The Hamlet of Ronkonkoma, a place I live near and visit often, probably seams very dense due to its ridership, however, there’s barely more people who live in Ronkonkoma then that use the station. The problem is, the vast majority of those who board at Ronkonkoma are actually not from Ronkonkoma, or even the surrounding communities, but are instead from many different points east, north, south, and even west of Ronkonkoma.
In order for commuter rail to work as it supposed to, service should be consistent proportional to population density, all the way out to the end of the line. At no point should there be a steep service dropout (unless the population similarly drops off, which hasn’t and won’t happen on Long Island). Service may be relatively proportional out in Greenport, however, Riverhead for example, has about 30% people living there, but sees an 85% drop in service. Many of those who could use Riverhead station (or any other station along the North and South forks), just drive to Ronkonkoma and park there for free.
These riders fly past their local stations because the levels of service in many cases is just laughable. The lack of service on the East End is much worse considering there are very few alternatives (if you want decent service). A prime example of this is the West Hempstead Branch, which gets much, much better service then the East End, but doesn’t get service proportional to Western Nassau County population, or better, to its peers over on the Far Rockaway, Hempstead, and Main Line branches.
Not only do the desperate riders on the Ronkonkoma-Greenport section of the Mainline flock to Ronkonkoma, so do many riders along the North and South forks. Many riders that live closer to the Montauk and Port Jefferson branches often find themselves driving, and parking at Ronkonkoma. I feel like there’s lot to be done to peak service on the Montauk and Port Jefferson branches which have room for more, and many riders would rather just drive to Ronkonkoma to get the direct and frequent service out of there. Many times, when my mother needs to go into the city for an appointment or what not, she’ll drive to Ronkonkoma even though our local Montauk Branch station is just up the block! My dad normally takes the Montauk Branch though.
The truth is only 34% of Ronkonkoma ridership actually comes from the nearby area. Roughly two thirds of riders who use this station are driving from a community elsewhere in Long Island that is locally served via a different station. It’s possible to determine from the LIRR’s 2012-2014 Origin and Destination Survey where the MTA asked riders to obviously provide their origin and destination, all bc with their home ZIP codes so they could chart a more overall picture of riders’ overall choice. I’ll give the breakdown:
- About only 34% riders come from the local area, while the most 18% of the riders drive south from communities along the Port Jefferson Branch.
- 17% of the riders backtrack east from Brentwood and Central Islip (specially from Islandia which is more understandable given the location being closer to Ronkonkoma.)
- 15% of riders drive north from communities along the Montauk Branch in the towns of Brookhaven and Islip.
- 12% of riders drive from areas along the Main Line in eastern portions of the Town of Brookhaven (instead of using Medford or Yaphank stations which is highly understandable given the poor service there)
- 3% of riders drive west from the North Fork (areas in Town of Riverhead and Southold)
- 2% of riders drive up the island from the South Fork (areas in the Towns of Southampton and East Hampton)
If this doesn’t get the point across about just how many people use this station, then I don’t know what does. Many of these people are diesel branch refugees, and the rest are riders backtracking from Central Islip and Brentwood which surprised me, however, considering some of the best trains skipped these stations, you can kind of understand it more. While I expect this has changed quite a bit since commuting patterns changed because of COVID-19 and ESA, and many of these people who used to take popular trains to New York such as:
- The old train 2013 (the 6:24am from Ronkonkoma), which ran nonstop to Hicksville
- The old train 2015 (the 6:39am from Ronkonkoma), which ran just before the old train 2017 from CI that skipped Jamaica and this train possibly carried local passengers and passengers to alternate terminals.
- The old train 2021 (the 7:04am from Ronkonkoma) which ran nonstop to Deer Park.
- The old train 2019 (the 7:19am from Ronkonkoma), which only maked Ronkonkoma, Central Islip, and Brentwood before running nonstop to New York. This is one of the busiest trains for these stations, therefore those who live close to the border would likely chose eastbound.
- The old train 2061 (the 4:46pm reverse-peak from Ronkonkoma), which used to skip Brentwood before the double track.
Nowadays, those trains are gone with East Side Access (for the better in some cases). Nowadays, I expect that number has gone down as service patterns on the branch have gotten much more simple, however I assume that the smaller percentage of back trackers would do it for these trains:
- Train 2017 (the 6:29am flyer from Ronkonkoma) This train can get relatively crowded and I wouldn’t be surprised if some Brentwood riders would backtrack to guarantee a seat.
- Train 1917 (the 6:36am from Ronkonkoma) Another well-traveled train.
- Train 2019 (the 7:10am from Ronkonkoma) This train is probably the busiest train on the entire branch, and I assume that there would be many standees for anyone who didn’t board at Ronkonkoma.
- Train 1921 (the 7:28am from Ronkonkoma) Another well-traveled train.
Coupled with the diesel riders, all of this puts extraordinary stress on poor Ronkonkoma. While capacity improvements have improved greatly since the Third Track project opened, there’s still capacity constraints, and Ronkonkoma just cannot keep up with the loads. It’s crazy to note that some trains out of Ronkonkoma in the morning already have standees before even making their first station stop.
As you’ve seen with my timetable project, I’ve been trying to balance the loads around, and with the recent unveil of my Montauk Branch timetable, many of you hopefully saw the improvements that were made to diesel peak service, in hopes of improving peak commutes on the Montauk Branch.
I believe the worst of the problems lies in off-peak and event service. Trains after big events on the Ronkonkoma branch consistently have all 8, 10, or even 12 cars filled to the gills with the standees, and even some weekend off-peak trains during the busier travel periods can get rough.
The Ronkonkoma Branch timetable will release this Monday at 6:00am, so stay tuned!