The LIRR fare situation is worsening

The LIRR fare situation is getting out of control. It really is. The LIRR has now announced yet another fare hike, this one is for the entire agency. However, the LIRR is getting beaten by the stick the most, as, unlike their the New York City Transit and their sister railroad, Metro-North, which is actively trying to increase ridership through additional service, especially during the off-peak hours, the LIRR is trying to hurt it. 

Ridership

The affects of this impact ridership greatly. Generally speaking, the LIRR's ridership is increasing- to the point where it shattered post-pandemic ridership levels, as Kathy Hochul boasted at a press release. However, that doesn't mean ridership is booming all over the island as in fact, that is not the case. It's safe to say that ridership at LIRR stations located within New York City is growing, and that's mainly thanks to improved service and expansion of CityTicket to include peak hours bringing down the average fare from $6.37 in 2019 all the way down to $5.88 in 2024. That's a great thing. Bringing more people in NYC to the LIRR will greatly help reduce crowding on the already overcrowded subway lines, specifically the IRT Flushing Line and it will also help to reduce traffic on the cities way over congested roads, too. 

However, on Long Island, which should be the railroad's main focus, ridership hasn't even reached 3 quarters of what it once was. And while that's still partly due to the pandemic, it's also because of fares. The average fares for Long Island stations are up a whopping 10% from last year, raising what once was a $8.89 trip in 2019 and making it $9.73 in 2024. Ridership is failing short of pre-pandemic levels at all but 2 stations on Long Island, and with the exception of the South Fork, which is actually doing much better, thanks to SFCC, ridership just isn't going up.

The @mtalirr.bsky.social is pricing itself into irrelevance...We met up with a group of four who drove all the way into Manhattan. Even with garage parking ($20), two QMT tolls ($13.88), CBD Toll ($6) ($39.88 total)It was STILL third of the price of LIRR ($122) from zone 10. Will only get worse.

— The LIRR Today (@thelirrtoday.bsky.social) August 16, 2025 at 1:28 PM

And what's gonna make things even worse is the proposed fare hike for later in the year, which will further increase fares, and not only that, but it'll also shorten the validity period for one-way/round-trip tickets from 60 days to 4 hours! 

Less fares = more ridership

The answer is this: less fares = more ridership. It's that plain and simple. We've seen it over and over again. The largest driver of ridership is better fare incentives. The LIRR, right now, needs to focus it's efforts on developing a new fare system, one that's cheaper and more rational, one that promotes off-peak travel, not hurts it.

The LIRR is at the point where they either got to step-it-up, and deal with the fare situation, or watch as ridership plummets, as the railroad slowly declines into a shell of it's former self, something that's irrelevant, hard to use, and eventually, politically unsustainable.