and expand. Business began to return to the city, and this brought in new commuters and fueled population growth. At that time, much of New York’s major commercial office activity was centered in Lower Manhattan, which was in tough shape after decades of decline and the stock market crash. While proposals were being floated for a huge megaproject, other projects were also being worked on (such as the Second Avenue Subway). Commercial activity in other parts of Manhattan (along with the outer boroughs) was limited, and while, Midtown (the area between 42nd and 59th Streets offered the most growth, little was done about it. When the MTA decided it wanted to spend billions of dollars on the Second Avenue Subway, obviously they had to give the Suburbs something in return, and the idea of building a rail link to one of the fastest growing commercial neighborhoods in the city seamed like a good idea.

Both the MTA and the LIRR doubled down on their efforts for Midtown Direct in the months following the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. In the wake of all the catastrophic and tremendous damage done to the World Trade Center site, which was the largest concentration of jobs in the entire Financial District), many people thought that Lower Manhattan was done for good. When the MTA reconcentrated its efforts for East Side Access, everyone thought that the Lower East Side was the next big thing, and as we know that ended up being the case. Grand Central Madison was specifically designed to make it easy to get from the platforms to all the office buildings along Madison and Park Avenues.  

Hunterspoint Avenue and LIC

Since the completion of East Side Access, Hunterspoint Avenue and Long Island City have continued the infamous tradition of being a complete afterthought. Service to both of those stations continues to be atrocious, with large gaps even during peak hours. With the introduction of direct service to the East Side, many people who used to take the train there and catch a 7 train to Midtown now just go via Grand Central Madison, therefore, ridership decreased. However, there’s still a significant amount of potential ridership growth for people with origins and destinations in Queens itself, and I believe many more people would it use it if they gave it improved service.

And, the truth is as a Long Islander, I was just driving through the area right at the yards and the development in the area is very good, it’s definitely changed since before. Development in both Hunterspoint Avenue and Long Island City have both improved, and the skyline has actually changed considerably. 

Photo: Tri-State Rail NOW

According to the United States Census Bureau’s data, the total number of jobs in the Long Island City-Hunters Pt Neighborhood has increased by nearly 68% since 2010, and this area added over 15,000 new jobs over the last decade- while the LIRR still acts like nobody uses the station or could.

Approximately 40% of those who work in this area commute from the city itself, suggesting there’s significant potential for ridership to/from the greater LIC area. For years, the LIRR has ignored requests and proposals to improve service from these stations, especially from branches in electric territory. HPA and LIC have now become diesel-only stations, served by only the diesel branches which bring the most riders from Suffolk County (who account for less then 5% of commuter demand to this area!), and do not adequately serve people coming from places further into Queens and Nassau, which account for 35% of ridership demand to/from Hunterspoint Avenue and LIC. 

Additionally,  the population of the Long Island City - Hunters Pt area has actually tripled over the last 10 years, adding 20,000 more residents who could probably take a job on Long Island if they had reasonable reverse-peak service there.

Requiring riders to either one take the subway to either Grand Central (requiring you to double back) or Woodside is definitely not an acceptable alternative. Not only are you charged for the railroad, but you also must pay a subway fare in addition to having to spend 12 additional minutes on your trip. 

I strongly suggest the LIRR should considering service to both Hunterspoint Avenue and Ling Island City, by at the minimum providing faster, and more frequent service then what is currently provided. The good thing is, the LIRR can actually do this pretty easily, and there are several ways to accomplish this, in which many of these can largely be accomplished without utilizing existing train and crew downtime outside of rush hours:

• Converting all equipment trains and hard trains that currently run empty between LIC and Jamaica during reverse-peak and midday periods, including several revenue trains that run empty to Jamaica before starting revenue service there. 
• Extending all diesel trains (at least on the Oyster Bay Branch) to operate to/from Hunterspoint Av and LIC. In addition to providing service to HPA/LIC while not sacrificing Manhattan service, this would also benefit diesel branch riders as they wouldn’t have to deal with annoying transfers at Huntington and double-transfers at Babylon (while I’d say the Huntington up-and-over is much worse then Babylon). 
• Adding additional trains from the smaller electric branches to and from HPA and LIC. The LIRR’s current service plan currently has the small electric branches (West Hempstead, Hempstead, Long Beach, and Far Rockaway) continuing to see frequencies way below their capacity. The LIRR’s could easily add trains from those branches there to accomplish several things: better serve the Nassau-Queens commuter market, provide additional service opportunities to everyone on the smaller branches (no matter their destination)c, and allowing the LIRR to load these grains with the more local stops in lieu of adding stops on busier Manhattan-bound trains from busier branches, reducing travel-time for those riders all the while providing more service to HPA/LIC.
• Reducing travel-time between Hunterspoint Avenue and Long Island City. It’s rare that you can “reduce travel time” on the LIRR, however, currently, all trains from LIC must park at Hunterspoint Avenue for several minutes, while they “load up” passengers. There’s absolutely no need for that, and given the very small distance between the stations, many trains can make the distance in only 5-7 minutes. 
• Adding additional shuttles between Jamaica and HPA/LIC. While I can understand why the LIRR is hesitant about sending electric trains there, especially considering not all the tracks at LIC are electrified, these could help address the most acute gaps in service and can work very similar to the Brooklyn shuttles. These sets can be fed from Hillside or Jamaica-Johnson Avenue during rush hours, and can run back and forth before heading back to the yard following rush hours. 

Overall, the LIRR still serves Long Island City as if it’s only home to half-abandoned warehouses and is all industrial, yet it’s instead a thriving and rapidly growing neighborhood. There are many opportunities for the LIRR to grow service at both HPA and LIC in a way that can’t be done via a subway transfer. Even if they only convert a couple of equipment trains, it’s still something. 

Brooklyn 

Brooklyn is perhaps the worst of the problems of the new service plan. The LIRR's elimination of through-service from Brooklyn to eastern points on Long Island meant a big blow to these commuters, especially considering 85% to 90% of those riders needed to get somewhere further east then Jamaica, where the shuttles end.

The thing is ridership is growing to Brooklyn at a much faster rate then what is seen to Manhattan, and according to ticket sales data, ridership grew a whopping 23% to Brooklyn between 2016 and 2019, thats nearly half of all the new riders wanting to go to Brooklyn.

In my opinion, if anything, the LIRR should be looking to increase service to Brooklyn, not reduce it! It's even worth nothing that the considerable growth Brooklyn has gotten has taken place even after the LIRR has pretty much ignored it over the last 40 years. You can only imagine the growth that would occur if the LIRR actually improved service substantially there.

Brooklyn is more personal to me because I used to take it before the service changes much more to go see family, but as time has gone on, I've unfortunately gone there less, however, when I do take the train there, the up-and-over normally doesn't bother me to much, but for someone who has to do it everyday I can understand why people hate it so much. 

One of the biggest downsides to reduced service to Brooklyn is to the many people who went to Atlantic Terminal as a shortcut to get to Lower Manhattan. When the LIRR reduced service to Brooklyn, these riders were basically forced to crowd onto Manhattan-bound trains, in which many of them will either go to Penn Station and the crowd the already crowded Seventh and Eighth Avenue Lines, or will go to Grand Central, and will be forced to walk all the way back to 48th St to reach the already severely crowded Lexington Avenue Line. Not a great choice, huh. Instead of being able to spread out across the 5 subway lines that serve Atlantic Terminal, have considerable capacity, and can get you anywhere in Lower Manhattan, there forced to overcrowd the packed subway trains in Manhattan.

Further, by scaling-down service to Brooklyn, the LIRR is actually hindering their operational flexibility. By sending pretty much all their traffic via the Main Line to Manhattan, they are basically placing all their eggs in one basket. If a service disruption or incident was to occur, they'd be forced to basically grind ALL service to a complete halt, without the flexibility to divert trains to/from Brooklyn, and it would be a complete mess in Jamaica with trains waiting for trackspace to discharge. If something were to happen at Forest Hills, for example, the entire Mainline would go down for good and that could ruin an entire rush hour causing a ripple effect and causing delays lasting for hours and hours on end. The LIRR shouldn't place all it's fate in the Main Line, as we've seen before, incidents are relatively common on the Main Line, and there've even been a couple of full suspensions. 

I'll be elaborating on this more in my reworked timetable project, but I believe the LIRR should operate a handful of locals to Brooklyn on the bigger branches, and provide more supplemental Brooklyn service during the peak and reverse-peak periods. By doing this, not only are they giving these branches more service, while giving Brooklyn riders more connection options, they are also allowing themselves some room in case of a delay on the Mainline. If there were to be a large enough delay to suspend the Main Line in either or both directions, they could divert trains to Brooklyn and people could then catch the subway up to Midtown or wherever else they want to go.

I believe it's important that the LIRR should evaluate demand on each one of the LIRR's branches, and determine which branches need Brooklyn service most, and at what times, and try to incorporate more of it as a supplement. If carefully planned, trains operating on the Atlantic Branch up to Brooklyn can stand clear of "more important" trains from the South Shore heading up towards the Main Line. They'd definitely have to make some changes to the track layout at Jamaica, but I'm sure it could be done relatively easily.

I'll be talking more about improvements to Brooklyn in my Reworked Timetable Project, as we go further into the smaller branches, so, you'll see just exactly what the LIRR could do to improve service there.

The LIRR's new service plan didn't unnoticed, as the baseline schedules did make some valuable improvements across the board including service patterns the LIRR should stick with, but it did reduce service where it's needed most, and it introduced some serious, structural flaws that shouldn't go unnoticed.  

And in conclusion, I believe the LIRR should go back to the drawing board, start from scratch, and rethink the service patterns, adding more trains to Brooklyn and HPA/LIC, instead of just diverting them there!