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LIRR, Metro-North satisfaction drops sharply with new ticket policies

2026-09-23T16:00:00.000-04:00

For the second time in the last 3 years, the LIRR's customer satisfaction scores have dropped sharply, this time falling seven percentage points to 73%, the second steep plunge since 2023, when satisfaction scores falling 13 points in the spring of 2023 following the LIRR's botched rollout of the new East Side Access service plan.

Less flexible tickets mean that riders must queue up
for tickets each journey (Photo: The LIRR Today)

This round, satisfaction scores also dropped sharply on Metro-North, where overall satisfaction declined by eight percentage points to 79%, the lowest scores seen for Metro-North since the MTA changed to this bi-annual online survey format after the COVID-19 pandemic.

MTA officials presented the results of the MTA's Spring 2026 Customers Count survey were presented to the MTA Board's LIRR/Metro-North Committee meeting back in July (this topic is covered starting at the 1 hour, 2 minute mark in the video)—and then MTA executives immediately launched into excuse-making and victim blaming.

Fare policy changes drive declines in satisfaction

MTA brass blamed the sharp declines in customer satisfaction across both railroads on the implementation of harsh new ticket policies earlier this year, which significantly increased costs, reduced flexibility, and added new surcharges for riders. While these measures were intended to curb what MTA characterized as "fare evasion" on the railroads, the harsh changes have led to many honest, fare-paying riders getting struck with worthless tickets, getting hit with surcharges, and everyone paying markedly more for what were already the most expensive rail fares in the nation. The changes included:

Significantly reduced validity periods, with one-way tickets valid only on the day of purchase, instead of being valid for 60 days
Elimination of the 10-trip ticket and accompanying 15% discount for off-peak/intermediate travel
Making one-way tickets completely non-refundable, even in the event of a service disruption
A new surcharge for passengers who activate mobile tickets late

The MTA tried to paint a picture that the decline would be just "a temporary dip" and that the riders who are unsatisfied were merely riders that are fare evaders, liars, and cheaters who want to evade the fare but can't any longer. MTA's Senior Director of Customer Market Research Tatyana Levina said so crassly that "those least happy are customers who are not playing by the rules".

While customer satisfaction scores did decrease more sharply among riders who reported that they were hit with an $8 mobile ticketing surcharge (falling from 80% to 58%), the MTA has not substantiated that all of those riders were legitimately hit with the surcharge—as there have been plenty of reports of riders who activated their tickets before departure but were still sent warning notices or smacked with a surcharge. MTA staff also tried to talk around the poor scores by saying that riders hit with mobile ticketing surcharges were overrepresented in the survey results.

But the MTA glossed over the fact that satisfaction also dropped markedly among riders who said they weren't hit with a surcharge, dropping four points on LIRR and five points on Metro-North, both pretty notable drops that were written off as "actually quite close" to the Fall 2025 scores by Levina. These scores are not at all "close" as the MTA is trying to lead people to believe. Other than the survey following LIRR's colossal East Side Access service screwup, these are both the largest single-period declines in satisfaction since the MTA transitioned to this online survey format.

Satisfaction scores also declined amongst commutation ticket holders, who can use their tickets for unlimited trips and aren't impacted by the surcharges (satisfaction among monthly ticket holders dropped 3 percentage points, and satisfaction was down 12 percentage points among weekly ticket holders). Even satisfaction among half-fare users, who actually got expanded hours of reduced rates and can still buy tickets onboard for straight from the conductor with no additional surcharge, saw satisfaction decline by four percentage points.

All notable downward shifts in satisfaction that are being seemingly ignored by the MTA.

Satisfaction scores among riders who use one-way peak and one-way off-peak tickets dropped more sharply, declining 12 percentage points and 9 percentage points, respectively. Again, MTA tries to deflect, saying that "we know that these customers have the highest rates of getting a surcharge" (because these are the most common ticket types that actually have to be activated, because the others are unlimited use tickets). But MTA officials glossed over the fact that the MTA made other changes that significantly impacted riders who use these tickets, including slashing validity periods from 60 days to just 1 day, and eliminating 10-trip tickets and their accompanying discounts.

MTA's Chief of Strategic Initiatives Jon Kaufman joined in on the smear campaign, saying "when you look at [one-way tickets], the same day activations used to be 89% beforehand, so some 10% of people were buying a ticket and not activating that day—maybe waiting to see if a conductor showed up, maybe not. But now it's 98%... But before, we could see that people were buying a ticket and not really using it unless a conductor prompted them."

This shows a complete lack of understanding of how rail riders buy and use tickets. Before these changes, one-way tickets were valid for 60 days. So it's entirely possible and permitted that someone bought a round-trip ticket and used the return journey on a different day. Or they bought the ticket the night before their trip so they wouldn't have to hassle with making their purchase the next morning when running for the train. Or their travel plans changed due to a train being late or canceled and they made their trip a different day. All of these were completely legitimate uses of one-way tickets, yet the MTA is trying to smear them as "fare evaders".

Kaufman's remarks do reveal that only 98% of one-way tickets are being used on the same day, meaning 2% of tickets are not—which means, under the new rules, they expire, are non-refundable, and completely worthless. 2% of riders are paying for tickets they're not able to use, which seems like a very high and unacceptable number.

Kaufman tried to distract further from the issue by saying "ridership is going up despite all of this" (which is meaningless, since ridership continues to very slowly and gradually rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic all modes and at other agencies that did not implement such fare changes) and "we're selling more one ways" (again, meaningless, since the MTA eliminated the 10-trip ticket, converting a purchase of a 10-trip ticket in one transaction to the purchase of ten one-way tickets in ten transactions). None of this is evidence that because "the revenue and the ridership is going up" that means that "fare evasion is going down".

While any well-functioning, competently-run organization might take such stiff survey results to heart and look for ways to improve things, MTA officials seem prepared to dig in their feet and bury their heads in the sand, with Levina saying "over time, as people get used to the policies...we expect that the expect of the fare policy changes on satisfaction to lessen."

Only one MTA Board member broke from the pack to check the MTA's misleading statements, with MTA Board Member Melva Miller chiming in to say "I found a lot of language in this presentation a little troubling...", adding that when she speaks with riders, "the number one complaint...is the new ticket system". She added that "I just want to make it clear that the intention isn't always that folks are trying to evade their fare... I think that improvements have to happen across the board."

MTA minimizing impacts of fare policy changes

MTA executives have gone to great lengths over the last year to whitewash the effects of these new fare policy changes, attempting to paint a picture that these harsh measures are necessary to curb an overwhelming tide of fare evasion on the railroads.

But real MTA data paints a much different story. Of the roughly 80.4 million trips taken on the LIRR last year, 79.1 million of those trips were taken with tickets that were purchased from a ticket machine, ticket window, through Mail & Ride, mobile ticketing, etc. That means that 98.5% of LIRR riders already had their ticket purchased. Of the 1.2 million passengers who boarded a train without a ticket last year, 95% of those riders ended up paying their fare by buying a ticket from the conductor (1.1 million out of 1.2 million). The LIRR issued 61,927 "commitment to pay" invoices to riders last year, representing just 0.08% of all LIRR journeys. About 11% of those invoices were paid by the end of the year, leaving 54,960 unpaid (0.07% of all LIRR trips). The MTA issued only 2,236 criminal summonses for fare evasion on the LIRR last year. Add the last two together, the total number of passengers which MTA data says actually rode but did not pay their fare totals 57,196 passengers out of 80.4 million total journeys, or an evasion rate of 0.0071%.

This means, according to MTA data, 98.5% of LIRR passengers already travel with their tickets purchased, and 99.929% of riders ended up paying the requested fare for their journey.

The MTA has not presented any other quantifiable, verifiable data that documents the alleged prevalence of fare evasion on the LIRR or Metro-North. The rest is just a bunch of conjecture and hot air conjured up to garner support for these anti-customer fare policy changes.

MTA officials have made claims that a large number of riders who purchased mobile tickets are waiting until the conductor is in front of them to purchase and activate their tickets, slowing down fare collection significantly. But when I requested the raw data of mobile ticket purchase, activation, and scan times to verify these claims, the MTA said that the records did not exist.

The MTA bemoans the impact that this rampant, unconquerable tide of "fare evasion" and late mobile ticketing activations has had on the ability for conductors to efficiently collect fares. But the real issue always has been and still remains conductors not doing their jobs and collecting tickets.

Despite whatever perceived challenges mobile ticketing presents, the ticketing collection process has gotten easier for conductors compared to pre-pandemic. The LIRR is carrying 20% fewer riders (and peak ridership is down even more), but the conductor headcount has remained basically the same (LIRR employed 6 fewer conductors in 2024 vs. 2019). Trains are shorter than they were before East Side Access so there is less ground for the crews to cover. LIRR has also expanded gate collection both for special events and ordinary weekdays at NY-Penn Station, and has dropped the second ticket check after Jamaica on westbound trains to redeploy collectors elsewhere on the system.

With the introduction of mobile ticketing and OBTIMs, conductors no longer need to punch duplex tickets for onboard transactions, handle cash and make change for every transaction, nor write out ADL's for $3 step-up fares because someone only had a credit card on them.

Onboard fare collection has, in reality, gotten easier for conductors. But before the MTA sneakily stopped publishing fare collection failure rates in mid-2022, the figures were quite bad. In 2019, LIRR conductors failed to collect 5.3% of fares. Even in 2022, when ridership was much lower than it is today and service was reduced freeing up more collectors, LIRR conductors were missing 5.2% of fares. LIRR's fare collection failure rate also did not spike dramatically after mobile ticketing was introduced in mid-2016—suggesting that mobile ticketing is not in fact a major driver of whether conductors can or cannot collect all fares.

And even with all of these harsh changes, conductors still aren't collecting all fares. MTA reports that the fare collection rate is still only 98.1%, a measly 1.3 percentage point increase over 2025. I've been on multiple trains since the new ticket policies took effect where there has been no ticket collection at all, or only one check immediately after the origin station, missing the tickets of everyone who boarded enroute.

Take it out on fare-paying passengers, torpedoing satisfaction

Instead of addressing the real root cause of these issues (conductors not doing their jobs and collecting tickets), MTA and railroad officials decided it was easier to punish fare-paying riders with higher fares and less flexible tickets, leading to a steep drop in satisfaction as a result.

This is the second time in recent years that customer satisfaction has dropped sharply under the leadership of the current crop of MTA executives. On both occasions, riders very clearly voiced their objections and concerns with the proposals. And on both occasions, MTA and LIRR officials categorically ignored the input from riders and implemented their original proposals with only minor modifications. And on both occasions, customer satisfaction dropped sharply as a result.

It's clear that the MTA is profoundly out of touch with the needs and expectations of LIRR and Metro-North riders.

Fares and fare policy are among the most significant and versatile levers available to transit agencies to stimulate demand and grow ridership. Instead of keeping pressure on costs and using fare policy changes to make riding mass transit easier and more affordable to riders—actually helping fuel ridership growth as a result—the MTA has been more interested in extracting every nickel and dime they can from their existing, most captive riders. It begs the question, is the MTA really interested in increasing transit use and growing ridership—or are they really interested in running the least service possible while maximizing taxpayer subsidies and revenue per passenger?

LIRR back on track after 3-day strike

2026-05-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

For the first time in more than 30 years, LIRR employees went on strike last weekend after the MTA and a coalition of LIRR unions failed to reach an agreement on a new contract. Workers walked off the job and all LIRR service was suspended systemwide at 12:01am last Saturday, May 16. Service is now back to normal after a deal was struck Monday evening, with service being restored from noon on Tuesday, May 19.

LIRR workers picketing outside the 33rd Street entrance at NY-Penn Station

The dispute involved the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, the Transportation Communications Union, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Together, these organizations represent around 3,500 employees (about half of the LIRR’s represented workforce), including train engineers, dispatchers, clerical employees, station agents, signal and communication workers, electricians, and machinists.

The prior contracts between the LIRR and these unions ended and became amendable in June 2023. Over the course of the last 3 or so years, the parties have been negotiating on and off, including National Mediation Board mediation and two Presidential Emergency Boards which weighed proposals from both sides and have made recommendations to resolve the matter. But when the clock struck midnight last week, the parties had not come to an agreement, so for the first time since 1994, LIRR service shut down systemwide due to a strike.

No trains available at NY-Penn Station due to the strike
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

The strike certainly disrupted daily life on Long Island for many, but most Long Islanders seemed to be able to make do without their railroad, at least for a few days. Many just stayed home for the two days (either working from home or taking time off), others that had to travel have driven, taken the limited contingency bus services, or existing NICE and SCT bus services. The MTA reported that only about 2,000 riders availed of the contingency buses. Traffic was worse, but not apocalyptically so.

In the final days leading up to the deadline last week, the two sides were not all that far apart. The parties were largely on the same page with 3%, 3%, and 3.5% retroactive raises for 2023, 2024, and 2025. Where they disagreed was over the increase for 2026, the fourth year of the contract. The unions wanted 5% raises to bring the overall wage increase a little ahead of inflation. The MTA wanted 3% raises to keep with a more conservative pattern they had been seeking with the agency's other bargaining units, but had continued negotiating and offered a lump-sum payment that would bring the total increase for 2026 closer to 4.5%, but not fix wages at that level until the next contract was resolved.

I remarked on Friday before the strike that, with the field of play as it was, we (the riders and taxpayers) had already basically lost. The MTA had already taken reform of the LIRR's archaic and painful work rules off the table, and the only real remaining point of contention seemed small enough (half a percentage point or so) that resorting to such extraordinary action as self-help wasn't likely to dramatically change the outcome. The math didn't really favor a strike for the unions—certainly not a protracted one. As workers on strike don't get paid, a weeklong strike would result in 2% lost wages, more than eating up any difference they would gain over just taking the MTA's prior offer.

But there were clearly larger undercurrents that were keeping the two sides from striking a deal in the lead up to the deadline.

For the unions, some suggested that they were holding out to bust the pattern for the benefit of the MTA's subway and bus unions, utilizing their ability to strike to leverage better wages for subway and bus workers, who are covered by New York State's Taylor Law and are not allowed to strike. But I don't know how likely that is—LIRR workers and unions generally couldn't be bothered about what is good or bad for subway and bus workers. And certainly not at their personal expense. More likely, the unions have been feeling their political power dwindling in the post-Cuomo years and were looking to get back closer to the center of attention. The State's public sector unions were a major source of political support for former Governor Andrew Cuomo, especially in the suburbs, and he went to much greater lengths to show them love with significant investments in infrastructure across the state. But in recent years, the game of electoral politics in New York has changed and now-Governor Kathy Hochul has sought and obtained her support in other areas.

For the MTA, sticking to the pattern and keeping overall wage increases down was key to maintaining the agency's relatively stable financial outlook. The MTA operates on a system of pattern bargaining, meaning one set of unions typically gets the same deal as all of the others. When that pattern changes, other unions will point to it in future negotiations and argue they should get the same thing. Several contracts now even have explicit "me too" clauses. While granting a larger increase to the 3,500 LIRR workers might not break the bank this month, breaking the pattern could have a large impact on the MTA's finances if they have to offer the same raises to the 40,000+ TWU workers whose contract is coming up for negotiation in the near future.

The departure board at Brooklyn-Atlantic Terminal was blocked out with "No Passengers" trains, and stairways up to the LIRR platforms were gated off (Photo: The LIRR Today)

In the end, the MTA largely caved, agreeing to a 4-year, 6-week contract that grants wage increases of the 3%/3%/3.5% for 2023-2025, a 4.5% increase for 2026 plus a $3,000 lump-sum payment. The MTA did not win any substantive givebacks in terms of work rule concessions, increased contributions for healthcare, or productivity reforms. But it did get trains moving again after a 3.5 day suspension.

However, even though the MTA was unable to hold the pattern or secure productivity reforms, I believe that the strike and ensuing disruption was still moderately fruitful... The strike focused more attention to the significant levels of inefficiency and waste brought about by the LIRR's union contracts, and, even though the strike was disruptive, most people were able to bear it out and public support was generally positive. But, most importantly, it showed that the Governor is willing to take a few lumps, even in an election year, instead of caving in the eleventh hour to keep the peace. This will hopefully demonstrate to the MTA that the backing will be there should they one day grow the brains or the balls to really tackle these labor issues in future rounds of contract negotiations.

Self-help is never convenient, but it is a very effective tool at keeping unions in line, and we need to take extraordinary measures to address the extraordinary problems of inefficacy, waste, and low productivity that plague the LIRR today.

MTA sneaks in major changes to LIRR, Metro-North refund policy

2026-01-07T15:00:00.003-05:00

New fares and tolls took effect across the MTA's subways, buses, railroads, and crossings on Sunday, including some of the most sweeping and anti-customer changes to ticket policies on the LIRR and Metro-North in decades. In addition to raising fares between 4.5% and 8%, the MTA is dramatically reducing the validity period for one-way tickets, eliminating the 10-trip ticket and its 15% discount for off-peak and intermediate travel, and other changes, including:

Dramatically shorten the validity period for one-way and round-trip tickets from 60 days to 1 day (with all tickets expiring at 4:00am on the next day). This means riders will be unable to save their tickets and use them again on another day in the event their travel plans change, or there is a disruption in service that forces them to alter or abandon their journey.
Eliminate the 10-trip ticket and its accompanying 15% discount for off-peak and intermediate travel. This would be replaced with a buy-10-get-1-free pilot offer, if all tickets are used within 14 days. This will significantly increase costs for those who travel frequently off-peak, or between intermediate stations on Metro-North. The MTA's buy-10-get-1-free pilot offer is a joke of a replacement as all 11 trips need to be taken within 14 days (if you are taking 11 trips within 14 days, you are beyond the breakeven point for just getting a monthly ticket).
Introduce a day pass for unlimited travel, priced at 10% less than two one-way peak tickets on weekdays (except in NYC, where there will be no discount) or the price of two off-peak tickets on weekends. While this provides those who want to stop-over or take multiple trips a more affordable way to do so, the vast majority of LIRR and Metro-North riders are not making more than two trips per day, so it delivers no real benefit. And the weekday day pass is more expensive than buying 1v peak and 1 off-peak ticket or 2 off-peak tickets. So if you decide to head home early before rush hour, or stay late in the city for dinner or an event, you end up losing money over buying separate tickets.
Make the Peak CityTicket and Far Rockaway Ticket permanent fare products, and having CityTicket replace the full-fare one-way tickets for travel within New York City.
Accept half-fare tickets on all trains, including during the AM Peak period. This restriction was seldom enforced to begin with and made the MTA less than $190k per year in additional revenue.
Allow children up to 17 years of age to travel with $1 Family Fare tickets when accompanied by an adult. Child fares remain available only to those who are younger than 12, so if you are travelling with more than four children, or 12-17 year olds are travelling on their own, they must still pay the full adult fare.
Increase the onboard surcharge from $6 to $8.

Accepting half-fare tickets for seniors, Medicare beneficiaries, and people with disabilities, along with increasing the age for the Family Fare from 12 to 17 are good improvements, but seniors/half fare riders and children account for only about 5% and 1% of LIRR ridership, respectively. For the 94% of riders that pay for full-fare tickets, these changes are overwhelmingly negative as they dramatically reduce flexibility, increase costs, and will end up with riders paying much more out of pocket to ride the LIRR and Metro-North.

LIRR and Metro-North fares are already the most expensive and second-most expensive rail fares in North America, by a considerable margin. These fare changes now make LIRR and Metro-North fares not only the most expensive in North America—but now also the least flexible.

A new day pass (photo byu/pokemonhgharris innycrail)

Significant changes to refund policy

Along with the new fare policy changes, the MTA has posted a new refund policy for LIRR and Metro-North tickets on its website. Under the new policy, one-way tickets are now completely non-refundable, regardless of their purchase price.

This means that one-way tickets are now completely worthless after they expire at 4:00am the next morning, and you can't even get a partial or full refund if you don't use the ticket like you could before this past weekend.

More than 36,000 LIRR riders sought refunds for tickets in 2024, so this impacts a significant number of riders who wish to recover at least some of the value of their unused tickets. The MTA implemented a $10 administrative fee per refund transaction for tickets purchased from December 30, 2010 to discourage riders from seeking refunds of lower-value tickets (the railroad has admitted in the past that this was really a revenue protection measure to prevent riders from getting refunds of unused one-way tickets). The LIRR raked in more $2.5 million in refund fees between 2013 and 2024.

Under the new refund policy, one-way tickets are non-refundable except for an extremely short window immediately after purchase (paper tickets can be submitted for a refund with no fee only for 30 minutes after purchase, only at the station they were purchased, and only if there is a ticket window open at the time; mobile tickets can be submitted for a refund only for 2 minutes after purchase). After that point, the tickets are non-refundable. The railroads will continue to offer pro-rated refunds for monthly and weekly tickets in the same way as the previous policy, and still subject to the $10 fee.

In a statement, MTA Spokesperson Aaron Donovan said "the new ticket policy is designed to discourage customers avoiding conductors so they don't pay the fare, an increasing problem since mobile ticketing was introduced. Unused tickets can be refunded within the timeframes indicated."

The MTA has snuck in this significant change to fares, making it public only this week after the other fare changes were made. These changes to the refund policy were not included in the public hearing notice or any of the materials or literature distributed by the MTA in order for the public to comment on the proposed changes, nor were the changes approved by the MTA Board. Fares and fare policy have traditionally been within the purview of the MTA Board, and the MTA has historically sought and obtained MTA Board approval for any changes to fares—until now.

The new refund policy seems to run contrary to a New York State law that requires the MTA to allow riders who purchase a fare the ability to transfer any remaining balance for two years after expiration. In 2017, the NYS Public Authorities Law was amended to add a new section 1266-k, which states:

"Expired fare transfer policy. Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, the authority shall, within ninety days of the effective date of this section, establish an expired fare transfer policy that may be amended from time to time. Such policy shall provide any person who purchases a fare the ability to transfer any remaining balance for two years after such fare is deemed expired."

In March 2018, the MTA sought and obtained MTA Board approval to extend the refund period for unused one-way, round-trip, and ten-trip tickets to 2 years after expiration. At the time, the MTA said that they were extending the refund period "to bring the Railroads in compliance with [the 2017] amendment to the Public Authorities Law". The MTA said at the time that "in order to best comply with the requirements of the law, Metro-North and LIRR recommend that the period during which a refund can be obtained be extended for an additional two years." This action item was approved by the MTA Board at the time.

After being extended in 2022, this law remains in force until December 31, 2029. Yet the MTA has underhandedly reverted the extension to the refund periods it said in 2018 were necessary to comply with the law. The new refund policy gives riders no mechanism to transfer the remaining, unused balanced on their one-way tickets after the fare is deemed expired (or, even before it expires).

When asked how the new refund policy complies with section 1266-k of the NYS Public Authorities Law, the MTA declined to comment.

The MTA also appears to have circumvented the approval procedures for fare and toll changes required under state law. Section 1266(3) of the NYS Public Authorities Law states in part that:

"Any such fares, tolls, rentals, rates, charges or other fees for the transportation of passengers shall be established and changed only if approved by resolution of the [MTA Board], and only after a public hearing..."

State law requires that any changes to fares, charges, or other fees require the approval of the MTA Board, and can only be made after a public hearing. The ticket refund policy is part of the LIRR's passenger tariff, and is part of the terms and conditions of sale. A change to the refund policy is a change to the fare (the law makes no limitation to only changes in the fare rates, it says "any changes to fares"). Also, the new refund policy changes/eliminates the $10 refund fee ("charges, or other fees") for one-way tickets which would trigger the requirement regardless.

But in this case, the MTA has made a change to fares/charges/other fees entirely on its own, without a public hearing, and without MTA Board approval.

The MTA did not respond to questions about why these changes were left out of the public hearing notice, why the public was not given the opportunity to comment on these changes, and why they made this change unilaterally without MTA Board approval—since they are essentially undoing a past action that was taken by the MTA Board in 2018.

In a statement, Lisa Daglian, Executive Director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said "As the new fare policies go into effect on the LIRR and Metro-North, riders have a lot of changes to adapt to, including some that we have strenuously supported for years. Allowing seniors and disabled riders to use their discounts in the AM peak and extending the Family Fare to age 17 makes it more affordable to ride and encourages more people to get onboard. Conversely, the loss of the 10-trip and changing the round trip to a Day Pass are not things we supported. However, as change moves forward, it should be as easy as possible for riders to adapt to the new policies and to find them easily. Having refund policies that largely eliminate the ability to get your money back on a One Way ticket in the event of a service disruption or last minute change of plans on a separate webpage – and not including them as part of the hearing or outreach process – does not help engender rider trust or support as they contend with higher fares. The MTA has come a long way in being more transparent and we call on them to discuss any such changes at upcoming Board meetings so the public can weigh in and be heard."

Riders left high and dry during service disruptions

Aside from the fact that the MTA's new refund policy very likely violates state law, making one-way tickets non-refundable is yet another horribly anti-customer move that will leave riders high and dry with worthless tickets in the event of a service disruption or suspension.

Previously, if your train was canceled or there was a service disruption that required you to alter or abandon your travel plans, you could save your one-way ticket for another 60 days (10-trip tickets for 180 days) and use them again on a later date. But under the new policy, riders who cannot complete their trip the same day due to a service disruption have no apparent recourse to get their money back—even though LIRR or Metro-North failed to uphold their end of the bargain and transport them to their destination.

The MTA's "Pledge to Customers" states that LIRR and Metro-North may waive the $10 refund fee and give riders a full refund for tickets in the event a service suspension is declared on the MTA website. Like every other article of the "pledge to customers", this was frequently ignored by the LIRR and Metro-North, but it was official policy to waive the refund fee during service disruptions, and you could get a full refund if you fought hard enough.

When asked whether it would continue to honor its "pledge to customers" going forward, the MTA declined to comment.

As recently as last week (before the new fare and refund policies took effect), LIRR's "customer service" representatives were refusing to offer refunds for tickets after LIRR suspended service on the Port Washington Branch due to switch issues.

@thelirrtoday.com Bought paper CityTicket from Bayside to Grand Central at 5:20 pm, the 5:30 pm gets cancelled, and branch service suspended. Meanwhile:

— goodcow (@goodcow.bsky.social) January 2, 2026 at 5:38 PM

The MTA has a unique and amazing ability to create bad will in the eyes of its passengers. Slashing the validity period of tickets, eliminating any option for riders to get a refund if they can't or don't use their tickets, and refusing to offer any sort of amelioration to passengers when they fail to provide service will leave people with an unbelievably bad taste in their mouth.

Fare changes hurt fastest growing LIRR ridership segment

These fare changes will increase the out-of-pocket costs paid by riders much more than the 4.5% increase to the base fares. The significant increases in out-of-pocket costs ignore some pretty clear correlations between fare pricing and ridership recovery since the COVID-19 pandemic:

In New York City, where average LIRR fares have declined by 7.7%, ridership has fully recovered and actually exceeds pre-pandemic levels
For Long Island stations, where average LIRR fares have increased by 9.5%, ridership is down 26% compared to pre-pandemic

Lower fares = more riders. Sometimes, so many more riders that the growth in ridership actually generates more revenue than increasing fare prices. At the end of the day, it's not that complicated... Yet instead of making any fare changes in a manner that was revenue-neutral (or actually lowered out-of-pocket costs for riders), the MTA is making these changes particularly hurt for off-peak and discretionary/occasional riders.

Off-peak ridership has fully recovered, and actually now exceeds pre-pandemic levels across the LIRR. Off-peak ridership has increased by 13% since 2019, and has grown 17% year-over-year, largely fueled by increases in intra-city ridership thanks to the expansion of CityTicket. Meanwhile, commuter ridership is down 51% since 2019.

Instead of realizing this trend and looking for ways to continue to lower the cost of off-peak rail travel (which costs the least to provide but has among the most expensive per-trip fares), they are implementing a series of sweeping fare changes that hit the most price sensitive ridership segment the hardest. It really causes one to scratch their heads...

But now emboldened by billions in new tax dollars flowing into its coffers and no sort of accountability for growing ridership (or lack thereof), the MTA seems to not care less about the impact these fare changes will have on ridership growth or overall revenue.

The MTA keeps trying to argue that these fare changes are necessary to curb fare evasion, or riders avoiding conductors so they don't pay the fare. But really the core issue is that conductors are not doing their jobs and collecting tickets. The LIRR's fare collection failure rates were unacceptably high before the MTA stopped publishing them in mid-2022. In 2019, LIRR conductors failed to collect 5.3% of fares. Even in 2022, when ridership was much lower than it is today and service was reduced freeing up more collectors, LIRR conductors were missing 5.2% of fares. LIRR's fare collection failure rate also did not spike dramatically after mobile ticketing was introduced in mid-2016—suggesting that mobile ticketing is not in fact a major driver of whether conductors can or cannot collect all fares, despite the MTA's claims.

Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, conductors have been making much less of an effort to do more than one sweep for tickets (e.g. checking tickets again after Jamaica, or collecting tickets from intermediate riders). After spending $17+ billion in capacity improvements, there should be no reason why there is ever a LIRR train so crowded the conductor cannot get through to check tickets. All of the issues the MTA imagines of riders reusing tickets, waiting to activate mobile tickets until the conductor arrives, etc. would not be an issue if they made conductors actually do their jobs and collect all tickets. After all, hundreds of other railroads across the nation and the world manage to offer mobile tickets without having these problems... The MTA says the fare policy changes are "giving riders more flexibility", but the only real flexibility being offered here is now the assistant conductor has the flexibility to read both the business and the sports section of the Post instead of doing a second ticket check after Jamaica...

These types of fare policies (short validity periods, non-refundable tickets, etc.) are a bit more common on systems that operate with proof of payment—and if the MTA were making these changes as part of a concerted move towards proof of payment and crew size reform, then maybe they could be worthwhile. But instead, riders are getting stuck with all of the inflexibility and inconvenience of proof of payment, without any of the cost savings of crew size reform.

At the end of the day, making the most expensive rail fares in North America the least flexible is a recipe that is bound to hurt ridership recovery and growth, especially among off-peak/discretionary riders, where the railroad has until now been seeing promising growth.

IRS increases pre-tax limits for transit and parking for 2026

2025-12-10T06:00:00.003-05:00

The IRS is increasing the monthly pre-tax deduction limits for transit and commuter parking to $340 per month for 2026 (this is an increase of $15 over 2025 to account for inflation). Note that these limits are separate (in other words, you can elect both $340 for transit and $340 for commuter parking). As LIRR fares will be going up on January 4, including a bunch of changes that will make travel more expensive, be sure to check your enrollment to make sure you are taking advantage of one of the best ways to save while riding mass transit.

Commuter benefit plans allow people who ride mass transit or park at a transit station or near their work to use pre-tax dollars to cover some or all of their commuter costs. Commuter benefit plans can offer some major tax savings for riding transit, allowing you to save on Federal, state, and local taxes (as well as Social Security and Medicare taxes). Paying for your commute with pre-tax dollars can save someone who is in the 24% Federal tax bracket (earning between $89,076 and $170,050) as much as $1,367 per year, or $1,506 if you live in New York City.

If your commuting expenses top $340 per month, double check your elections to make sure you are able to take full advantage of these pre-tax benefits. If you have both pre-tax and post-tax funds deducted from your paycheck, most benefits providers will automatically adjust the pre-tax amount.

A couple of reminders to maximize your potential savings using pre-tax plans, if you haven't used these programs in the past or aren't fully up to speed on the procedures... Even if you only take the train occasionally, you can still save money by allocating a small amount each month. Since policies and procedures vary slightly depending on the company administering your pre-tax plan, be sure to double check with them, but generally these same ground rules apply:

If you have your election loaded onto a pre-tax credit/debit card, you can usually roll over unused funds from month to month with no expiration (as long as you don't leave your employer, then all unused funds are forfeited back to your employer, usually after 90 days). So if you are currently commuting less than daily and your commuting costs vary from month to month, you can elect for slightly more than you think you'll use and rollover the extra to the next month.
Unlike pre-tax parking funds (which are restricted for parking near work or parking at a transit station enroute to work), you can use pre-tax transit funds for any qualified mass transit provider, even if you aren't travelling to and from work. This includes:

Riding rail, subway, or bus trips outside of your normal commute
Riding ferries (including the small island ferries like the Fire Island Ferries and the North Ferry to Shelter Island, as long as they accept credit card payments)
Riding inter-city ground transportation, including Amtrak, Greyhound, Megabus, Trailways, etc. (but not air travel)
Riding mass transit in other cities (e.g. taking CTA in Chicago, BART in San Francisco, etc.)
Riding in vanpools (vehicles with at least 6 or more seats for passengers)

There is no express limitation on using pre-tax transit funds to pay for transit expenses for your spouse, dependents, or even other people. So if you have a spouse, child, parent, etc. that doesn't work or isn't eligible for transit benefits, you can pay for their mass transit tickets with your pre-tax funds.
Unlike pre-tax parking funds (which are limited to $340 in total per month), there is no monthly spending limit for pre-tax transit funds. So if you're commute costs typically exceed $340, you can start your elections a few months ahead of time and accumulate money on your card, then spend that down over time (and cover the whole cost of a more expensive monthly with pre-tax dollars, even if it exceeds $340).
The LIRR and Metro-North have eliminated paper tickets for Mail & Ride (now only available on eTix). If you previously had your pre-tax benefits transmitted directly to Mail & Ride via wire transfer, be sure to switch your election to be loaded onto a credit/debit card, because once it's sent to Mail & Ride, there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get that back.
If you have had your transit benefits "suspended" during the pandemic, double check your card's expiration date—chances are they didn't automatically mail you a new one if your elections were suspended.
Many transit benefits providers are finally starting to issue cards with contactless chips that can be used with OMNY readers on NYC Subways and Buses. If your card doesn't have a chip, call your benefits provider and see if they'll send you a new one (you may have to say you lost your old card).
The $340 limits are separate for transit and parking—so even if you elect the full $340 for transit, you can elect an additional $340 a month for parking to defray costs for parking meters or permits, either at your usual train station or near your workplace. Some benefits providers allow you to "flex" your funds after they have been unused for one month. So you may be able to use leftover parking funds to pay for transit, and vice-versa.
For parking only, double check what forms of payment your municipality or parking operator accept for permits/meter fees (several don't take credit cards, and even if they do, town and village clerks' offices usually don't have the right merchant code to accept the prepaid debit cards). Most transit benefits providers will reimburse you for out-of-pocket parking costs paid by cash or check, but you usually have to set that up upfront as part of your monthly election.
Leaving your employer and still have funds leftover? Most benefits providers will cut you a check for remaining post-tax funds on your card. If you still have pre-tax funds, you can purchase a physical OMNY card and load up to $300 worth of stored value onto your card. This money will stay on your card and remain with you even after your transit benefit card is deactivated, and you can spend it down over the life of the card (which is good for many years). Note that the MTA restricts the amount you can load on the card, to about $136 per 72-hour period. So you may need to buy multiple cards, or visit a OMNY vending machine.

If you work in New York City and you work for a for-profit or non-profit organization that employs 20 or more people, your employer must provide you with commuter benefits under a law that entered into force in 2016. If you haven't signed up for it before, check with your employer for more details.

NICE Bus confirms OMNY will be available by January 4

2025-12-04T06:00:00.002-05:00

NICE Bus has confirmed that OMNY will be coming to Nassau County's buses by January 4, which coincides with the recently approved increase in the base fare from $2.90 to $3.00 (Nassau County has also approved a similar fare increase to $3.00) and the MTA's plan to end MetroCard sales by December 31, 2025.

NICE Bus has joined as an OMNY affiliate, similar to the Roosevelt Island Tram, which means that riders will be able to pay with contactless credit/debit cards in addition to physical OMNY cards. Riders will also be able to benefit from the same free transfer rules as exist today with MetroCard. Fares paid on NICE buses will count towards the $35 7-day fare cap (the MTA's elimination of the 30-day unlimited pass will also affect NICE riders)

OMNY readers have started appearing on NICE buses, though they are not active yet:

I saw a NICE bus with an Omny reader at 168th Street terminal
byu/Downtown-Inflation13 innycbus

In the meantime, riders will be left in a bit of limbo during this transition phase. The two MetroCard Vending Machines at the Hempstead Transit Center will be removed on December 17, meaning riders will not have a way to refill their MetroCards on Long Island for the last few weeks of the year (and MetroCard Vending Machines are becoming fewer and further between at NYC Subway stations).

Once NICE transitions to OMNY, restrictions will be roughly the same as they are now with MetroCard (for example, the OMNY cards issued by the NYC Department of Education to students that allow for four free Subway/Bus rides per day will not work on NICE, nor Fair Fares NYC).

NICE says that they will continue to accept coins on buses (which is different form the MTA, which is ending the acceptance of coins on their buses), which will create an interesting gray area. At least until NICE replaces their MetroCard fareboxes with new fareboxes, NICE will probably continue to issue MetroCard bus transfers. Whether they will be accepted on NYCT or MTA Buses will have to be seen. NICE will also continue to offer mobile ticketing through Masabi's JustRide platform. Mobile tickets can only be used on NICE buses, and are not valid for transfers to NYCT, Suffolk Transit, Long Beach Bus, etc.

OMNY readers have also been spotted on Westchester's Bee-Line buses as of last month, though they have not confirmed an exact date when they will be turned on.

NICE and Bee-Line are the final operators expected to join as OMNY affiliates, along with Roosevelt Island Tram and AirTrain JFK which already accept OMNY. This is a disappointingly short list, as the MTA failed miserably at making OMNY the One fare payment system for all of Metro New York.

MTA seeks to advance fare policy changes, slashing validity periods

2025-09-29T00:01:00.003-04:00

The MTA is moving forward with its plan to hike fares and tolls, as well as make a number of fare policy changes that will make rail travel less flexible and more expensive, with a set of fare and toll hike resolutions being put before the MTA Board this week. Some are being implemented as permanent changes to the tariff, others as "pilot" programs.

Subway and bus fare changes

MetroCard Vending Machines are quickly disappearing from
stations as the MTA ramps up the transition to OMNY
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

For the Subways and Buses, MTA is seeking a ten-cent hike in the base fare from $2.90 to $3.00. Single ride tickets would increase by a quarter to $3.50, and express bus fares would increase to $7.25. Disappointingly, the MTA is eliminating the 30-day unlimited ride option for the most frequent Subway and Bus users with the sunset of MetroCard, which is expected at the end of this year. The MTA is increasing the 7-day rolling fare cap to $35 and introducing a 7-day Express Bus rolling fare cap of $67 as a pilot program.

This represents a massive 14% fare increase for the most frequent riders of the Subways and Buses, who now must pay more for 7-day caps then they previously would have with the 30-day unlimited MetroCard option. By increasing the cost of unlimited travel to this degree, the MTA is punishing its most loyal customers—and also running counter to worldwide best practices, which have shown that cheaper monthly or annual passes actually increase transit ridership (since you have already paid for the pass, it costs you nothing to take an additional trip on the weekends or after work, etc.)

	Current 30-day unlimited	Current 7-day unlimited	Proposed 30-day fare cap	Proposed 7-day fare cap	Change
Days in year	365.25	365.25		365.25
Days per period	30	7		7
Periods per pear	12.18	52.18		52.18

Cost per period	$132.00	$34.00	none	$35.00
Total cost per year	$1,607.10	$1,774.07	none	$1,826.25	+14%

The MTA is also seeking to eliminate cash payment on buses, and increase the fee for new OMNY cards to $2.00 once MetroCard sunsets.

Fare hikes and fare policy changes for LIRR, Metro-North

On the railroads, the base fare prices for tickets will increase between 4.5% and 8%—but the MTA will really be hitting the wallets of riders with its proposed fare policy changes, which make tickets less flexible, eliminate discount options, and will drive up the overall cost of rail travel for the fastest growing ridership segments. MTA is seeking approval for the following changes:

Dramatically shorten the validity period for one-way and round-trip tickets from 60 days to 1 day (with all tickets expiring at 4:00am on the next day) (pilot)
Eliminate the 10-trip ticket and its accompanying 15% discount for off-peak and intermediate travel. This would be replaced with a buy-10-get-1-free pilot offer, if all tickets are used within 14 days.
Introduce a day pass for unlimited travel, priced at 10% less than two one-way peak tickets on weekdays (except in NYC, where there will be no discount) or the price of two off-peak tickets on weekends.
Make the Peak CityTicket and Far Rockaway Ticket permanent fare products, and having CityTicket replace the full-fare one-way tickets for travel within New York City.
Accept half-fare tickets on all trains, including during the AM Peak period (pilot)
Allow children up to 17 years of age to travel with $1 Family Fare tickets when accompanied by an adult (currently, children 12 years or older need to buy full fare tickets) (pilot)
Increase the onboard surcharge from $6 to $8 (permanent change)

The MTA has walked back its proposal to have one-way tickets expire within 4 hours of sale, which was met with stiff backlash from riders. But the MTA's replacement plan, where tickets would still need to be activated but would expire at 4:00am the next morning, is still a dramatic rollback of flexibility that is nearly as bad. Tickets expiring the same day leaves riders with no way to reuse the most expensive rail tickets in the western hemisphere in the event their travel plans change, or they have to seek a different way of getting to their destination in the event of delays or a disruption in service.

The elimination of the 10-trip ticket also hurts riders who travel semi-frequently off-peak (or outside NYC on Metro-North) by eliminating the 15% discount. MTA's proposed replacement is nonsensical due to the very short 14-day cycle—few people would be buying 11 or more tickets in a 14-day period (and, if they are, they would likely be better off just buying a monthly).

These fare policy changes target off-peak riders the most. These riders are the most price-sensitive, and also happen to be one of the only segments where LIRR ridership has fully recovered and is actually growing. MTA's plan to make travel much more expensive and much less flexible for these riders simply makes no sense.

The undercurrent of the MTA's proposed fare policy changes is the continuing failure of conductors to collect all fares, despite LIRR's spending on conductors topping $300 million last year (and the average conductor needing to collect 20% fewer tickets than they did pre-pandemic). The "simplification" of the fare structure moves fare policies similar to what we see on proof of payment systems—but without the cost savings. MTA is transferring all of the burden and inconvenience of proof of payment to riders, but not passing along the savings. I can put up with all of Ryanair's extra hoops and restrictions because they will fly me halfway across Europe for $20 when the flag carriers want $200. But MTA is charging KLM prices for Ryanair service.

Fare increases stifle ridership growth instead of fuel it

In a post-pandemic era where riders have many more options for how frequently they travel and how they get there, fare pricing is a key mechanism the MTA can use to drive transit ridership recovery and growth. If done right, new riders can offset lower sticker prices on transit fares and passes. But for riders that are especially sensitive to price (e.g. off-peak and discretionary trips, people who can flexibly work from home, etc.), fare increases can directly stifle transit ridership recovery and growth.

The MTA's proposed fare policy changes punish the agency's most loyal Subway and Bus riders with a massive 14% increase in their annual out-of-pocket commuting costs as well as the most price-sensitive group of rail riders with increases of up to 23% to out-of-pocket commuting costs. Emboldened by billions in new tolls and taxes flowing into its coffers, the MTA seems entirely disinterested in using the powerful lever of fare pricing to grow ridership.

New TVM's go live with old interface

2025-09-22T07:00:00.119-04:00

The new ticket vending machines being rolled out for LIRR and Metro-North have gone live for riders to purchase tickets and test. The new machines have been installed in the place of old ones at a handful of stations across both railroads (usually the busier stations with more than two machines). The machines are being rolled out are being built by Scheidt & Bachmann under a $134 million no-bid contract to replace the existing Ticket Vending Machines (TVM) and Ticket Office Machines (TOM) for both railroads.

The new TVM's are just as responsive and fast as the existing machines. I tried one at NY-Penn Station a few days after they went live. The new machines were nice, but they didn't work for me. I tried buying a ticket, but the transaction declined twice, so I gave up (it obviously wasn't a problem with my card, I was able to buy the exact same ticket with the exact same card at an old TVM right next to it). When I tried to tell the ticket agent at the ticket windows, the ticket agent was incredibly rude and raised her voice to me when I suggested she let someone know about the issue so the machine could be taken out of service and the issue addressed, so other riders wouldn't have the same problem. I'll stick to the old machines for now.

The new machines have launched with virtually the same user interface as the old ones, with the characteristic yellow headers and white text on a black background. Though while this interface is quite familiar to regular and semi-occasional riders, they have a number of shortcomings that the railroads should be taking this opportunity to address to make buying tickets easier, faster and more intuitive.

The start screen of the new TVM (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The only appreciable difference from the starting screen is that the language selections across the bottom have been swapped from three buttons with the common alternate languages expected for that area with a single button with a bunch of flag symbols in circles that take you to a menu where you can select any of the languages available.

There is also a new "read ticket" button that takes you to a new workflow that allows you to scan the barcode on a ticket (printed from the new machines) where it displays the data from the ticket. The barcode is scanned by a small reader that is just above the screen. It shows (in very small text) the ticket serial number, type, origin, destination, sold date, and expiration date. The only action that you can take is re-purchasing the same ticket.

The screen where you can scan a ticket to read its details. It is basic and doesn't tell you where the barcode should be scanned (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The 2D barcode reader above the screen (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The results of scanning a ticket (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The only other new and noteworthy thing with the ticket vending machines is that they can dispense tickets for both the LIRR and Metro-North. Despite the LIRR and Metro-North having the exact same TVM and TOM hardware (an even a common support system backing both up) today and since the early 2000's, the railroads would not sell tickets for each other. This generally wasn't a problem until East Side Access opened and the railroads started sharing a terminal at NY-Grand Central. You could only buy LIRR tickets from a LIRR machine or ticket window, and could only buy Metro-North tickets from a Metro-North machine or ticket window. This is less than ideal for riders who are unfamiliar with the administrative delineation of MTA's mainline rail services, and the fact that LIRR did not have any spare TVM's for East Side Access and had to boost machines from other stations for GCT.

Once you select the origin and destination, the machine swaps to the interface for that railroad (the TVM interfaces and workflows are slightly different between LIRR and Metro-North...instead of harmonizing the two, the new machines just staple the two interfaces together and switch to the other if you pick a different origin and destination).

But the tickets are sold only for LIRR or Metro-North trips. Once you select a station on one railroad (other than GCT which serves both), only destinations from that same railroad are available. In other words, you cannot buy tickets for travel across both railroads (e.g. a ticket from Hicksville to Fordham, or from Yonkers to Jamaica). For that, you must continue to buy Combo Tickets from the separate menu.

LIRR and Metro-North stations together on the same screen/machine (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Other than those minor changes, the workflows are the same. Including all of the confusing points and shortcomings of the current TVM's. For example, LIRR buries the discounted $5/$7 CityTickets under separate menu that you have to know to look for. If you select "one way" and punch in a CityTicket-eligible origin and destination, the only options shown are the full-fare peak and off-peak tickets, which cost significantly more (the LIRR has sold more than 3 million full-fare tickets between CityTicket-eligible station pairs, fleecing an extra several million dollars from unsuspecting riders). But if you pick a Metro-North station pair, CityTicket is available in the normal workflow.

Metro-North will let you purchase CityTickets through the normal workflow....

...while LIRR buries them in a separate menu and only sells the full-price tickets through the normal workflow. On the same machine! (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Hopefully the LIRR and Metro-North are just using the same interface as a corner-cutting measure to get these ticket machines up and running fast and are hard at work at designing a new user interface (and doing extensive user testing) to come up with a new interface that will make it easier and more straightforward for riders to purchase tickets.

Last but not least, the tickets themselves have a new layout. The stock is still the same (for now, will that change in the future, we don't know). The content of the ticket is mostly the same, just rearranged.

The characteristic triangles and other symbols on the punch blocks have been replaced with larger text blocks in the top-left corner.
The stations have been shifted down and to the right, and are in a cleaner sans-serif font.
The zones are in slightly larger circles. In the photos I have seen, they are all in clear text in a black circle. This is a change from the current ticket layout, where the zone numbers on tickets to/from zone 1 are in black text, while tickets no to/from zone 1 are the inverse (clear text in a black box). This allows conductors to easily see at a glance west of Jamaica whether the rider has a ticket that's valid to/from the city terminals or not.
The expiration date is printed in bold text above the punch blocks in bigger text that says "Valid for __ ride(s) thru [expiration date]". This took the place of the very small "fine print" text that would print in the bottom-right corner of the ticket.

The ticket also includes a barcode in Aztec format (common for transport ticketing as it stores information more densely for smaller-format paper tickets vs. a traditional QR code). The barcode looks too small to be easily scanned at a decent distance. They are quite a bit smaller than the barcodes on NJTransit's tickets, and NJT conductors often have difficulty scanning tickets from the window seat in a three-seater without leaning over (or, more commonly, rudely gesturing that you lean over and bring your ticket closer to them). Nor are they printed in a white block for maximum contrast. We will have to see if the railroads plan to introduce new ticket stock in the future that allows for a more optimal and efficient layout.

New LIRR Ticket Format
byu/xraf1553 inLIRR

In general, this new ticket layout removes some of the quick visual indicators that allow conductors to differentiate different ticket types (e.g. the symbol for off-peak tickets are triangles with the point at the bottom, while peak tickets are the opposite with the point of the triangle at the top) or zones (as mentioned above).

I suppose the railroads will be relying on the conductors beginning to scan all tickets at some point in the future (similar to what they now do on NJTransit) and letting the device determine whether the ticket is valid or not. Apparently, because even the MTA spends more than a half-billion dollars a year employing conductors, they cannot be relied upon to read and punch tickets correctly. Before the MTA quietly stopped publishing fare collection metrics in mid-2022, the LIRR's incorrect fare collected rate (the number of times a conductor collected the wrong fare, e.g. an off-peak ticket on a peak train) topped 10%-15% most months, which is pretty outrageous.

Hopefully the launch of the new ticket machines is only a start of what will be several months more of effort to modernize and improve the ticketing infrastructure for the railroads, instead of a series of corners hastily cut to get the new machines in service quickly because the MTA fumbled OMNY so badly. We will have to see...

LIRR strike off for now as unions request Presidential Emergency Board

2025-09-15T19:00:00.002-04:00

A potential strike by several LIRR unions that would have suspended all rail service systemwide as soon as this Thursday is off for at least the rest of this year as leaders of the unions representing these workers requested that the White House appoint a Presidential Emergency Board to help mediate the dispute. A Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) is a relief valve of sorts that interrupts either side from seeking self-help under the Railway Labor Act, a federal law that regulates labor disputes between rail carriers and their workers. A PEB sets back the earliest start date for a strike or lockout by at least 90 days.

The current dispute involves five LIRR unions representing six collective bargaining units that make up a little over half of the railroad's workforce. The unions include:

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen, which represents locomotive engineers
Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen (Local 56), which represents signal and communications workers
Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen (Local 241), which represents technical engineers, architects, draftsmen, allied workers, load dispatchers, staff managers, assistant staff managers, and fire marshals
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents machinists
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents electricians
Transportation Communications Union, which represents clerical employees, ticket clerks, and other miscellaneous employees

(Photo: The LIRR Today)

The characters are a little different from the last serious LIRR strike threat in 2014, when a larger coalition representing most of the railroad's workforce was threatening to walk off the job before then-Governor Andrew Cuomo intervened to broker a deal that maintained mostly the status quo. This time, most unions, including the ringleader from the 2014 strike and the largest LIRR union (the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, SMART) have already accepted a deal from the MTA that offers 9.5% raises over three years and aligns with the pattern set by other city, state, and MTA unions this cycle. These unions are instead holding out, hoping that they can bargain separately for higher raises.

The MTA and the holdout unions were engaged in a mediation process with the National Mediation Board, which is one of the first steps in the labor contract negotiation process. Only the mediators can declare an impasse and release the parties from mediation, which means this process can often take a long time. Unless it doesn't...in August, the National Mediation Board released the parties from mediation in an unexpectedly abrupt move.

MTA officials have criticized the holdout unions for not coming to the negotiating table to work out their differences, and instead fast-tracking moves for a strike (including by holding strike authorization votes before the unions were even released from mediation. As recently as this past weekend, union officials said that they would not request a PEB, seemingly determined to push this dispute to the brink of self-help.

In a statement, MTA Chief, Policy and External Relations John McCarthy said “After months of radio silence, these outlier unions have finally admitted that they weren't serious about negotiating. They never had a plan to resolve this at the bargaining table. If these unions wanted to put riders first, they would either settle or agree to binding arbitration. And if they don’t want to strike, they should say so - and finally show up to the negotiating table. This cynical delay serves no one."

Either party, the National Mediation Board, or the governor of an impacted state can request the White House empanel a PEB. The wording in the law suggests that the parties can request and then the President may empanel a PEB, so just a request from the unions may not officially hit the pause button. Though it would be extraordinary if the White House declines to empanel a PEB, putting a self-help immediately back on the table...

Generally a PEB will meet with the two sides to formulate what they consider fair proposals or recommendations to resolve the dispute, and publish those in a report to the President within 30 days. The parties then enter into a cooling off period for 60 days (30 days for railroads not considered commuter railroads) where they can continue to negotiate, but cannot engage in self-help. If no agreement is reached 30 days after the report and recommendations of the first emergency board, then the National Mediation Board holds a public hearing.

After the full 60 days, if no agreement has been reached, then either side may seek help, unless one of the parties or the governor of an impacted state requests a second PEB. In the event there is a second PEB, then both sides submit what they consider their "best and final offer" and the PEB selects what they think is the most reasonable of the offers. The publication of that report then sets off a final 60-day cooling period, after which either side may seek self-help.

If the process above plays out in its entirety, a strike may be put off until at least next spring. But there are a few ways the process may be short-circuited along the way, so we will have to stay tuned.

Leaders of the holdout unions had said they were seeking raises beyond the 9.5% over three years the MTA was offering, but prior to Monday, had not made public what they were seeking. In a statement on Monday, the union leaders said they would accept MTA's offer of 9.5% over three years, but were seeking a 6.5% wage increase in the fourth year.

Union leaders say that wages and the MTA's proposal does not keep up with inflation and increases in cost of living in this region. Unlike workers who are governed under the State's Taylor Law and Triborough Amendment (which requires employers to continue increasing wages at the same rate as under the previous contract), rail contracts remain in force until a new agreement is reached--but wages stay fixed while the negotiations carry on, which puts pressure on the wallets of workers as prices go up but their wages remain fixed. When a new contract is ratified, workers typically get back wages depending on the terms of the agreement.

The MTA counters that any wage increases beyond the pattern established with the other unions need to be offset by givebacks in the form of work rule concessions or other changes to benefits. Archaic and outdated work rules in many of these contracts cost the LIRR millions in penalty payments each year, including those that give engineer's a second day's pay for operating both an electric and diesel locomotive in the same shift, or working multiple classes of service in the same shift. These work rules are remnants from an era of railroading that has long passed, and it is time the MTA hold firm and negotiate them out once and for all.

I have no issue with LIRR workers making a decent living, or even seeing wage increases beyond the established pattern or the rate of inflation. But wage increases must be paired with productivity improvements. LIRR's workforce is among the least productive in the US passenger rail industry (if not beyond), with overstaffing and excessive downtime rampant across different crafts and departments. MTA and LIRR must use this opportunity to bargain for productivity improvements that will allow them to drive down costs and improve service in the long run.

Blank departure boards at NJT's Hoboken Terminal during a 4-day
strike by locomotive engineers in May 2025 (Photo: The LIRR Today)

In this post-pandemic era where ridership remains only about 80% of what it was pre-pandemic, and work from home and other flexible arrangements are much more commonplace for workers, this is the perfect opportunity for the MTA to hold firm with the unions and demand productivity improvements as part of a new contract. A four-day strike by NJTransit's locomotive engineers this past spring shows that management can take a stand with unions without the world coming to an end. Some short term pain for the long term gain of being able to reduce the LIRR's stratospheric cost base and make it easier and more affordable to improve service in the future would be well worth it. Governor Hochul and the MTA should see through the required processes, but remain prepared to hold firm and stand up for what's best for LIRR riders.

You can take the LIRR out of Penn Station, but you can't take the Penn Station out of the LIRR

2025-08-27T18:00:00.001-04:00

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to tour East Side Access a few times over the years it was under construction. During one of the tours, one of the consultants that the MTA hired to do communications for the project was explaining how it was actually better that the MTA spent a few extra billion to build LIRR its own cavern below NY-Grand Central (instead of sharing the lower level tracks with Metro-North, as some wish they would have). It was better because LIRR would have its own tracks and not have to share with other railroads, and therefore tracks would be posted on departure boards and riders wouldn't have to wait in suspense for numbers to appear—the practice much reviled at NY-Penn Station.

I was admonished for rolling my eyes. After all, LIRR has no roommates at its other city terminal (Brooklyn-Atlantic Terminal), yet plays the same track withholding game there. But I was assured that, this time, it would be different.

Clearly, bad habits are hard to break.

While the completion of the MTA's $12 billion East Side Access project gave the opportunity for LIRR riders to travel directly to Manhattan's East Side for the first time, and gave the railroad significantly more city terminal capacity and flexibility, LIRR has brought its much disliked track witholding procedure over to the East Side. This has left riders congregating at the bottom of the escalators, sitting on floors, and just gumming up the works because the track their train will depart from hasn't been posted yet.

Passengers mill about at the 45th Street cavern node waiting for the track for their train to be posted (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Riders are left in suspense for the track assignment for a train departing in 9 minutes (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Germany's DB is not shy about letting riders know
track assignments nearly 6 months in advance

Walk into practically any other major railway station across the world—including many just as big as NY's terminals and even busier—and you will almost always see a departure board filled with track assignments. Germany's Deutsche Bahn will tell me what track my regional/commuter or inter-city train will depart from in mid-December, nearly 6 months from now, but LIRR struggles to communicate track numbers more than 10-15 minutes in advance at its brand new $12 billion terminal.

LIRR has said that this practice is necessary because operational circumstances can force track changes, and they don't want people to wind up on the wrong track or train and have to move a few minutes prior to departure. But even at NY-Penn Station, where the station is far more constrained and the LIRR shares tracks with two other railroads, track assignments (especially during peak hours) are remarkably consistent from day to day, and during off-peak hours they can be reasonably predicted based on track and tunnel outages. At the other terminals, LIRR has full control and should be able to know in advance which tracks trains will depart from. And even with witholding track numbers until 10-15 minutes in advance, there are still plenty of occasions where there needs to be a last-minute track change because the crew discovers some sort of issue with the equipment, so this doesn't avoid these last-minute scrambles anyways.

Riders have to resort to sitting in all sorts of awkward
places in the ESA caverns (Photo: The LIRR Today)

This has been made more frustrating by the fact that the way the ESA cavern was designed, it is a rather hostile place to wait for a train. When the station opened, there was no seating on the cavern mezzanines, meaning people waiting either had to stand around or sit on the floor. The only seating on the whole LIRR complex was a small, ticketed waiting room on the Madison Concourse that is 2+ minute escalator ride from the trains, and, therefore, is seldom used.

After I'm sure what were plenty of complaints, the MTA installed 14 benches (for a total of 28 seats) in the cavern at the 47th Street cavern node back last October. Earlier this month, the MTA added 14 additional seats at the 45th Street cavern node (which is the busiest) and 28 seats at the 46th Street cavern node, for a total of 70 seats. The MTA even held a press conference with LIRR President Rob Free to celebrate them finally solving this pretty obvious problem, some two years after the station opened. The things MTA considers news...

Riders waiting for their track assignment at the 46th Street cavern node (Photo: The LIRR Today)

In addition to LIRR bringing this disliked and unnecessary procedure over to the East Side, the disease has also spread upstairs. Historically, Metro-North posted track numbers hours in advance on the departure boards across the terminal. A few years ago, Metro-North cut this down to only posting tracks 30 minutes in advance (which, considering most of their stations are served at least half-hourly during the day, wasn't a huge deal). But last October, Metro-North cut this even further, posting tracks only 20 minutes in advance. Because if there is one thing decades of this practice have shown with LIRR riders, witholding tracks is a clear crowd-pleaser. MTA has been touting better knowledge sharing and collaboration between the two railroads, but somehow they only manage to share the worst/dumbest policies and practices.

Metro-North now also withholds track numbers from riders (Photo: The LIRR Today)

At the time, Metro-North said the change "will mean less waiting on platforms for train doors to open." Whether you are standing around on the platform or standing around on the concourses (which, while architecturally significant also lacks any real seating for passengers), you are still standing around, waiting for your train to depart. Why shouldn't it be up to the passenger to decide what is most convenient for them?

The frustrating part—and what makes MTA and LIRR's celebration of something as simple as adding a few benches ring very hollow—is that there are already thousands of seats at Grand Central... On the trains! They just need to post the track numbers in advance, and then people can go straight to their train and take a seat there. Very few other terminals introduce this mandatory middle step where you have to mill about a station and then scramble to get on your train a few minutes before departure.

LIRR service to NY-Grand Central maxes out at 19 trains per hour across 8 station tracks and 4 pocket tracks, meaning they only need to turn one train every 20 minutes on each track during rush hours, and have practically unlimited flexibility in the off-peak periods. During both peak and off-peak periods, LIRR usually schedules turns for at least 15-20 minutes, meaning they could very well have track numbers posted and allow riders to go straight to their trains and wait onboard. Upstairs, Metro-North tends to have even longer turns at all hours of the day.

Door open buttons allow passengers to operate doors
when they are ready to board, instead of needing a train crew
to open the entire train at once (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Even with Metro-North reducing the time track numbers are posted to 20 minutes so there will be "less waiting on platforms for train doors to open", there have still been plenty of occasions where train crews do not have the train ready for passengers to board, so riders end up having to stand around on the platforms anyways. (unless the train is going to a yard, LIRR almost always leaves the train doors open when trains are waiting in the station at NY-Penn Station, NY-Grand Central, and Brooklyn-Atlantic Terminal—even when the trains are left unattended). Practically everywhere else in the world has also found a solution to this, where trains are equipped with door open buttons that allow passengers to open the doors themselves instead of heating or air conditioning the entire station with every door left open.

There is no way to tell from this screen that the 7:14 train to
NY-Grand Central is actually 15+ minutes late, it just lingers on
the departure board with no track listed 8 mins after departure

This problem has also been solved many moons ago by railroads everywhere else by having a status column on the departure boards that allow the railroads to communicate whether a train is ready for boarding (or if there is some other issue). Then, if the track is always posted, the riders can decide whether they want to wait on the concourses or on the platform. A status can also allow the railroads to communicate other issues, for example, if the train is late or canceled. Today, if a train is canceled at NY-Penn Station, NY-Grand Central, Brooklyn-Atlantic Terminal, or Jamaica it just vanishes off the departure boards leaving riders to scratch their heads about what happened. If a train is departing late, it just lingers on the departure boards, usually without a track assignment.

The departure board at New Haven lists track assignments for upcoming trains, and notes which ones are boarding—so riders have the choice of deciding whether to wait in the waiting area or go out to the platform for the later trains (Photo: JJBers/Wikimedia Commons)

In addition to it just being plain annoying, witholding track numbers also creates a false sense of urgency—riders have to go straight to the cavern at GCT or the Main Gate Area at NY-Penn Station so they can be at the closest possible spot to scramble for a seat on the train. The MTA should be using its digital signage assets to give riders more information to encourage them to spread out through the station better. By giving riders information about track assignments upfront, and pairing that with more contextual wayfinding signage that points people where they need to go and how long it will take for them to get there, riders can take greater comfort in knowing that they can stop at one of the shops or restaurants on the concourses and still make it in time for their train.

Using digital signage to shepherd riders through different parts of the station at the right times would give riders more information while helping spread them out more throughout the station.

More airports have started adding walking times to
departure boards (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Airports recognize the value of this level of communication, since it serves the double purpose of keeping air passengers shopping in their duty free stores and also not showing up to gates at the last minute and delaying departures.

The MTA has had a great deal of difficulty finding tenants for all the new retail space it built on the Madison Concourse for East Side Access—almost all of which sits vacant two and a half years after the place opened. But it has nobody to blame but itself—by witholding track info, riders naturally rush down to the caverns so they can be in position for when the train posts. As a result, foot traffic on the Madison Concourse is very quiet, especially outside of rush hours.

The LIRR has been boasting about its record-setting on-time performance figures. The LIRR is definitely operating more reliably, but the dividend of that should be an end to this practice of witholding track numbers. Posting track numbers in advance forces the railroad to be more disciplined—it has to get the trains into the terminal, on time, and on the right track so they don't have to make track changes. And that means that trains will get out on time from their initial terminal more often since they are less likely to wait for a late arriving inbound train. This would have even more positive downstream effects on reliability across the railroad.

But the LIRR excels at making things more complicated than they need to be. So while you may be able to take the LIRR out of Penn Station, it is apparently difficult to take the Penn Station out of the LIRR.

New Ticket Vending Machines being installed at stations

2025-08-24T06:00:00.002-04:00

New Ticket Vending Machines are starting to be spotted at busier stations across the LIRR, including at NY-Penn Station, NY-Grand Central, Mineola, and Hicksville. The new ticket machines are not yet in service, but appear to be undergoing testing.

The new machines are part of the MTA's New Fare Payment System efforts for the LIRR and Metro-North. The MTA was originally expected to bring OMNY to the LIRR and Metro-North (the OMNY pseudonym meant it was supposed to be the "One" farecard for all of "Metro New York"). But given that OMNY has been plagued by delays and technical issues, the MTA last year hastily changed course, dumping OMNY for the railroads and awarding no-bid contracts to Scheidt & Bachmann and Masabi to continue and upgrade the current legacy ticketing systems. As part of that move, Scheidt & Bachmann got a no-bid contract valued at up to $134 million to replace the existing Ticket Vending Machines (TVM) and Ticket Office Machines (TOM) for both railroads.

A new S&B Ticket Vending Machine installed in the Exit Concourse at NY-Penn Station (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The new ticket machines are similar to the new Charlie Card vending machines being rolled out by the MBTA in Boston. I got an up-close look at S&B's latest TVM design at InnoTrans last year--the machines contain some basic functionality improvements but do not appear to be a herculean leap forward in terms of functionality. But even refreshing the tech and the hardware in the machines, which were first rolled out in 2000 and are well beyond their useful life of 12-14 years, will be a help.

The two big changes that seem to be visible are a new bill accepter that should be able to give change in cash (ending the days of TVM's spitting out a pocket-full of dollar coins, and allowing bills to be recycled by the machine, cutting down on how frequently they need to be serviced).

(Photo: The LIRR Today)

The inner workings of a similar SBB TVM
on display at InnoTrans in Berlin last year
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

The new machines also have a round contactless card target (that is different from the rectangular contactless target for payment cards similar to the ones on the current TVM's). While OMNY will likely not come to the railroads to any real degree, it is expected that riders will be able to use the balances on their black and white OMNY cards to buy paper rail tickets at these ticket vending machines.

This is miles short of the convenience of pay-as-you-go fares with farecards and contactless, where riders can just tap on fare validators at the start and end of their journeys to pay their fare. Other railroads across the country, from as far south as Miami to as far west as California, have offered pay-as-you-go fares on mainline rail with their farecards for many years. Earlier this year, SEPTA became the second (and the largest) mainline railroad to bring pay-as-you-go fares to contactless credit/debit/mobile wallet payments. If implemented properly and with full fare parity with other ticket sales channels, this is by far the most convenient fare payment option for both riders and the railroad.

We will have to see if these new TVM's for LIRR and Metro-North will be able to sell and reload OMNY cards. Given that the OMNY system is account-based, it should certainly be possible (if a Walgreens can add value to your OMNY card, the LIRR and Metro-North should be able to as well). One of the main drawbacks of MTA's joint MetroCard offerings was that, due to turf wars between the railroads and NYCT and the limiting technology of MetroCard, LIRR and Metro-North machines could only sell pre-valued MetroCards and could not read or refill balances to the cards.

But I hear that it is highly unlikely riders will be able to take advantage of pay-as-you-go payments on the LIRR and Metro-North. You will instead need to stop at a TVM or purchase a mobile ticket, and won't be able to use your OMNY card or OMNY-compatible card or device to just "tap and go" to the same degree you can on city Subways and buses.

(Photo: The LIRR Today)

The new ticket machines are also expected to be able to print QR codes on tickets (similar to NJTransit), which would allow for the implementation of electronic ticketing, and train crews to cancel tickets by scanning them instead of punching holes in them.

While it is disappointing to have seen the MTA fail so spectacularly to make OMNY the universal fare payment system the region sorely needs, at least there is a little bit of progress being made on replacing the last of the legacy fare equipment.

MTA's proposed fare policy changes will dive up cost of off-peak travel

2025-08-19T06:00:00.002-04:00

The MTA has proposed another increase to transit fares and tolls, which would take effect around January 2026. While the headline is that most tickets will see a price increase of between 4% and 5%, the MTA is also proposing a series of major fare policy changes that will increase the out-of-pocket costs for riders to use transit considerably, especially during off-peak hours on the railroads.

(Newsday/Matt Davies cartoon)

The changes for LIRR and Metro-North dramatically reduce the validity period of one-way tickets from 60 days to just 4 hours, along with eliminating 10-trip tickets (and the accompanying 15% discount for off-peak and intermediate trips on Metro-North). These fare policy changes are extremely anti-rider, making rail travel more expensive and less flexible. The MTA says these changes are being made under the guise of collecting fare evasion, but rather these changes are really papering over a larger problem of conductors not being very good at their fundamental job of collecting fares.

On the Subways, the MTA is proposing to increase the base fare from $2.90 to $3.00, along with eliminating the 30-day unlimited MetroCard option, leaving only the 7-day OMNY/contactless fare cap, which will cost the Subway's most frequent riders 11% more out of their pockets each year.

While the MTA has only increased the price of transit fares once since the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed commuting and travel patterns, the average per-trip cost many riders are paying out of pocket has increased considerably—demonstrating that inaction on fare policy can be just as damaging to the wallets of riders. And there is a clear correlation between average fares and ridership on the LIRR—in New York City, where the expansion of CityTicket means the average rider is paying considerably less than they were pre-pandemic, ridership has fully recovered and is now greater than it was in 2019. But on Long Island, average fares are up nearly 10% and ridership is languishing behind the rest of the system.

Total rides, westward travel only	Avg Fare 2019	Avg Fare 2024	Δ vs 2019	Total rides 2019	Total rides 2024	% of 2019
New York City stations	$6.37	$5.88	-7.7%	16,572,834	17,906,081	108%
Long Island stations	$8.89	$9.73	+9.5%	73,782,668	54,517,073	74%
East End stations	$18.96	$18.06	-4.7%	734,024	909,925	124%

There have been a number of studies that show that transit ridership is actually quite elastic to fares (in addition to plenty of evidence from fare incentives on the MTA's own system, like the Atlantic Ticket and CityTicket). This is especially true for off-peak riders, who tend to be far more discretionary in whether they drive or take the train. These proposed fare policy changes, as detailed below, will impact the cost of off-peak travel most significantly—threatening to stunt the recovery and growth of the only real segment of LIRR ridership that has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.

In addition to distinct geographical differences in how LIRR's ridership has recovered, there is also a clear distinction between how peak and commuter ridership has recovered vs. off-peak ridership. The total number of trips taken using commutation and peak tickets (which includes all intra-Island trips taken at any time of the day), has only recovered to 65% of what it was in 2019. This is driven most sharply by the decline in the use of commutation tickets—which the MTA has failed to effectively discount to respond to new commuting patterns—and have therefore recovered to less than half of the trips as 2019.

Total rides	2019	2022	2023	2024	% of 2019	Δ vs 2023
Commutation pass	47,512,656	18,525,290	22,257,951	23,583,117	50%	6%
Peak Full Fare	11,972,885	8,670,153	11,593,920	12,195,624	102%	5%
City Discount Comm	638,724	308,862	216,208	-	0%	-100%
City Discount Peak	1,050,375	700,821	1,446,614	3,890,097	370%	169%
Peak/Commuter total	61,174,640	28,205,126	35,514,693	39,668,838	65%	12%

Off-peak Full Fare	27,619,400	20,869,170	22,825,267	25,137,717	91%	10%
Off-peak Special	334,522	108,482	118,564	125,211	37%	6%
City Discount Off-peak	1,965,080	2,931,117	5,725,302	8,410,113	428%	47%
Off-peak total	29,919,002	23,908,769	28,669,133	33,673,041	113%	17%
LIRR total	91,093,642	52,113,895	64,183,826	73,341,879	81%	14%

Meanwhile, off-peak ridership has not only fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but has grown in the past year. Travel using off-peak tickets in 2024 was at 113% of pre-pandemic levels and grew 17% year-over-year. While most of this is buoyed by the considerable increase in CityTicket travel (which has been expanded to the weekday off-peak hours), even usage of regular off-peak tickets has nearly fully recovered and is up 10% year-over-year.

Only the MTA could see trends like these and think it would be a good idea to stick the portion of ridership that has shown the strongest ridership recovery/growth and is the most sensitive to price with a whopping increase in their out-of-pocket costs.

The MTA has scheduled two days worth of public hearings (today, August 19 and tomorrow, August 20) (in the height of summer vacation season) as well as a handful of less formal public comment sessions at stations across the rail, bus, and Subway network between August 25 and September 12. You can also submit written comments through the MTA's website now through September 14. The fact that prices are going up is pretty much fiat accompli—fares will be going up whether 1 or 1,000 people show up to complain. But you can comment on the fare policy changes and how they will affect you could have some effect. Though, listening to the comments and questions at last month's MTA Board meeting, MTA Board members seem lined up to rubber stamp these anti-rider fare policy changes...

One-way validity period reduced from 60 days to 4 hours

The most significant fare policy change will be dramatically shortening the validity period for one-way tickets, which are currently valid from 60 days from the date of sale, to just 4 hours (this change would also substantially eliminate the round-trip ticket, as you won't be able to pre-purchase tickets in advance for travel in the future). This change will impact both mobile tickets and paper tickets. With the proposed changes, mobile tickets will activate immediately upon purchase and expire after 4 hours.

The MTA is predicating this significant rollback of flexibility for riders on a claim that 55% of mobile ticketing users are activating their mobile tickets in front of conductors. While this is certainly an eye-popping number, the MTA has not provided any level of detail to backup that figure, and it seems to bear little resemblance to the reality of what riders actually observe onboard trains. First off, nearly a third of trips taken using mobile tickets are time-based monthly or weekly passes, which don't even need to be activated since they are always valid. Neither railroad is systematically scanning all mobile tickets (conductors typically only scan tickets when there is a visual indicator that it was activated less than 2 minutes ago or the time does not match the device time), and it's unclear whether the basis for this is all mobile ticket activations or just those that are scanned. The LIRR has also considerably expanded its use of gate collection—at considerable expense—where riders have their tickets checked before they board a train (and in many cases, they are activating and having their mobile tickets immediately scanned at the stairs, before they even board the train).

The MTA bemoans the impact that mobile ticketing and late activations has had on the ability for conductors to efficiently collect fares. But what they are really upset about is riders being able to reuse tickets when conductors don't do their jobs and collect tickets. Despite whatever perceived challenges mobile ticketing presents, the ticketing collection process has gotten easier for conductors compared to pre-pandemic. The LIRR is carrying 20% fewer riders (and peak ridership is down even more), but the conductor headcount has remained basically the same (LIRR employed 6 fewer conductors in 2024 vs. 2019). Trains are shorter than they were before East Side Access so there is less ground for the crews to cover. LIRR has also expanded gate collection both for special events and ordinary weekdays at NY-Penn Station, and has dropped the second ticket check after Jamaica on westbound trains to redeploy collectors elsewhere on the system.

Before the MTA sneakily stopped publishing fare collection failure rates in mid-2022, the figures were quite bad. In 2019, LIRR conductors failed to collect 5.3% of fares. Even in 2022, when ridership was much lower than it is today and service was reduced freeing up more collectors, LIRR conductors were missing 5.2% of fares. LIRR's fare collection failure rate also did not spike dramatically after mobile ticketing was introduced in mid-2016—suggesting that mobile ticketing is not in fact a major driver of whether conductors can or cannot collect all fares.

MTA has tried to spin its fare collection failure issues as "fare evasion", but in reality, it's far from it. If someone boards a train with a valid ticket (or is prepared to pay the onboard fare), but the LIRR fails to come collect their ticket, they did not take a conscious step to "evade" paying their fare. LIRR didn't do its job.

At the end of the day, most conductors still can't be bothered to collect intra-Island fares, or do more than one full sweep for tickets, and instead spend the rest of the trip hanging out in the cabs. Last week, I rode from Riverhead to Greenport and back. Despite these trains having a conductor and an assistant conductor for just one car open for passengers, and me even making eye contact with the conductor when boarding in Riverhead, nobody came to check my ticket on the nearly 40 minute journey each way. The train crew wasn't slogging their way through a sea of mobile ticketing users activating their tickets in front of them, they were hanging out in the cab car away from us. I can often ride from Woodside all the way to Ronkonkoma without getting my ticket checked because the crew will only do one check on eastbound trains right after leaving NY-Penn Station or NY-Grand Central and then not bother checking tickets again (or do only a perfunctory shuffle through the train after Jamaica).

The real root cause of this issue is the LIRR and Metro-North's reliance on an extremely out-of-date practice of relying on conductors for the onboard collection of every fare. The vast majority of the railroads' peer systems elsewhere in the world—and even elsewhere in the United States—have done away with onboard collection of every fare in favor a proof of payment model, which replaces manual ticket checks with random spot-checking onboard trains. This dramatically reduces labor costs, which are the single largest driver of marginal costs for adding more train service. The amount LIRR spends employing conductors topped $305 million last year (including base pay, overtime, and benefits), an 18% increase over 2019 costs and nearly 40% more than what Metro-North spends to collect a similar number of tickets (Metro-North is actually spending less on conductors than they were in 2019).

The MTA's proposed fare changes stick riders with all of the inconvenience and inflexibility of a proof-of-payment system, without the considerably lower costs and lower fares that proof-of-payment typically brings. LIRR fares remain roughly twice as expensive as the national average on a per-mile basis, and this will only make it worse.

There's not even much evidence that this change will actually even address the purported issue. If people are waiting until the conductor comes to activate their mobile tickets because they don't want to 'waste' a ticket if it is not going to be collected, now those people are just going to wait until the conductor comes to purchase their tickets in the first place—which would slow the process down even further. MTA has been trying to hype up the benefits this change will have for conductors, but Anthony Simon, the head of the union representing LIRR train crews, told Newsday that the conductor's union was never consulted on the proposed changes, and said that they were "very troubling" because it would take away "the ability for a rider to change plans and retain ticket value".

The MTA says they plan to counter this by increasing the onboard surcharge from $6 to $8, and implement an escalating series of warnings for people who purchase their mobile tickets late. But the MTA has presented no evidence that any of their efforts towards curbing late activation of mobile tickets have yielded any sort of improvement to date.

Despite what some claim, reusing an uncollected ticket is not "fare evasion" nor is it even really illegal under the letter of the law. So long as you board the train with a valid ticket (or are prepared to pay the onboard fare), you have upheld your end of the bargain. If the LIRR or Metro-North fails to collect it, that is their problem. LIRR's passenger tariff doesn't even prohibit reusing uncollected tickets (it only says you cannot seek a refund for tickets that were used but not collected). It is very different from fare evasion on the Subways or buses, where someone is making a conscious act to circumvent fare collection equipment.

Right or wrong, riders price the chance a ticket may go uncollected and can be reused into the math they weigh when deciding to take the train or drive. Knowing that I can usually stretch 12 trips out of my 10-trip ticket makes the overall per-trip price a little bit more palatable and competitive with driving. It's all in the game. Rail riders are paying the most expensive per-mile rail fares in the country, and considerably more than what Subway and bus riders pay (in large part to support paying the salaries and benefits of conductors to do a job that peer systems eliminated decades ago), in return for that we get a free trip every now and then when the railroads screw up... Taking away this increases the perceived cost of rail travel far more than the 4% sticker price increase the MTA is proposing. And when it comes to off-peak and discretionary travel, perception is everything.

One-way tickets used to be valid for 180 days, back in the early 2010's the MTA cut the validity period down from 180 days to 14 days. This sparked intense backlash from riders, and the next fare increase cycle the MTA walked back this change, extending the validity period from 14 days to 60 days (what it is now). But now emboldened by billions in new tax dollars flowing into its coffers and no sort of accountability for growing ridership (or lack thereof), the MTA seems determined to go even further to limit flexibility and increase out-of-pocket costs for riders.

Even laying aside the aspect of the ability to reuse uncollected tickets, taking away the flexibility to save and use these incredibly expensive one-way tickets later if plans change is very anti-rider, and implementing it in this way will leave riders feeling burned if they buy a ticket and can't travel, they want to change their plans, or if their train is late or canceled and they have to abandon their journey, etc. It will inevitably leave a bad taste in people's mounts, and likely discourage train travel—after all, if I drive and my plans change, it doesn't cost me anything to leave the car in my driveway.

Introduction of a new day pass

Since the shortening of the validity period for one-way tickets will substantially eliminate the option to buy round-trip tickets, the MTA is proposing to introduce a day pass for unlimited travel on the day of sale, up until 4:00am the next morning. The day passes will be sold by zone, and not a flat price for travel across the whole railroad. It is a nice concept, but the proposed prices for the day passes are too expensive to make them worthwhile for many.

On weekdays, day passes will be priced at 10% off two one-way peak fares. This will offer a slight bit of relief for hybrid commuters (and is one of the few silver linings), but will be too expensive for most other riders. If you are taking one peak and one off-peak trip for example, the day pass would be more expensive than buying two separate one-way tickets (to/from zone 7, a weekday day pass would cost $27.50 vs. $26.50 if you bought one peak and one off-peak ticket). If you travel only during off-peak hours, it's way more expensive ($27.50 for a day pass vs. $22.50 for two one-way off-peak tickets for zone 7).

On weekends, the day price would be priced at the fare for two off-peak tickets with no discount. This wouldn't save most riders any money if they are just making two trips.

Unless you're a railfan looking to rack up a lot of mileage, these proposed day passes would be too expensive to work for most riders. The nature of these rail trips (which are much longer journeys on routes with low frequency) means that very few people are taking more than 2 trips per day.

MTA said that this introduces the ability for riders to hop on and off trains enroute for the first time, though even that isn't true. The MTA used to offer the ability to 'stopover' on one-way tickets for no additional charge before it eliminated that option in 2015.

Half-fare tickets will be valid on all trains

One of the few positive proposed fare policy changes the MTA is putting forward would allow riders to use half-fare tickets (including seniors, people with disabilities, and medicate beneficiaries) on all trains. Currently, these tickets are not valid on inbound AM peak trains (except on Metro-North West of Hudson trains, where they are already allowed at all times).

Federal law requires transit agencies who receive certain federal funds to offer half-fares to these riders, but allows agencies to exclude their use during peak hours if they have different peak and off-peak fares. SEPTA is the only other rail operator in the US to have peak and off-peak fares, and they allow half fares at all times (free for senior citizens within PA).

The Permanant Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, the umbrella organization for the LIRR and Metro-North Commuter Councils, has campaigned for this change for some time.

Ultimately, it's a small revenue impact. The LIRR sells less than $200k in step-up fares for half-fare tickets on AM Peak trains each year (plus more from riders who just buy full-fare peak tickets upfront). Most conductors I've seen wouldn't even bother collecting the step-up anyways in recent years.

CityTicket made permanent and replaces one-way fares

The MTA is also proposing to make the expansion of CityTicket to weekday peak and off-peak hours permanent (currently, these are fare promotions and only the weekend CityTicket is a permanent fixture in the tariff). With these changes, the MTA will finally have CityTicket replace the full-fare peak and off-peak tickets.

The MTA has sold more than 3 million full-fare tickets between eligible station pairs since CityTicket was expanded to all hours in August 2023, fleecing millions in extra fares from riders who didn't know they needed to look in a separate menu hidden on the TVM to buy the cheaper CityTickets. The wide majority of people who bought the full-fare tickets were travelling between Jamaica and the city terminals (about 39% of those overcharged), likely tourists who did not know the ins and outs of the LIRR's very complicated fare structure.

This is one of the few changes that will actually make things simpler and more straightforward for riders, and is welcome.

Along with these changes, the MTA will also make the Far Rockaway Ticket permanent. This offers travel from Far Rockaway to New York City stations at CityTicket prices, but comes with additional strings attached (it can only be purchased at or in the vicinity of Far Rockaway station). It has had a small effect on ridership, but it means a lot to local officials in the Rockaways.

The MTA is proposing to increase the cost of the peak CityTicket and Far Rockaway Ticket from $7.00 to $7.25, and the cost of the off-peak versions of both tickets from $5.00 to $5.25.

The cost for weekly and monthly tickets is not being downscaled to match the new base ticket prices. These tickets will still be priced based on the old peak fares, meaning you would need to take 29 peak trips to/from zone 3 to break even on a monthly, putting it out of reach for most riders.

10-trip tickets eliminated

Another proposed fare policy change that will stick riders with higher costs is the elimination of the 10-trip ticket. Currently valid for 6 months, the 10-trip ticket offers a good bit of flexibility and saves trips to the ticket machine for riders who travel somewhat often, but not often enough to warrant buying a monthly ticket. 10-trip tickets were used by about 11% of full fare or half fare riders last year. That number that has declined over the years as mobile ticketing has mitigated the trouble of having to go to a TVM, but it still represents the railroad's most loyal discretionary riders.

The off-peak 10-trip ticket came with a 15% discount, which makes the per-trip price of rail travel much more palatable. Peak 10-trip tickets do not have a discount, though Metro-North currently sells 10-trip tickets for intermediate travel at a 15% discount, and a 4% discount for West of Hudson stations valid at peak and off-peak times (LIRR does not sell 10-trip tickets for intra-Island travel at all).

MTA would retain the 10-trip ticket and 4% discount for West of Hudson riders.

In its place, the MTA is proposing a buy-10-get-1-free program, which would only be available for tickets bought on eTix/TrainTime. But unlike the current 180-day validity period for the 10-trip tickets, MTA says riders would have to purchase the 10 tickets and use the 11th free ticket within a 14-day window, which makes this option practically useless for almost everyone.

If you are making 11 trips in a 14-day period (realistically, 12 trips since most people go and come back), that is 24+ trips in a month. And at that point, it becomes cheaper to just buy a monthly ticket, where the breakeven point for most zones is 20 trips...

This offer will include any combination of peak and off-peak tickets, and the free ticket can be used in either the peak or off-peak periods. The MTA says that this will bring a discount for peak riders for the first time, though again that isn't even true. Metro-North has peak discounts for intermediate and West of Hudson riders right now, and both railroads offered a 20-trip peak ticket for a time that offered a better 20% discount with a more reasonable 60-day window.

Onboard surcharge increased from $6 to $8

The MTA is also proposing to increase the surcharge for one-way tickets bought onboard trains from $6 to $8 as an additional stick to encourage people to buy their tickets before boarding. Onboard ticket sales account for a very small minority of tickets sold, with conductors selling fewer than 100k tickets onboard in an average month (this includes half-fare tickets, which are not subject to the surcharge, but excludes boardings at stations without TVM's).

The number of onboard ticket sales has also not grown considerably in recent years (most of the increase could be attributed to the expansion of gate collection, where conductors will just sell people a ticket themselves at the station price instead of sending them to a TVM) and is about the same as the days when conductors had to punch duplex tickets and only accepted cash onboard trains. Only about 1% of riders pay the onboard surcharge.

The MTA adds that "TrainTime customers who repeatedly buy their tickets just before the conductor arrives will be penalized after an escalating series of warnings", though the MTA has not offered any further details on how this will actually be implemented. This is technically the policy already, though train crews almost never enforce it. The railroads have been sending nastygram e-mails for years, even escalating to blocking the accounts of people who repeatedly wait until the conductor arrives to activate their ticket. But the MTA has presented no evidence that these measures have had any degree of success curbing the issue to date, so there is little reason to believe it will work this time either.

Fare policy changes will drive up the cost of off-peak travel

Put together, the MTA's proposed fare policy changes for the railroads will have a considerable impact on the cost of off-peak travel, driving up the average out-of-pocket costs for the portion of the ridership which has shown the strongest recovery and is the most sensitive to price.

For the example below for travel between zone 7 and NY, the average per-trip fare for off-peak travel will skyrocket from $9.47 per trip in 2024 to $11.67 per trip in 2026, an increase of 23%. This accounts for the elimination of the 15% discount on off-peak 10-trip tickets (used by about 10% of off-peak riders), increasing the onboard surcharge, and assumes that 3% of tickets will go unused (a swing from roughly 6% of tickets being reused). The effect of the buy-10-get-1-free deal is assumed to be insignificant due to the reasons stated above. Riders travelling from other stations in Nassau and Suffolk Counties would see similarly sharp increases in the out-of-pocket cost of off-peak rail travel.

This would be the sharpest increase for off-peak travel in quite some time, and is a big example of how the MTA has other dials they can turn to ratchet up out-of-pocket costs for riders beyond increasing the sticker price on tickets. We have already seen a steady escalation in average fares since 2022, these proposals will kick that into a new gear.

Again, to exact these kinds of fare increases on the segment of the ridership that has shown the strongest recovery but is also the most sensitive to price requires the application of a very special type of logic, and this will likely have a suppressive effect on ridership. The LIRR and Metro-North are pricing themselves into irrelevance—with fares like these, it will be cheaper for two people travelling together to drive into Manhattan (even with tunnel tolls, a congestion charge, and garage parking) than it would be to take the train. If you're travelling from further east, it would be nearly cheaper to drive alone than buy two one-way peak tickets or a day pass from Ronkonkoma.

To grow ridership, the LIRR and Metro-North must do more to keep average fares down. The MTA's proposed fare policy changes run counter to best practices around the world. The MTA has tried to hype up the proposed changes saying that they will "help keep more money in riders' pockets". While it may be true that you'll have a little more money in your pocket on Monday or Tuesday, you'll end up having less in your pocket come Friday—and a lot less by the end of the year.

LIRR ridership recovery tells two very different stories

2025-08-15T06:00:00.003-04:00

While the MTA and the Governor's office have been highlighting LIRR's top-line, overall ridership inching back closer to pre-pandemic levels, ridership levels at individual stations (estimated from ticket sales data) tell two very distinct stories. In New York City, where LIRR has lowered average fares through the expansion of CityTicket, ridership is up healthily—exceeding pre-pandemic levels in many places. But on Long Island, where average fares have risen considerably since 2019 and service has not improved by any great measure, rail ridership continues to languish well below pre-pandemic levels.

The 2024 results continue the trend observed last year, where there is a clear correlation between ridership recovery and fares and service. 28 stations saw more riders in 2024 than they did in 2019. All but 2 of them are in New York City or on the East End.

Riders scurry to transfer between trains at Jamaica
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

The figures below represent station ridership based on ticket sales data. Each year, I obtain raw ticket sales data from LIRR through FOIL, which includes the year and month the ticket was sold, the origin and destination stations, the sales channel, ticket type, total number of tickets sold, and total revenue. From this I translate number of tickets sold to number of rides taken using a model that I have built and refined over the years with data from the MTA’s Customer Count surveys, other datasets about fares and fare collection rates published by the MTA, and my own observations onboard trains. In most cases, you will see the translated number of rides taken in the tables below. In general, the total, bottom-line ridership totals compare closely with the statistics LIRR publishes, but there some differences within the detailed breakdowns as LIRR generally undercounts one-way tickets (which can be reused if uncollected) and overcounts monthly and weekly ticket usage.

Lower fares driving ridership gains

With the effects of the new East Side Access service plan largely settled, fares are now the most significant driver of ridership recovery across most of the LIRR system.

Ridership at LIRR stations in New York City is booming. Travel within New York City grew by 22% over 2023, and total LIRR ridership in New York City is now exceeding pre-pandemic levels by 8%. Leaving out the city terminals and Belmont Park, ridership is up above pre-pandemic levels at every station in New York City except Rosedale (96%) and on the Port Washington Branch between Flushing-Broadway and Little Neck (between 67% and 88%), where service was adversely impacted by East Side Access.

What is driving this growth? A significant reduction in fares. The expansion of CityTicket to weekday off-peak and then weekday peak hours has brought down the cost of rail travel in New York City considerably. Average fares have dropped from $6.37 per trip in 2019 to $5.88 in 2024, a 7.7% reduction. This has helped the railroad attract more than a million new riders over 2019.

For clarity, when I refer to average fare, that is the average out-of-pocket cost for a single trip for the average rider in that ridership segment, station, or market. It is the total revenue collected divided by the number of rides. The result is a weighted average that takes into account peak vs. off-peak travel, discounts from 10- or 20-trip tickets, and the savings offered by monthly tickets. It is not the average of the one-way sticker prices you see on the TVM’s.

Total rides, westward travel only	Avg Fare 2019	Avg Fare 2024	Δ vs 2019	Total rides 2019	Total rides 2024	% of 2019
New York City stations	$6.37	$5.88	-7.7%	16,572,834	17,906,081	108%
Long Island stations	$8.89	$9.73	+9.5%	73,782,668	54,517,073	74%
East End stations	$18.96	$18.06	-4.7%	734,024	909,925	124%

But on Long Island (defined here as Nassau County and the five western towns of Suffolk County), the story is very different. While the MTA pats itself on the back for only having one price increase since 2019, riders are nonetheless paying significantly more per trip than they were in 2019. The MTA has repeatedly failed to adapt its rail fare structure to meet the needs of commuting patterns today—and the numbers show there is a clear price to inaction on fares and fare policy as well. Monthly tickets remain impractical for a whole new class of hybrid commuters created during the pandemic—and the MTA has progressively chipped away at discounts and incentives, eliminating the 20-trip peak ticket, reducing the off-peak discount, and chipping away at other packages and ticket types designed to lower the cost of rail travel.

The implications are clear. Average fares to/from Long Island stations are up nearly 10%, raising nearly a dollar per trip from $8.89 in 2019 to $9.73 last year. As a result, ridership has not yet recovered to three-quarters of what it was pre-pandemic, with the railroad still short nearly 20 million riders.

The East End is a bit of a different situation. Average fares are down modestly due to a big increase in intermediate local travel along the South Fork now that the South Fork Commuter Connection has been made permanent and continues to gain steam (local travel along the South Fork is nearly triple what it was in 2019 and is up 15% over 2023). Average fares to/from New York City are up, but sheer demand from the large number of people who moved from NYC to the East End during the pandemic continues to keep those numbers higher.

NYC ridership growth fueled by lower fares

The table below shows the total ridership for stations in New York City, based on ticket sales. The "Total rides" columns count both EAST and WEST travel, so a rider travelling from Bayside to NY-Penn Station would count at both Bayside and NY-Penn Station. These figures include all travel to/from these stations (including travel to/from stations outside New York City). The average fare is for westward travel only.

Code	Station	Total rides 2019	Total rides 2024	% of 2019	Δ vs 2023	Avg Fare 2019	Avg Fare 2024	Δ vs 2019	Δ vs 2023
NYK	NY-Penn Station	71,660,516	38,154,266	53%	2%	N/A	$8.07	N/A%	1%
WDD	Woodside	1,926,818	2,332,423	121%	14%	$6.19	$5.74	-7%	-4%
FHL	Forest Hills	712,895	1,151,955	162%	31%	$6.06	$5.83	-4%	-5%
KGN	Kew Gardens	639,623	703,008	110%	26%	$5.88	$5.73	-3%	-4%
GCT	NY-Grand Central	-	16,599,868	N/A%	63%	N/A	N/A	N/A%	N/A%
LIC	Long Island City	32,540	47,886	147%	5%	N/A	$0.94	N/A%	N/A%
HPA	Hunterspoint Avenue	759,039	320,438	42%	-2%	N/A	N/A	N/A%	N/A%
ATL	Brklyn-Atlantic Term	7,503,138	4,983,637	66%	1%	$8.15	$9.28	14%	4%
NAV	Nostrand Avenue	424,930	588,085	138%	16%	$6.03	$6.30	5%	1%
ENY	East New York	422,724	600,636	142%	16%	$6.06	$6.39	5%	2%
JAM	Jamaica	8,781,074	11,337,535	129%	24%	$6.74	$5.99	-11%	-4%
SSM	Mets-Willets Point	399,382	808,316	202%	37%	$6.23	$5.56	-11%	-6%
FLS	Flushing-Main Street	997,333	1,139,185	114%	22%	$6.55	$5.72	-13%	-6%
MHL	Flushing-Murray Hill	440,735	487,442	111%	29%	$6.46	$5.76	-11%	-6%
BDY	Flushing-Broadway	770,255	675,227	88%	15%	$6.47	$5.83	-10%	-7%
ADL	Flushing-Auburndale	831,867	690,106	83%	17%	$6.52	$5.88	-10%	-7%
BSD	Bayside	2,682,211	2,061,074	77%	17%	$6.45	$5.91	-8%	-7%
DGL	Douglaston	733,204	493,858	67%	13%	$6.40	$5.89	-8%	-7%
LNK	Little Neck	1,260,431	1,055,704	84%	20%	$6.29	$5.75	-9%	-7%
HOL	Hollis	231,253	283,212	122%	23%	$5.88	$5.85	-1%	-2%
QVG	Queens Village	893,791	910,989	102%	18%	$5.89	$5.85	-1%	-3%
BRT	Belmont Park	35,490	3,087	9%	-90%	$8.05	$9.42	17%	9%
LMR	Locust Manor	660,278	745,310	113%	18%	$5.99	$5.86	-2%	-3%
LTN	Laurelton	724,303	731,045	101%	13%	$6.07	$5.92	-3%	-4%
ROS	Rosedale	1,163,325	1,116,071	96%	17%	$6.05	$5.87	-3%	-4%
FRY	Far Rockaway	242,252	382,101	158%	46%	$6.84	$6.45	-6%	-5%
SAB	St. Albans	271,646	410,326	151%	17%	$6.15	$5.90	-4%	-2%
MDW	Meadowlands	5,381	3,441	64%	24%	N/A	N/A	N/A%	N/A%
YBX	Yankee Stadium	371	-	0%	-100%	N/A	N/A	N/A%	N/A%
ZVF	Rail Hudson Valley	-	80,449	N/A%	77%	N/A	$17.25	N/A%	N/A%

Notes:

"Meadowlands" tickets represent the LIRR portion of through tickets sold to the Meadowlands Sports Complex with NJTransit (via NY-Penn Station).
"Yankee Stadium" refers to the separate TVM option that was available (it sold a regular ticket to NY-Penn Station), this was eliminated in 2023. "Rail Hudson Valley" represents Combo Tickets sold by LIRR for travel to any station on Metro-North via NY-Grand Central.
“% of 2019” compares 2024 ridership to the same period in 2019 (it is the 2024 ridership divided by the 2019 ridership). A result of 100% means that ridership is the same as it was in 2019. Results greater than or less than 100% means ridership is greater than or less than it was in 2019, respectively.
“Δ vs 2019” or “Δ vs 2023” represent the percent change in ridership or fares between 2024 and the comparison year. A result of 0% means that ridership or fares is the same as it was in 2019. Positive results or negative results means ridership or average fares are greater than or less than it was in the comparison year, respectively.

Port Washington Branch

On the Port Washington Branch, average fares are down significantly—between 8% and 13%—thanks to the expansion of CityTicket, which brought discount travel on weekdays for the first time.

Ridership at Mets-Willets Point is nearly double what it was in 2019. While making this station a full-time stop shortly after East Side Access opened in 2023 has helped grow ridership, it remains very much a seasonal and special event stop. Mets-Willets Point attracted barely 3,000 riders a month during the winter of 2023-2024, but ridership during the summer months when the Mets are playing and the US Open is in town is up considerably.

Elsewhere on the Port Washington Branch, the story isn't as great. While lower fares have helped buoy ridership up above what is seen further east on Long Island, the bifurcation of Port Washington Branch service with East Side Access has had a clearly suppressive effect on ridership growth here. When East Side Access launched, the LIRR did not materially increase service on the Port Washington Branch—instead it split the existing service between NY-Penn Station and NY-Grand Central. With no Jamaica as a main transfer point, riders either have to wait for the next train or deal with a long and inconvenient transfer at Woodside. With the exception of Rosedale (at 96% of pre-pandemic ridership), all of LIRR's underperforming NYC stations are on the Port Washington Branch.

Southeast Queens

Since the six stations in Southeast Queens benefitted from the Atlantic Ticket, which was launched in 2018 and was already driving ridership growth pre-pandemic, average fares have not come down all that much. When the MTA killed off the Atlantic Ticket in 2023, its CityTicket replacement was valid to New York, but was more expensive during peak hours and did not offer an unlimited option.

Despite average fares coming down only between 1% and 4%, ridership is up modestly, with everywhere but Rosedale seeing more riders than pre-pandemic. The ridership gains at Hollis, Queens Village, Locust Manor, Laurelton, and Rosedale are not as impressive as one would have hoped given that these stations now have half-hourly off-peak service most of the time (vs. only hourly in 2019). But improving off-peak service at St. Albans from bi-hourly to hourly has definitely driven ridership growth there, up more than 50% over 2019 levels.

Even though LIRR's Belmont Park station is in New York City, the LIRR snuck it into zone 4 in 2021, which has resulted in significantly higher fares over the old racetrack tickets (which were priced slightly higher than zone 3 round-trip fares). Since the LIRR effectively abandoned service to the Belmont Park spur station (it was only used on one weekend in 2024, I think, when there was trackwork on the Main Line preventing the Elmont station from being used), ridership has bottomed out.

Far Rockaway

With the introduction of the Far Rockway ticket, riders can now travel from Far Rockaway to New York City stations for the same price as CityTicket. While this offers a substantial savings over full-priced zone 4 fares, this ticket option comes with additional strings attached—most notably that it can only be bought at or in the vicinity of Far Rockaway station. If you are travelling from elsewhere in New York City to Far Rockaway, your only option is to buy a full-priced zone 4 ticket. As a result, average fares have not come down to the extent they have on the Port Washington Branch, but have still come down by about 6%, to $6.45 per trip.

Far Rockaway Ticket sales continue to be lackluster, plateauing at under 14,000 per month last year, accounting for about 40% of trips to/from Far Rockaway.

And this appears to be taking a bit out of ridership at Inwood (with riders backtracking one extra stop to Far Rockaway to take advantage of a much lower fare). Ridership at Inwood was down 10% over 2023.

Local Main Line stations

Fares at Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, and Woodside have not come down that much with the expansion of CityTicket. Perhaps people prefer to stick with buying full-fare tickets knowing they can reuse them, as LIRR's train crews can rarely be bothered to do more than one ticket check west of Jamaica.

The local Main Line stations also suffer the same service bifurcation issue as the Port Washington Branch (e.g. Forest Hills and Kew Gardens now only get one train per hour to NY-Penn Station off-peak, vs. half-hourly service before East Side Access). But ridership is up and exceeding 2019 levels at all three, with significant ridership growth at Forest Hills. Perhaps frequent service changes and delays on the Subway have been driving people to the railroad. It is certainly curious.

Long Island ridership recovery languishes due to higher fares, similar service

On Long Island, LIRR's ridership recovery is much more disappointing. Just two of 87 Long Island stations saw more riders in 2024 than in 2019: Carle Place and Bellport. Both benefitted from better service with East Side Access, especially Bellport (now, with 3 small exceptions on weekends, every train that stops at Mastic-Shirley also stops at Bellport). Everyone else is seeing much more mediocre ridership recovery, sometimes as low as half of 2019 levels in diesel territory. As mentioned above, this excludes the stations in the five East End towns of Suffolk County.

Code	Station	Total rides 2019	Total rides 2024	% of 2019	Δ vs 2023	Avg Fare 2019	Avg Fare 2024	Δ vs 2019	Δ vs 2023
GNK	Great Neck	2,672,639	1,863,724	70%	7%	$7.67	$8.24	7%	1%
MHT	Manhasset	1,757,662	1,232,834	70%	7%	$7.79	$8.63	11%	1%
PDM	Plandome	314,560	257,489	82%	13%	$7.87	$8.80	12%	0%
PWS	Port Washington	2,448,715	1,682,179	69%	11%	$7.52	$8.42	12%	1%
EMT	Elmont-UBS Arena	-	569,446	N/A%	33%	N/A	$9.23	N/A%	0%
BRS	Bellerose	364,118	205,109	56%	3%	$7.80	$8.66	11%	2%
FPK	Floral Park	849,632	749,316	88%	19%	$7.74	$8.57	11%	1%
SMR	Stewart Manor	503,743	296,441	59%	5%	$7.61	$8.57	13%	2%
NBD	GC-Nassau Blvd	502,255	332,572	66%	8%	$7.59	$8.49	12%	1%
GCY	GC-Central Station	428,193	254,562	59%	10%	$7.66	$8.35	9%	1%
CLP	GC-Cntry Life Pr	209,370	140,990	67%	13%	$7.63	$8.63	13%	0%
HEM	Hempstead	763,408	551,360	72%	6%	$7.65	$7.99	4%	2%
NHP	New Hyde Park	1,237,703	1,029,411	83%	18%	$7.76	$8.63	11%	2%
MAV	GC-Merillon Av	514,325	460,401	90%	12%	$7.74	$8.62	11%	1%
MIN	Mineola	3,696,855	3,067,367	83%	18%	$7.83	$8.49	9%	2%
CPL	Carle Place	270,452	306,591	113%	17%	$8.71	$9.23	6%	1%
WBY	Westbury	1,028,630	823,638	80%	30%	$8.71	$9.39	8%	1%
HVL	Hicksville	5,339,797	4,028,631	75%	16%	$8.64	$9.26	7%	1%
SYT	Syosset	1,969,581	1,342,697	68%	14%	$8.55	$9.49	11%	1%
CSH	Cold Spring Hbr	725,276	565,883	78%	12%	$10.43	$11.86	14%	1%
HUN	Huntington	2,804,026	2,029,270	72%	11%	$10.12	$11.21	11%	2%
GWN	Greenlawn	263,100	145,345	55%	3%	$10.00	$11.33	13%	2%
NPT	Northport	741,629	391,220	53%	7%	$9.83	$11.08	13%	3%
KPK	Kings Park	374,061	212,995	57%	8%	$11.38	$12.54	10%	0%
STN	Smithtown	224,480	127,572	57%	6%	$11.18	$12.12	8%	1%
SJM	St. James	167,940	101,742	61%	6%	$11.29	$12.37	10%	2%
BK	Stony Brook	624,908	543,704	87%	14%	$10.67	$11.10	4%	1%
PJN	Port Jefferson	386,696	251,355	65%	2%	$10.04	$10.57	5%	2%
EWN	East Williston	353,204	178,207	50%	9%	$7.53	$8.47	13%	0%
ABT	Albertson	166,509	99,731	60%	10%	$8.54	$9.32	9%	-1%
RSN	Roslyn	330,487	208,423	63%	16%	$8.53	$9.51	12%	1%
GVL	Greenvale	81,673	58,019	71%	14%	$8.65	$9.18	6%	0%
GHD	Glen Head	226,485	139,571	62%	11%	$8.43	$9.49	12%	1%
SCF	Sea Cliff	186,167	130,104	70%	15%	$8.46	$9.46	12%	1%
GST	Glen Street	168,742	116,235	69%	22%	$8.00	$8.80	10%	2%
GCV	Glen Cove	204,683	143,900	70%	10%	$8.48	$9.14	8%	2%
LVL	Locust Valley	208,536	138,586	66%	9%	$8.70	$9.54	10%	2%
OBY	Oyster Bay	143,132	81,396	57%	24%	$7.00	$7.07	1%	0%
BPG	Bethpage	1,099,225	886,635	81%	18%	$8.52	$9.14	7%	1%
FMD	Farmingdale	1,263,129	1,112,084	88%	21%	$8.42	$8.90	6%	1%
PLN	Pinelawn	15,940	14,719	92%	6%	$9.44	$10.14	8%	2%
WYD	Wyandanch	916,925	804,157	88%	17%	$9.93	$10.75	8%	2%
DPK	Deer Park	1,869,782	1,566,396	84%	16%	$10.05	$11.03	10%	2%
BWD	Brentwood	560,659	495,328	88%	15%	$11.16	$11.79	6%	1%
CI	Central Islip	781,181	671,818	86%	17%	$11.30	$12.16	8%	2%
RON	Ronkonkoma	4,443,803	3,709,136	83%	15%	$11.73	$12.79	9%	2%
MFD	Medford	20,718	9,655	47%	-13%	$9.73	$9.30	-4%	-2%
YPK	Yaphank	6,271	4,312	69%	-12%	$8.54	$9.72	14%	-6%
VSM	Valley Stream	2,081,696	1,515,076	73%	5%	$7.81	$8.58	10%	3%
GBN	Gibson	346,736	267,810	77%	6%	$7.56	$8.36	11%	2%
HWT	Hewlett	504,774	363,115	72%	12%	$7.65	$8.48	11%	2%
WMR	Woodmere	502,418	318,876	63%	6%	$7.69	$8.48	10%	2%
CHT	Cedarhurst	391,929	254,652	65%	10%	$7.75	$8.40	8%	2%
LCE	Lawrence	227,388	156,383	69%	5%	$7.68	$8.23	7%	2%
IWD	Inwood	207,248	122,583	59%	-10%	$7.49	$7.86	5%	0%
LYN	Lynbrook	1,414,218	993,559	70%	6%	$7.70	$8.47	10%	2%
CAV	E Rock-Centre Av	259,620	173,106	67%	8%	$8.58	$9.49	11%	2%
ERY	E Rock-Ocean Av	309,257	244,496	79%	12%	$8.50	$9.39	10%	1%
ODE	Oceanside	802,568	514,166	64%	6%	$8.59	$9.48	10%	2%
IPK	Island Park	437,666	347,492	79%	12%	$8.58	$9.46	10%	2%
LBH	Long Beach	1,921,902	1,358,048	71%	10%	$8.57	$9.31	9%	2%
WWD	Westwood	159,160	139,205	87%	25%	$7.60	$8.63	13%	0%
MVN	Malverne	289,524	217,498	75%	24%	$7.55	$8.61	14%	1%
LVW	Lakeview	154,479	152,384	99%	25%	$7.72	$8.53	10%	2%
HGN	H'stead Gardens	83,979	78,167	93%	25%	$7.68	$8.64	12%	1%
WHD	West Hempstead	171,881	132,478	77%	12%	$7.53	$8.32	10%	2%
RVC	Rockville Centre	2,193,946	1,656,383	75%	13%	$8.76	$9.64	10%	1%
BWN	Baldwin	1,855,672	1,328,533	72%	8%	$8.71	$9.47	9%	2%
FPT	Freeport	1,609,740	1,397,884	87%	12%	$8.74	$9.27	6%	2%
MRK	Merrick	1,971,750	1,345,197	68%	10%	$8.60	$9.49	10%	1%
BMR	Bellmore	1,869,597	1,206,819	65%	9%	$8.53	$9.37	10%	1%
WGH	Wantagh	1,542,816	1,086,001	70%	11%	$8.49	$9.35	10%	2%
SFD	Seaford	828,446	465,194	56%	7%	$8.53	$9.33	9%	1%
MQA	Massapequa	1,603,619	1,091,079	68%	12%	$8.54	$9.41	10%	1%
MPK	Massapequa Park	1,210,317	759,956	63%	9%	$8.46	$9.25	9%	1%
AVL	Amityville	610,300	491,550	81%	10%	$9.25	$10.16	10%	2%
CPG	Copiague	615,098	433,565	70%	5%	$9.48	$10.09	6%	2%
LHT	Lindenhurst	776,414	574,311	74%	9%	$9.87	$10.79	9%	3%
BTA	Babylon	2,727,593	1,807,953	66%	4%	$9.82	$10.84	10%	3%
BSR	Bay Shore	442,539	317,593	72%	10%	$11.21	$12.21	9%	3%
ISP	Islip	294,845	187,503	64%	10%	$11.22	$12.29	10%	2%
GRV	Great River	103,634	68,784	66%	8%	$11.12	$12.17	9%	1%
ODL	Oakdale	108,897	72,534	67%	10%	$11.37	$12.38	9%	4%
SVL	Sayville	422,745	275,979	65%	1%	$11.75	$12.60	7%	2%
PGE	Patchogue	468,735	321,370	69%	4%	$10.01	$10.49	5%	3%
BPT	Bellport	24,264	34,753	143%	12%	$13.58	$15.44	14%	4%
MSY	Mastic-Shirley	160,287	136,933	85%	4%	$11.90	$13.60	14%	3%
ZOL	Rail Long Island	152,683	86,771	57%	54%	$5.18	$8.11	56%	2%

Notes:

"Rail Long Island" refers to tickets sold without a specific origin or destination. This mainly includes Combo Tickets sold by Metro-North, which are valid from NY-Grand Central to any LIRR station, and also a small number of promotional tickets through the Rail Free Program. Until mid-2019, LIRR also did not record origins or destinations for Family Fare tickets sold onboard trains.

With the exception of Medford (a rounding error with fewer than 10k total rides in 2024), average fares are up at every station on Long Island, sometimes as much as 14%. In aggregate, fares to/from Long Island are up 9.5% over what they were in 2019 and a whopping 17.5% higher than what they were in 2016. Other than a temporary dip in 2021 (when off-peak fares were in effect at all times), Long Island fares have been steadily growing year-over-year, even though MTA has only implemented price increases in 2017, 2019, and 2023. This stands in stark contrast to New York City stations, where average fares have been declining year-over-year, and are 4.9% lower than they were pre-pandemic and 7.7% lower than they were in 2016.

LIRR service to Long Island stations hasn’t gotten meaningfully better, either, despite the MTA’s claims. The LIRR is running fewer peak trains to/from Long Island stations today than they were in 2019. And the only branches that saw off-peak service improvements over what they had previously were along the Main Line (which had been long promised and was sorely needed before the pandemic) and on the West Hempstead Branch. These lines are modestly outperforming stations on the other branches where service levels remained the same, but not dramatically.

When I refer to a station that is underperforming, I mean that ridership is recovering at that station at a slower pace than the LIRR/Long Island average. A station that is overperforming is seeing riders return or new ridership growth at a faster rate than the rest of the system.

Off-peak travel

Looking strictly at off-peak ticket ridership to/from Long Island stations (excluding peak tickets and monthly/weekly commutation tickets), there is some degree of correlation to improved off-peak service. For the LIRR as a whole, off-peak travel to/from LI stations has largely recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Most branches that have not seen off-peak service changes hover right around 100%. The diesel branches, which had bad service before and have bad off-peak service now, significantly underperform.

Branch (LI stations only)	2016 off-peak	2019 off-peak	2022 off-peak	2023 off-peak	2024 off-peak	% of 2019	Δ vs 2023
West of Babylon	4,763,427	5,221,181	4,534,244	4,481,752	4,911,960	94%	10%
Far Rockaway	1,292,160	1,369,870	1,137,741	1,207,948	1,356,499	99%	12%
Hempstead	1,026,405	1,098,296	994,008	1,049,946	1,201,030	109%	14%
West of Huntington	5,549,100	5,578,537	3,595,633	4,844,379	5,681,771	102%	17%
Long Beach	1,396,530	1,486,650	1,213,335	1,276,437	1,406,897	95%	10%
Montauk	1,064,826	1,157,600	1,026,616	1,078,724	1,150,475	99%	7%
Oyster Bay	484,159	468,448	306,741	350,794	397,188	85%	13%
Port Jefferson	776,009	755,395	513,768	563,024	601,462	80%	7%
Port Washington	2,221,384	2,364,592	1,938,978	1,978,319	2,138,808	90%	8%
Ronkonkoma	3,433,977	3,658,598	2,627,792	3,534,887	4,247,318	116%	20%
West Hempstead	100,078	103,915	95,471	171,737	230,418	222%	34%
LIRR Total	22,108,055	23,263,082	17,984,327	20,537,947	23,323,826	100%	14%

Ridership on the West Hempstead Branch has responded significantly to improved off-peak service. Considering the MTA outright eliminated weekend service on the West Hempstead Branch altogether in 2010 before restoring it in 2014, to see off-peak ridership more than double what it was in 2019 is very impressive.

Off-peak travel on the Ronkonkoma Branch has not responded as significantly to service being bumped from hourly to half-hourly, with ridership tracking only about 16% higher than it was in 2019 (and weekend service was curtailed on a number of occasions in 2019 due to Main Line Grade Crossing Elimination project work, so the growth is actually much more meager). Half-hourly off-peak service on the Ronkonkoma Branch was promised many years ago, and arguably that demand was already latent—off-peak Ronkonkoma trains were a zoo pre-pandemic.

Port Washington Branch

Similar to the New York City stations, the eastern four stations of the Port Washington Branch has suffered from service being bifurcated between NY-Penn Station and NY-Grand Central. The three major Port Washington Branch stations are all underperforming the LIRR average for ridership recovery.

Hempstead Branch

Ridership growth on the Hempstead Branch is driven largely by Elmont-UBS Arena, where ridership increased by 33% year-over-year (combining with Belmont Park, ridership is up 25% year-over-year). Ridership at Floral Park (which saw service increase with more Huntington trains stopping there, including half-hourly service during off-peak hours) is overperforming and up 19% over 2023.

But further east, Hempstead Branch service is generally underperforming. Almost as bad as diesel stations in some places. While Hempstead Branch service was ‘upgraded’ from Brooklyn to NY-Grand Central in most situations, there is still just one train per hour during off-peak times. Service is about twice as frequent at New Hyde Park and thrice as frequent at Mineola—and those stops have more direct service to NY-Penn Station. So more people are going there. Ridership at New Hyde Park, GC-Merillon Avenue, and Mineola (all a short drive from the Hempstead Branch with better service) are all overperforming and up 12%-18% over 2023.

West of Huntington Branch

West of Huntington, these stations are generally performing at or slightly above the Long Island average, but underperforming the LIRR systemwide average. Carle Place is the only station in Nassau County where ridership is exceeding 2019 levels.

Port Jefferson Branch

Ridership recovery on the diesel portion of the Port Jefferson Branch has been abysmal. With fewer commuters and plenty of space in the big parking lots and garages at Huntington, people are clearly driving there for better service, as ridership is down most markedly at Greenlawn and East Northport (where most can get Town of Huntington permits to park at Huntington). Ridership at these stations is barely more than half of what it was pre-pandemic. The results are not much better at Kings Park, Smithtown, St. James, and Port Jefferson.

Stony Brook—buoyed by students going to and from Stony Brook University—is the lone overperforming diesel station in Nassau or western Suffolk. It is now the busiest diesel station by a considerable margin (nearly 200k more riders than the busiest in 2019, Northport).

Oyster Bay Branch

Compared to 2019, ridership at Oyster Bay Branch stations is not dramatically lower than it was. But the starting point was very week, so that’s not saying much. Ridership recovery is the slowest at stations closer to Mineola. After Hunterspoint Avenue and Medford, the station that has recovered the fewest riders is East Williston, seeing barely half of its riders return.

Ronkonkoma Branch

Ridership between Bethpage and Ronkonkoma is modestly outperforming the rest of the Long Island stations, largely driven by a modest increase in off-peak ridership mentioned above. Ridership has grown by 15% and 21% over 2023.

Ronkonkoma has still some distance to go to reclaim its spot as the busiest LIRR station outside of New York City—it is short of Hicksville by some 300k riders.

Ridership at Medford and Yaphank—which are in the Town of Brookhaven and squarely within MTA’s self-defined commuter territory—just can’t attract riders with their poor service levels. And with Ronkonkoma’s parking lots having plenty of room, there’s no reason to not drive there. Ridership at both of these stations has declined upwards of 12% over last year…

Far Rockaway Branch

Ridership recovery on the Far Rockaway Branch is hit or miss, continuing the generally unimpressive trends seen elsewhere on Long Island. Ridership at Inwood is down 10% year-over-year, likely due to the Far Rockway Ticket, discussed above.

Long Beach Branch

The Long Beach Branch was perhaps the most primed to see a big service boost with East Side Access. It could easily support half-hourly off-peak service (at least in the summertime), and LIRR could be doing a lot more to drive more ridership to Long Beach. But it hasn’t bothered, so ridership at these stations generally tracks to the unimpressive Long Island average.

West Hempstead Branch

Ridership growth on the West Hempstead Branch is largely being driven by increases in off-peak usage, detailed above. Peak and commutation ridership growth has been less impressive, though modestly up now that it has more trains to/from New York instead of Brooklyn. Some of these stations are came tantalizingly close to beating 2019 ridership levels (ridership at Lakeview was 2,095 riders short of what it was in 2019).

West of Babylon Branch

Ridership recovery on the commuter-heavy South Shore has been quite disappointing for an electric branch with decent service. Ridership at Seaford is only 56% of what it was in 2019. Only Freeport and Amityville are beating the Long Island average.

The South Shore has traditionally been quite commuter-heavy, as the local Babylon trains are painfully slow during off-peak hours (though the Huntington trains that now make extra stops at Hollis, Queens Village, and Floral Park are giving them a run for their money).

Montauk Branch

Montauk Branch ridership in the Towns of Islip and Brookhaven is not performing as poorly as it is on the Port Jefferson and Oyster Bay Branches (intriguing since the Ronkonkoma Branch now has half-hourly service and most trains go to NY-Penn Station).

East End

LIRR ridership to and from the East End of Long Island is performing very well, as more people have shifted further east during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the exception of Greenport and Montauk, all stations saw more riders in 2024 than they did in 2019 (and even Greenport and Montauk came quite close).

Ridership along the South Fork is up as much as 10%-15%, while ridership on the North Fork has actually contracted slightly over 2023.

Code	Station	Total rides 2019	Total rides 2024	% of 2019	Δ vs 2023	Avg Fare 2019	Avg Fare 2024	Δ vs 2019	Δ vs 2023
RHD	Riverhead	29,646	30,208	102%	-7%	$16.34	$16.66	2%	1%
MAK	Mattituck	13,870	16,385	118%	4%	$18.54	$20.36	10%	4%
SHD	Southold	10,973	13,379	122%	-4%	$19.03	$19.99	5%	3%
GPT	Greenport	43,395	42,427	98%	-4%	$17.48	$18.86	8%	4%
SPK	Speonk	104,193	113,545	109%	7%	$14.82	$15.91	7%	3%
WHN	Westhampton	59,278	96,558	163%	3%	$21.62	$22.10	2%	3%
HBY	Hampton Bays	80,914	132,509	164%	10%	$18.68	$20.07	7%	3%
SHC	Shinnecock Hills	-	-	N/A%	N/A%	N/A	N/A	N/A%	N/A%
SHN	Southampton	104,421	144,474	138%	15%	$20.05	$19.23	-4%	1%
BHN	Bridgehampton	91,859	128,407	140%	12%	$20.18	$18.96	-6%	2%
EHN	East Hampton	149,444	231,969	155%	12%	$18.44	$15.80	-14%	1%
AGT	Amagansett	49,116	68,767	140%	8%	$19.31	$17.41	-10%	5%
MTK	Montauk	151,983	140,453	92%	12%	$18.05	$17.19	-5%	0%

At least on the South Fork, most of this ridership growth is being driven by the restoration of the South Fork Commuter Connection. Thanks to improved options for local travel, intermediate trips along the South Fork are nearly triple what they were pre-pandemic, and up 15% year over year. Think of what it could be if LIRR actually tried to squeeze as much as it could out of its existing fleet and infrastructure. Or, heaven forbid, made upgrades to support hourly service all day…

Ridership between the South Fork and the New York City terminals is up, but much more modestly.

Total rides	2016	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	% of 2019	Δ vs 2023
City Terminals	499,031	546,447	168,790	373,386	485,849	570,051	622,020	114%	9%
Intra-Island (indir.)	3,499	3,339	1,588	2,959	3,588	3,455	3,946	118%	14%
Intra-Island (ML)	1,456	1,469	588	1,128	1,142	1,624	1,892	129%	17%
Intra-Island (S Shore)	37,276	35,028	15,275	26,117	27,290	30,195	34,607	99%	15%
South Fork int	19,835	52,601	17,048	29,874	90,100	128,153	147,654	281%	15%

Clear trends: to increase ridership, lower fares and improve service

All of this boils down to a very clear trend between lower fares and better service. There is no magic sauce...if the MTA wants to grow LIRR ridership, it must continue and expand upon its successes in New York City by lowering the cost of rail travel for those travelling in from the suburbs.

I have generally grown tired of comparisons to "pre-pandemic" and hearing about "post-pandemic records". In most facets of life, the COVID-19 pandemic ended some time ago. But it's only America's public transit agencies that seem to be hanging on to "pre-pandemic" references with such frequency and longingness. With our nation's roadways and airways busier than ever, people are clearly travelling places—the rest of the world has adapted to a new normal, and fewer people are choosing to ride mass transit more as a consequence of the nation's transit agencies sheer stubbornness and resistance to change than anything else. But so long as we're playing that game, there are certainly a number of lessons that shine through in the LIRR's 2024 ridership results and trends.

It’s clear that things are unlikely to return to exactly the way they were in 2019. So the MTA and LIRR must therefore adapt its fare structure and schedules to meet the needs of how Long Islanders commute and travel today. It’s efforts thus far, at least for Long Island riders, have been far from successful as average fares only continue to go up, suffocating ridership recovery and growth.

The MTA’s proposed fare hike for this later this year will only make this worse—the fare policy changes (which include the elimination of the 15% off-peak 10-trip discount and dramatically shortening the validity period of one-way and round-trip tickets from 60 days to just 4 hours) are especially punitive to off-peak riders and will deal a huge blow to the cost of off-peak rail travel. This is the one market/sector where LIRR is seeing any sort of consistent ridership growth…so why not milk them for even more? The proposed fare changes will likely have an even further suppressive effect on ridership growth on Long Island.

LIRR, Metro-North will end MetroCard sales on May 25

2025-05-15T06:00:00.011-04:00

The LIRR and Metro-North will stop selling MetroCards on May 25, 2025—ending more than two decades of joint ticket sales that allowed riders to purchase connecting subway and bus fares on MetroCards as part of one transaction. Riders will no longer be able to purchase MetroCards at Ticket Vending Machines or at ticket offices.

Monthly tickets—which have for the last two-plus decades been printed on the back of MetroCards—will also be getting a new look, being printed on regular paper stock, according to the MTA.

LIRR will no longer sell MetroCards at TVM's or ticket
windows from May 25 (Photo: The LIRR Today)

This change will fully eradicate the MetroCard from LIRR and Metro-North points of sale, killing off the last remaining MetroCard options (the $8.50 joint AirTrain one-way ticket, the $42.50 joint AirTrain unlimited monthly, the $29 standalone MetroCard, and the $5.80 standalone round-trip MetroCard available at ticket windows).

The LIRR and Metro-North have been progressively eliminating joint MetroCard options over the past several years, often bringing additional expense and inconvenience for riders.

The railroads stopped selling $5.80 joint round-trip MetroCards at TVM's in 2023 after the machines couldn't make change for the new non-quarter based fare.
At the same time, MTA eliminated the Atlantic Ticket outright, including the joint weekly ticket, which was rare as the one and only time the MTA offered rail riders a discount for connecting to the subways and buses. I strongly suspect the MTA worked to eliminate the Atlantic Ticket so aggressively because they did not see a path forward for being able to continue offering the joint ticket in a post-MetroCard world.
In 2021, the MTA eliminated Mail & Ride, and with it the joint monthly unlimited MetroCard option, canning the popular program that would deliver monthly tickets to 25,000 LIRR riders through the mail each month, saving a trip to the ticket office or ticket machine. Mail & Ride fell dramatically in use once the COVID-19 pandemic torpedoed monthly ticket sales, but the program offered riders who bought a joint monthly unlimited MetroCard a 2% discount on the rail fare portion of their ticket, and gave them an extra day of travel in 31-day months (since the MetroCards would be good for the calendar month vs. 30 days from the first swipe like those bought by Subway riders).
In 2019, the MTA covertly eliminated the $50 joint MetroCard option that you could purchase on the back of monthly tickets at TVM's, ticket offices, or through Mail & Ride.

The LIRR has sold more than 3 million MetroCards since 2017, with then the number declining considerably in recent years as use of OMNY and contactless becomes more prevalent (especially on the AirTrain JFK) and more riders switch to buying mobile tickets on eTix/TrainTime, where the joint MetroCards aren't even an option.

MetroCards sales were the highest at Jamaica, as expected with the large volume of AirTrain JFK passengers transferring there, and lowest on the East End where you are quite far from anywhere where you can use the MetroCard you purchase. Still though, LIRR sold at least one MetroCard at every station with a TVM or ticket office at some point since 2017.

Station	AirTrain One Way	10 Ride MetroCard	Joint RT MetroCard	OTC RT MetroCard	7-day ATLT MetroCard	Joint $50 MetroCard	Total
Jamaica	649,394	101,373	14,233	10,721	35,747	485	811,953
NY-Penn Station	52,596	164,901	19,991	6,306	21	6,347	250,162
Hicksville	0	50,409	77,269	30,047	-1	1,104	158,828
Ronkonkoma	0	33,712	99,612	23,973	0	1,109	158,406
Mineola	0	42,075	81,169	11,714	1	960	135,919
Freeport	0	45,497	24,176	22,724	0	304	92,701
Babylon	0	17,608	60,950	9,059	0	717	88,334
Huntington	0	15,401	55,620	15,085	0	678	86,784
Rockville Centre	0	28,345	45,265	7,191	0	1,022	81,823
Brklyn-Atlantic Term	0	13,422	6,966	639	56,188	1,120	78,335
...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...
Greenvale	0	1,032	0	0	0	0	1,032
Hunterspoint Av	0	678	129	0	0	199	1,006
Southampton	0	818	101	0	0	0	919
Hampton Bays	0	761	99	1	0	0	861
Bridgehampton	0	725	0	0	0	0	725
Montauk	0	618	0	0	0	0	618
Amagansett	0	592	0	0	0	0	592
Westhampton	0	500	89	0	0	0	589
Elmont	0	248	31	0	0	0	279
Medford	0	188	0	0	0	0	188

The era of MetroCard sales on LIRR and Metro-North was not without issue, and never truly lived up to its potential. Because of technical incompatibilities and intra-agency turf wars, LIRR and Metro-North ticket vending machines and ticket office machines were not able to actually encode anything on the MetroCards, meaning you could not refill a MetroCard nor could ticket agents do anything to service your existing MetroCard. All they could do was dispense pre-valued MetroCards (which meant that all of these MetroCard options had to be loaded as a separate spool in the machines—which took up space and added to ticket stock and maintenance costs, especially the joint $50 MetroCard on monthly tickets, which required the railroad to load a whole extra spool of the fancier monthly ticket stock each month to only sell about 1,000 tickets per month).

This resulted in limited options being available (only about eight different options, and some only available at certain machines or through Mail & Ride), and frustration for riders when they had issues with their MetroCards only to be told by the people who sold them the ticket that they had to complain to NYCT.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater

These changes come as the MTA is aggressively stepping up its campaign to sunset MetroCard sales by the end of 2025. But as has become typical with the disastrous OMNY rollout, the MTA is throwing the baby out with the bathwater as it is axing MetroCard options before bringing comparable fare products to OMNY. The end result is riders having to pay more for less convenient payment options.

For example, eliminating the $42.50 joint AirTrain unlimited monthly MetroCard will end up costing those who work at JFK Airport much more to travel each month. For the last several years, the PANYNJ has waived the monthly AirTrain charge for riders purchasing them with rail monthly ticket for both JFK and EWR Airports, meaning the $42.50 joint AirTrain unlimited monthly MetroCard really cost passengers $0. For EWR, a monthly NJT rail ticket to the EWR raillink station would cost the same as a monthly ticket to/from North Elizabeth; on the LIRR since their ticketing systems are less intelligent, you have been able to add unlimited AirTrain JFK rides to any monthly ticket regardless of the origin or destination for no additional cost, as long as you bought it from one of the five AirTrain TVM's and selected the option. Now, airport workers and frequent flyers will need to pay a stratospheric $8.50 per trip ($357 per month if they travel five days per week) if they use OMNY, or queue at the MetroCard Vending Machines at Jamaica and pay $42.50 to load a 30-day unlimited pass on a separate MetroCard.

More significantly, eliminating the sale of MetroCards at LIRR and Metro-North stations will dramatically reduce the number of places local bus riders in Nassau and Westchester Counties can buy MetroCards. While those connecting to the Subways and NYC buses can switch to paying with OMNY or contactless fairly easily, the MTA is significantly behind schedule on bringing OMNY to NICE and Westchester's Bee-Line buses. The MTA said it planned to bring OMNY to third-party affiliate agencies as soon as 2021, but those timelines have consistently slipped as the agency has badly fumbled the rollout on its own services and struggled to come to a reasonable terms with other agencies to expand OMNY. In 2023, a MTA spokesperson said that the MTA planned to bring OMNY to NICE and Bee-Line by the end of 2024. That, like many OMNY milestones, came and went. Now the MTA is saying they will have OMNY ready before MetroCard sunsets at the end of 2025, but NICE and Bee-Line sound skeptical.

The only places to reload MetroCards outside of NYC and PATH stations
are these two machines at the Hempstead Transit Center
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

In the meantime, NICE and Bee-Line riders are stuck relying on MetroCard (especially if they want to avail of free transfers to NYC Subways and Buses). The lack of places to buy MetroCards in the suburban counties has been a longstanding issue—outside of New York City and PATH stations, the two and only two MetroCard Vending Machines outside the city are at the Hempstead Transit Center, and there are none in Westchester. Previously, local bus riders could at least buy paper MetroCards from LIRR and Metro-North stations (either standalone or with rail tickets).

Eliminating the sale of MetroCards in the suburban counties before completing the rollout of OMNY to NICE and Bee-Line will make it even more difficult for some of the region's most vulnerable transit riders to pay their fare.

End of joint ticketing for good?

The elimination of MetroCard sales will bring to an end more than two decades of convenience for riders looking to purchase rail and subway/bus tickets together. And it's unlikely we will get this type of joint ticketing back, at least for the foreseeable future.

While the MTA originally planned to bring OMNY to LIRR and Metro-North (offering some hope for improved joint ticketing options), the agency abruptly abandoned plans to bring OMNY to the railroads last year, and instead granted no-bid contracts to replace the current TVM's and continue the current mobile ticketing system—both contracts going to different vendors that are not compatible out-of-the-box with the OMNY system being built out by Cubic.

While it is, in theory, possible for MTA to build a backend connection between OMNY, the new railroad ticket vending machines, and the Masabi JustRide platform to allow for riders to buy joint tickets or pay with their OMNY balances, the MTA has not offered any firm details on how that would work, or a timeline for implementing it. Given their attitude towards joint ticketing options over the past several years, I would be surprised if it is implemented in any serious manner at all.

Having different systems and different fare payment platforms for rail and subway/bus not only makes it more inconvenient, difficult, and confusing for riders to pay their fare, but it also limits opportunities to offer more discounted joint ticket options in the future—and, in particular, bring new discounted joint ticket options to other operators, which would encourage more connecting transit use.

The MTA is the only transit agency in the United States to charge rail passengers full price for connecting subway/bus services they operate. Practically everywhere else, transit agencies throw in free subway/bus/light rail/ferry services for rail monthly ticket holders (or at least offer a steep discount). But in New York, where we pay some of the most expensive rail fares in the western hemisphere, riders have to pay full price for both rail and connecting transit. And bifurcating future fare payment infrastructure across multiple vendors will only make this harder to resolve in the future.

It has proven quite disappointing that we are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on OMNY to end up with a system that has fewer features and will be accepted in fewer places than MetroCard was 10, 15, or 20 years ago.

LIRR rider satisfaction not budging, still much lower since East Side Access

2024-08-25T06:00:00.001-04:00

LIRR's customer satisfaction scores remain significantly lower than before the railroad dramatically upheaved train schedules upon the completion of East Side Access last year. The MTA published the results of its Spring 2024 Customers Count survey last month and it showed that LIRR rider satisfaction has not budged, remaining flat at 70%.

Rider satisfaction plunged by 13 percentage points in the weeks following the launch of East Side Access, dropping form 81% just before East Side Access opened to 68%, which is also twenty percentage points lower than the highs seen towards the beginning of the 2010's when most branches scored in the neighborhood of 90%. Overall satisfaction has also not budged at all since the Fall 2023 survey, where 70% of riders said they were satisfied. LIRR satisfaction still remains eleven percentage points lower than prior to the start of East Side Access.

The latest wave of survey results show that LIRR riders continue to be widely unhappy with how LIRR has handled the schedule changes in the year-plus since the MTA completed the $12 billion East Side Access project. MTA officials have attempted to wave away the early drops in satisfaction as riders needing time to adjust to the changes, but the voices of more than 17,000 riders continue to send a clear message that there are still many significant issues that the LIRR must address, that riders do not feel the current progress of tweaking and gradual change is adequate, and that more serious action is needed to address the problems facing LIRR.

Total scores are actually shifting in a negative direction since last fall, with more riders reporting they are "very dissatisfied" and fewer riders reporting they are "very satisfied":

LIRR President Rob Free, who previously set a goal of improving satisfaction to 75% as he campaigned to be appointed president on a permanent basis earlier this year, did not address the continued poor marks during last month's MTA Board LIRR Committee meeting. Unlike prior surveys where the MTA publicly presented and commented on the survey findings, agency officials did not directly address the satisfaction scores nor did any MTA Board members press agency officials about the lousy marks.

On a branch-by-branch basis, satisfaction marks continue to be quite erratic as LIRR's rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul approach to addressing deficiencies in the current schedule without increasing service overall often creates new problems while solving others. Rider satisfaction declined on 8 out of 11 branches, with every branch except the West of Babylon, Oyster Bay, and Port Washington Branches seeing declines averaging four percentage points. Satisfaction on every branch remains lower than just before East Side Access was completed, with 8 out of 11 branches lower by double digits.

Branch	2010-19	2021 F	2022 F	2023 F	2024 S	Δ vs. 2023 F	Δ vs. pre-ESA	Δ vs. 2010's
LIRR Overall	82%	79%	81%	70%	70%	0%	-11%	-12%
West of Babylon	80%	78%	79%	68%	69%	+1%	-10%	-11%
City Zone	N/A	85%	85%	78%	74%	-4%	-11%	N/A
Far Rockaway	84%	82%	87%	77%	71%	-6%	-16%	-13%
Hempstead	83%	84%	82%	75%	71%	-4%	-11%	-12%
West of Huntington	81%	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Long Beach	83%	82%	80%	63%	62%	-1%	-18%	-21%
Montauk	82%	75%	77%	76%	70%	-6%	-7%	-12%
Oyster Bay	82%	66%	76%	55%	60%	+5%	-16%	-22%
Port Jefferson	78%	79%	77%	71%	69%	-2%	-8%	-9%
Port Washington	86%	78%	81%	60%	76%	+16%	-5%	-10%
Ronkonkoma	78%	75%	79%	72%	69%	-3%	-10%	-9%
West Hempstead	82%	78%	82%	71%	63%	-8%	-19%	-19%

On the upside, the largest period-to-period increase was seen on the Port Washington Branch, where satisfaction increased by 16 percentage points. This is largely a correction of a sudden downward spike in the fall of 2023 shortly after LIRR made a series of boneheaded schedule changes, gutting most morning peak service to NY-Grand Central. Despite many riders complaining about the bad changes as soon as the schedules were released, LIRR completely ignored them and proceeded with the changes anyways. After intense backlash from riders, LIRR reverted most of the changes after just two weeks. (is anyone still wondering why satisfaction is so low??)

Since the East Side Access service plan cut back Oyster Bay service even more, LIRR officials have been paying much closer attention to rider feedback along this branch, pushed in large part by heavy intervention from Assemblymember Charles Lavine and Glen Cove City Councilwoman Danielle Fugazy Scagliola. LIRR has implemented a first-of-its-kind express train in the AM Peak period, and another train now has a dedicated EMU connection from Jamaica to NY-Penn Station (instead of riders being dumped onto a very crowded train from LI), and next month this train will be upgraded to dual mode service to provide a second one-seat ride to NY-Penn Station. This careful attention to rider feedback has resulted in a five percentage point improvement in satisfaction scores. Satisfaction along the Oyster Bay Branch continues to be the lowest on the entire railroad, but the modest improvement in scores shows that riders will appreciate substantive improvements—and it shows the level of effort that is required (but currently lacking) everywhere else on the railroad.

For other branches which remained largely status quo, satisfaction scores are eroding. As LIRR has been scraping the bottom of the carton in terms of peak-period service tweaks—and with the around-the-clock East River Tunnel outages starting soon closing the door on any immediate improvements in peak service to NY-Penn Station—this should be cause for concern. Until the LIRR gets out of its own way and expands both its electric and diesel fleets and can come up with the money to actually substantively increase the number of trains it is running (instead of just reshuffling the existing service it has), the LIRR will continue to be spreading itself too thin, and satisfaction will continue to erode. The upcoming move to shift most off-peak service back to NY-Penn Station will help a bit, but after that the LIRR has largely reached the end of its rope on tweaks it can make without making a more drastic move (like ceding more ground at NY-Grand Central and cutting service there to the bare-minimum).

LIRR riders continue to rate peak service frequency, transfer experience, and service reliability as very important key drivers of satisfaction. More than a year of tweaking has not yielded an appreciable increase in satisfaction in any of these categories—in fact, satisfaction scores are slipping in several very important and important key drivers.

The very high fares LIRR charges for what is perceived as poor service also clearly weigh on the minds of many survey respondents. When asked what would increase their satisfaction with the LIRR, nearly half of respondents said they want better fare incentives (lower fares). More frequent service on both weekdays and weekends as well as better transfer options rounded out the top 4.

I find it particularly interesting just how different the LIRR survey results are from the other MTA agencies. In recent years, the MTA has added many more questions and responses about safety, security, and homelessness in the transit system (some would say the questions/choices steer respondents towards overemphasizing concerns about safety to help MTA justify a surge of police officers and security guards in the system). But LIRR riders continue to cut through all of that and go straight to the core service indicators—frequency, reliability, seating capacity, and fares.

Overall, I think the results of the spring survey should be cause for great concern. After more than a year of tweaking schedules and making adjustments, LIRR riders are still widely unsatisfied and scores show no signs of budging absent more substantive improvements. On branches where the railroad has more or less reached a steady state, satisfaction scores are actually eroding further. As the LIRR runs out of runs out of tweaks to make, getting back to pre-ESA satisfaction scores seems very far out of reach (and even Free's goal of 75% satisfaction by the end of this year seems a stretch). Everyone else seems to have moved on, but MTA spending $17 billion on capacity improvements only to bungle the service rollout so badly satisfaction plunges to this extent should be a much bigger cause for alarm.

September timetables shift off-peak service to NY-Penn Station in further retreat from East Side Access

2024-08-07T05:00:00.001-04:00

The LIRR announced that new timetables will take effect right after Labor Day, and while there are limited adjustments to peak period service, the railroad is making some significant changes to where off-peak trains will go—shifting more off-peak service to NY-Penn Station in a further retreat from East Side Access.

There is often limited foot traffic at the LIRR portions of
NY-Grand Central outside rush hours...everyone else
is across town (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Beginning in September, there will be some big reshuffling for off-peak service:

Both Ronkonkoma trains each hour will operate to/from NY-Penn Station
Both Huntington trains each hour will operate to/from NY-Penn Station
Long Beach trains will operate to NY-Penn Station instead of NY-Grand Central on weekends (they already operate to NY-Penn Station on weekdays)
Far Rockaway trains will operate to NY-Grand Central instead of NY-Penn Station on weekends
West Hempstead trains will operate to NY-Grand Central instead of Brooklyn-Atlantic Terminal during middays and daytime on weekends (running only between Jamaica and West Hempstead during the evening hours)
Local trains operating between NY-Grand Central and Babylon train will be truncated to Massapequa, express trains to Babylon will add stops Massapequa through Lindenhurst
Brooklyn will be served by 3 shuttle trains to Jamaica only

This is a big draw back from NY-Grand Central during off-peak hours. All four Main Line trains will be running to NY-Penn Station, and only one train out to the South Shore will only go as far as Massapequa due to station construction work at Babylon. This now means that there will be no off-peak service from NY-Grand Central to anywhere in Suffolk County.

LIRR is making these changes (at last) to better meet actual off-peak travel demand. While NY-Grand Central has been seeing steady ridership during rush hours, during off-peak hours it is mostly deserted. Meanwhile, crowding on off-peak trains to and from NY-Penn Station has become a significant problem. Because LIRR has done such a poor job scheduling and executing transfers at Jamaica, many riders won't bother taking a train that requires a connection and will instead cram on to the one direct train per hour (that is now often running with only 8 cars instead of 12).

Under the new schedules, off-peak service will look like this each hour:

NY-Penn Station	NY-Grand Central	Brklyn-Atlantic Term
Babylon	Massapequa	Jamaica
Babylon -PGE	Far Rockaway	Jamaica
Huntington	Hempstead	Jamaica
Huntington -PJN	Port Washington
Long Beach	West Hempstead*
Port Washington
Ronkonkoma
Ronkonkoma

* - daytimes and evenings only, trains operate to/from Jamaica evenings

These changes during off-peak hours continues what has been a progressive and significant retreat from NY-Grand Central. After the MTA spent more than $12 billion for what is perhaps the most expensive new-build rail terminal on earth, ridership has simply not materialized to the extent the MTA expected. LIRR progressively scaled back peak service to NY-Grand Central over the first year since full service was launched last year, cutting peak service to the new terminal by 16% vs. opening day.

These new changes measure out an even greater reduction in service to GCT during off-peak hours. Depending on what specific hours West Hempstead trains will operate to GCT, this is upwards of a 20% reduction in off-peak service to/from GCT.

The LIRR has previously shifted several Ronkonkoma and Port Washington trains over to NY-Penn Station during the evening hours to address crowding issues after events at MSG. In April, the MTA cut Grand Central North hours during evenings and on weekends as a cost-saving measure, making connections between the LIRR and Metro-North quite a bit longer and more difficult.

What will make or break the new schedules and the reduced service to NY-Grand Central will be connection times at Jamaica. During the evening hours, there will be just three trains departing NY-Grand Central for Jamaica, leaving the potential for some very large gaps and transfer waits at Jamaica for those who are still looking to use GCT.

LIRR says that schedules are being adjusted to reduce wait times for "transfer opportunities" at Jamaica, but unless the railroad is restoring timed connections (which is unlikely), there are bound to be some very clumsy gaps in service like there are today. With three trains per hour operating to Brooklyn and three or four trains per hour operating to NY-Grand Central, it should not be that difficult to line up ATL and GCT trains and pack the remaining trains to/from NY-Penn Station as tight as possible before/after those, so riders don't have to wait around Jamaica for long.

While it is disappointing to see service to/from this brand new terminal scaled back so significantly, there is a clear disparity in off-peak demand to the two different sides of Manhattan, and it's good to see MTA and LIRR admit this and relent on their quest to push people to GCT. I pointed out the disparity in demand between the east and west sides of Manhattan for non-work trips over two years ago and this has been obvious to everyone who has taken the train on a weekend since East Side Access open. After 17 months, LIRR has finally woken up.

Metro-North found mostly liable for deadly 2015 Valhalla grade crossing incident

2024-07-24T06:00:00.005-04:00

Metro-North has been found mostly liable for a deadly grade crossing collision between a car and a Harlem Line train in Valhalla back in February 2015. Northbound Harlem Line train 659 to Southeast collided with a motorist who had stopped on the tracks at the Commerce Street crossing, killing the driver of the automobile and five passengers onboard the train. It was the second incident resulting in onboard passenger deaths in Metro-North's history, coming just fifteen months after its first, when a speeding train derailed around a curve at Spuyten Duyvil. It remains the deadliest incident in Metro-North history.

The aftermath of the Valhalla collision, which resulted
in the deaths of six (Photo: NTSB)

At the time of the incident, which was during the evening rush hour and in the dark, there was motor vehicle congestion in the area due to an unrelated crash on the nearby Taconic Parkway. Traffic was detouring over the grade crossing, and was backing up due to heavy volume. A motorist was moving in stop-and-go traffic when she moved beyond the stop line before the grade crossing, and stopped just before the railroad tracks. According to the NTSB's accident investigation report, as the train approached, the grade crossing activated and the gates came down, striking the rear of the vehicle. The motorist then exited the vehicle to examine the gate, got back in her car, and then drove forward onto the tracks. The train approached the tracks at 59 mi/hr. The engineer applied the emergency brakes about 260 feet before the crossing and collided with the vehicle at 51 mi/hr.

The interior of the car was destroyed when the third rail
punctured the floor and set the first car of the train
ablaze (Photo: NTSB)

The train and the vehicle continued northbound, damaging and uprooting the electrified third rail. The third rail detached, pierced the vehicle, and then an estimated 343 feet of third rail penetrated the first railcar, sending sparks and flaming debris that set the passenger compartment on fire. The motorist was killed upon impact with the train. Five passengers onboard the train died, nine passengers and the engineer were injured.

NTSB determined the probable cause of the crash to be the motorist driving her car onto the grade crossing and stopping it on the tracks. Metro-North's design of the third rail system was cited as a factor contributing to the severity of the accident.

The verdict was reached by a Westchester County jury and brings to an end (for now) a civil suit brought against Metro-North by the family of Ellen Brody (the motorist who drove onto the tracks and was struck by the train) and the families of the passengers killed that has waged on for nearly a decade.

The jury assigned 71% of the blame for the deaths and injuries of the passengers onboard the train to Metro-North for its design of the third rail system and failing to mitigate the risks of the Commerce Street grade crossing, which is located on a tight S-curve, immediately before an at-grade intersection with the Taconic Parkway. The jury found that Metro-North failed to maintain adequate signage, failed to perform an adequate safety assessment of the grade crossing, and failed to analyze safety gate malfunction reports. They also faulted Metro-North for the design of the third-rail system, which was uprooted during the crash, impacted the fuel tank of the SUV, punctured the floor of the first car, and set it ablaze.

Metro-North uses a type of under-running third rail that is different from what is seen on the LIRR and most other system that use electrified rails across the globe. While this design is a vestige from the days of the New York Central Railroad, the NTSB found that Metro-North's contemporary construction did not allow the third rail to fail in a controlled manner or break away.

The jury also assigned 63% of the blame for the death of Ellen Brody to Metro-North and the train's engineer, Steven Smalls. The jury reportedly seemed to scrutinize Mr. Smalls' failure to slow the train down once he saw a vague reflection on the tracks, just before the collision. Mr. Smalls told NTSB investigators that he initially noticed a reflection of light at or near the grade crossing from about 1,200 feet away, however records indicate the emergency breaks were not applied until about 260 feet before impact.

The amount of damages (if any) that will be awarded to those injured or killed in the crash will be determined at another trial, but could reach into the hundreds of millions.

Ben Rubinowitz, a lawyer for the families of some of the victims killed in the crash, said of the verdict “this is a tragedy that never should have happened, the jury’s decision highlights the need for Metro-North to implement vital changes to ensure the safety and well-being of all passengers.”

MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan said in a statement to The Journal News that "the MTA disagrees with this verdict and is considering all legal options".

While I agree with the MTA's argument that the motorist stopping on the track was the principal cause of the crash, the jury's verdict sends a clear message to the industry that railroads can't simply point at the grade crossing warning lights and shrug off any responsibility.

The verdict affirms that railroads have an active and ongoing obligation to mitigate grade crossing risk. While Metro-North has only a handful of remaining crossings, the LIRR has hundreds—many of which are assessed as having a higher risk of accidents than the Commerce Street crossing. While eliminating all grade crossings across Long Island, the MTA system, or the country is certainly impractical, effectively managing grade crossing risk requires a continuous effort of reducing risk—whether by upgrading safety devices, improving road markings, or going all the way and eliminating the crossing.

LIRR has made some progress on this in the 2010's with the Main Line Grade Crossing Elimination project eliminating five high-traffic, high-risk highway crossings or installing lane delineators at grade crossings to prevent motorists from inadvertently turning onto the tracks.

But those efforts have largely stalled across the LIRR (and Metro-North) in recent years, with the MTA again having no concrete plan to take all of those good lessons learned from the Main Line grade crossings and continue making progress on eliminating risky grade crossings across the rest of the system. A suite of other safety improvements piloted at a few crossings on LI have largely faded away and have not been expanded to other high-risk crossings.

In this situation, I wouldn't agree that Metro-North is principally at fault for the very unfortunate events that happened in Valhalla back in 2015—but they're not blameless, either.

Summer Saturdays promotion back for 2024

2024-07-06T06:00:00.003-04:00

The LIRR and Metro-North are bringing back the Summer Saturdays promotion for summer 2024. On Saturdays between July 6 and August 31, monthly ticket holders can travel outside their ticketed zones for no additional charge, and bring up to two other people with them for just $1.

Use your monthly ticket to check out new towns and destinations this
summer...just not on the East End (Photo: The LIRR Today)

LIRR first offered Summer Saturdays in 2018 as a gesture to beleaguered commuters following the railroad's horrendous performance that spring, where there was a spate of large-scale service disruptions over the course of several weeks. It was brought back in 2019, dropped in 2020 when people were still avoiding the trains during the COVID-19 pandemic, brought back and expanded to Metro-North in 2021, and then abandoned in 2022 and 2023 after MTA got a huge infusion of cash from the Federal government and stopped bothering to grow ridership. When this was originally announced in late May, MTA billed it as a sweetener to go along with the start of CBD Tolling, which was originally supposed to launch on June 30 before it was indefinitely paused.

Unfortunately, similar to prior years, Summer Saturdays is laden with restrictions that really water down the benefits and added value for monthly ticket holders. LIRR monthly tickets will not be accepted beyond their ticketed zones on most morning eastbound trains to Montauk and Greenport, which kill any real prospect of using your monthly for a day trip to the East End (the first daytime trains accepting monthly tickets out of zone are train 6012 (which arrives Montauk at 3:11p) and train 6950 (which arrives Greenport at 3:51p)). Metro-North monthly tickets will not be accepted beyond their ticketed zones to or from any station on the Port Jervis or Pascack Valley Lines. Metro-North monthly tickets will be honored at CTrail New Haven Line stations served by Metro-North in CT (and vice-versa), but not for CTrail services beyond New Haven to Hartford, Springfield, or New London.

And further, even though MTA continues to boast about all of the benefits and regional connectivity after spending $12 billion to link LIRR with Metro-North with East Side Access, monthly tickets from one railroad will not be honored on the other railroad on any train, which is another lousy restriction that would've allowed riders explore the other system and perhaps encourage them to make other paid trips later in the year, without costing them all that much in lost revenue this summer.

The primary benefit is the $1 companion tickets, if you want to take your family or friends into the city for the day. But it's a shame that the railroads don't use this opportunity to encourage monthly ticket holders to leave their cars at home and use the train to explore more of Long Island or the Hudson Valley (or both). And this year, the railroads have cut the number of people who can tag along with you in half, from four additional riders to just two.

Riders looking to bring others along with them for $1 can either purchase family fare tickets from TVM's or through TrainTime, or buy the $1 tickets from the conductor onboard with no additional surcharge.

If you plan on doing a lot of travelling on Saturdays, you can buy the cheapest monthly ticket each railroad has to offer, ride as much as you want over the course of a day, and then submit it for a refund that night and only be charged for one round-trip ticket + the $10 refund processing fee. So you could explore all of the LIRR for $17.00 or all of Metro-North for $15.50. Bear in mind that you are charged for each day you have the monthly pass (so only buy it on the Saturday you want to use it) and that the railroads stop selling passes around the middle of the month.

Even if you're not planning to do a lot of travelling and are only making one or two trips, buying a one-zone monthly ticket on your phone and submitting it for a refund after your trip could be cheaper than buying a regular one-way or round-trip off-peak ticket. If you're making travelling between anywhere in Nassau or Suffolk Counties and NYC, buying and using a monthly just for the day is cheaper than a round-trip off-peak ticket ($17.00 vs. $19.50), and if you're travelling from east of Patchogue or Medford, using a monthly just for the day is cheaper than a one-way off-peak ticket ($17.00 vs. $18.25 or $23.50).

And if you already have a monthly ticket and are traveling on a Saturday, you can be nice and pull someone of the TVM line to ride with you for $1.

Across the country, other railroads have offered lower fares and more flexibility to lure riders into using the train on weekends, to quite a bit of success. SEPTA in Philadelphia, Metra in Chicago, and Metrolink in Los Angeles all allow monthly ticket holders to travel systemwide on weekends year-round and without any restrictions as a permanent feature of their tariff. SEPTA even goes further and allows TransPass+ passholders (the equivalent of a 7-day or 30-day unlimited MetroCard) systemwide travel on regional rail on weekends.

Allowing systemwide travel without any strings attached on weekends is a simple and nice gesture to monthly ticket holders in a way that has little impact on fare revenue (most people would otherwise drive for out-of-zone intra-Island or intermediate trips) while adding a little more value to what are some of the most expensive rail fares in the Americas, and hopefully nudge some hybrid commuters towards upgrading to a monthly ticket. LIRR and Metro-North should consider making this systemwide flexible travel permanent for both Saturdays and Sundays year-round.

Many LIRR trains sit empty in yards on weekends. Offering
more service with lower fares could help reduce congestion
and grow overall ridership (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Many railroads across the country also now offer deeply discounted flat-rate day passes for travel on weekends. Boston's MBTA allows riders to travel anywhere on their commuter rail network for $10 on weekends (valid both Saturday and Sunday), and recently expanded this to holidays as well. Metrolink in Los Angeles has a $10 weekend pass valid on both Saturdays and Sundays AND is valid for unlimited travel on all connecting bus routes as well. SEPTA has a one-day FleX pass for $13. Tri-Rail in South Florida has a $5 flat-rate weekend day pass. Metra in Chicago has two weekend day pass offerings (a $7 pass valid only on one weekend day, or a $10 pass valid on both weekend days), plus weekday day passes priced at twice the regular one-way fare.

Weekend trains generally operate well under capacity (or at least they should, if LIRR schedules service properly and runs 12 car trains), and even adding additional weekend service is relatively inexpensive since the trains are otherwise sitting around doing nothing outside of rush hours. Fare incentives have a clear correlation to improved ridership, especially with discretionary and occasional travelers during off-peak hours. If the MTA really cared about reducing auto congestion, it should lean heavily into weekend discount programs and offer rail riders across the region a weekend break on the most expensive rail fares in the country.

Siemens ships first two Charger dual modes for Metro-North

2024-06-05T06:00:00.009-04:00

Siemens Mobility announced this week that they have shipped the first two new dual mode Charger locomotives for Metro-North. SC-42DM locomotives 301 and 302 departed from Siemens' factory to begin the next stage of testing before they enter revenue service by the end of 2025.

SC-42DM project team members standing in front of the first two pilot locomotives completed for testing
(Photo: Siemens Mobility)

In December 2020, Metro-North awarded Siemens Mobility a $335 million contract for the design and manufacture of 27 new dual mode locomotives to replace Metro-North's GE Genesis locomotive fleet. These locomotives provide through service between NY-Grand Central and the unelectrified portions of the Hudson and Harlem lines. This was the culmination of a procurement effort that started all the way back in 2018, and encountered some significant delays along the way.

The original contract required the first pilot locomotive to be delivered for revenue service by the end of May 2025, with the 19 locomotive base order completed by the end of September 2026. Final design reviews for the new dual mode was completed in May 2023, and the first locomotive (301) completed final assembly and begun factory testing in December 2023. The locomotives appear to be mostly on schedule. At last February's meeting of the Next Generation Equipment Committee, Metro-North said that pre-revenue service testing at Metro-North is planned for the second half of 2024, with the pilot locomotive on schedule for revenue service before the end of 2025. The delivery of the remaining locomotives would continue through 2027.

Customarily, new rail equipment has to undergo extensive testing at the FRA's Transportation Technology Center in Pueblo, Colorado, to assess the equipment's technical and safety performance. This is then followed by a lengthy period of pilot testing on the customer railroad, where the equipment is put through its paces and tested around the system to confirm that it performs as expected and there are no issues with the track, signal, or surrounding infrastructure that need to be addressed in the production locomotives. Because the SC-42DM is a variant of the already well-established Siemens Charger design, it's unclear how much new testing the new dual modes will have to go through in the coming months.

The original contract was for 19 base order locomotives, with options for up to 152 additional locomotives for Metro-North, LIRR, ConnDOT, and the NYS DOT. 6 additional option orders were exercised by the Connecticut Department of Transportation in September 2023 to replace ConnDOT's GE Genesis locomotives that provide through service on the New Haven Line. 138 out of the original 152 options remain outstanding to be exercised:

32 of 40 option locomotives for Metro-North (8 options exercised in December 2020)
66 of 66 option locomotives for the LIRR
14 of 20 option locomotives for the Connecticut Department of Transportation (6 options exercised in September 2023)
26 of 26 option locomotives for the NYS Department of Transportation

Metro-North's 27 new dual mode locomotives are currently just a one-for-one replacement of their existing locomotives. ConnDOT is expanding their fleet form 4 dual modes to 6, which will only offer a modest expansion. The additional options for ConnDOT and Metro-North, that have not been exercised, are presumably meant for service expansion, if Metro-North or ConnDOT would want to increase through service to the diesel branches.

The LIRR continues to drag its feet on replacements for the current DE and DM locomotives, which continue to suffer from chronic reliability issues. It has not made any decisions, exercised an option for these Siemens locomotives, or begin a procurement process for something else (ideally, electrification and modern EMU's), despite having included funding for the purchase of 12 new dual mode locomotives in the 2020-2024 Capital Program and citing a lack of equipment as an excuse for not improving service on the diesel branches following the completion of $17.7 billion in capacity upgrades last year.

NYS DOT's options are likely to go by the wayside after they joined Amtrak's separate Airo procurement for the Empire Service equipment. The Siemens Airo is a fleet of integrated trainsets consisting of Siemens Venture coaches, a cab car, and Siemens Charger variant locomotives. The NYS DOT trainsets will consist of 7 units: a locomotive, five coaches, and a cab car, with a food service area and a mix of 2x2 standard class and 2x1 business class seating. It's expected that the Airo trainsets for the NYS DOT will be battery-electric trains, with the coach car closest to the locomotive equipped with batteries to power the locomotive for the short distance through the tunnels around NY-Penn Station (and will operate under diesel power once clear of the Empire Connection tunnels).

Copiague station now step-free with completion of new elevator

2024-05-28T06:00:00.019-04:00

The MTA has completed the construction of a new elevator at Copiague station, providing step-free access from the street to the platform here for the first time. The MTA made the announcement at a press conference earlier this month. One new elevator was built at Copiague station to take riders from the street level just east of the station building up to the single island platform.

The MTA is required to install elevators at Amityville, Copiague, and Lindenhurst stations under the terms of a 2020 settlement order related to the fallout from the March 2012 death of an 88-year old woman on an escalator in Lindenhurst. It is building elevators at these stations, along with Massapequa Park just to the west and St. Albans, Locust Manor, and Laurelton in Queens under a design-build contract awarded in 2022.

The new Copiague elevator at street level (Photo: MTA/Marc A. Hermann)

The new Copiague elevator at platform level (Photo: MTA/Marc A. Hermann)

The completion of this project at Copiague is the first major milestone in a string of four elevator installation projects along the South Shore, which will see the largest gap in stations without step-free access on the LIRR closed for once and for all. For decades, riders with mobility impairments along the nearly 8-mile stretch of the South Shore in the southeastern corner of the Town of Oyster Bay and the western portion of the Town of Babylon have had to travel well out of their way to either Massapequa or Babylon stations (the nearest two with elevators). If you relied on paratransit, you would either need backtrack all the way to Babylon, or (because Massapequa is in Nassau County) take SCAT to Amityville or Sunrise Mall and switch there to NICE's Able-Ride for the last stretch to Massapequa.

Work on the elevators at Amityville and Lindenhurst is currently wrapping up, and the MTA says they expect to place those elevators into service in June. Signs at Massapequa Park station indicate that work will be done there in Q3 2024, though progress on that elevator is considerably further behind.

The design is similar at all four stations. At platform level, a section of the existing concrete platform canopy was cut out, and new steel was added spanning the north and south sides of the elevator to pick up the load and transfer it to the adjacent columns to the east and west. The new opening was filled with a new translucent roof canopy (similar to what has been installed at Lynbrook and Hicksville) that transfers some natural light down to the platform in front of the elevator. New lighting has been installed on either side of the opening to replace what was removed.

The new canopy structure sits on top of the new framing that transfers the load for the existing canopy to adjacent supports. A similar design is used at all four stations (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The elevator lands at street level, and the LIRR has built new sidewalks, accessible ramps, and relocated accessible parking spots so they are nearer to the elevator.

A new accessible path to relocated accessible parking under the overpass at Copiague (Photo: The LIRR Today)

A big challenge of this project is integrating the new elevator in to the existing stations architecturally. These four stations are brutalist, pretty much everything is concrete with the station buildings being brown or red brick. This is very different from the MTA's more contemporary aesthetic applied to LIRR stations.

At platform level, the MTA did a pretty good job of having the elevators blend in. The trim is mostly beige/brown which goes with the concrete, though the new canopy structure certainly looks different and out of place (though that's not necessarily bad). But at street level, the blue brick of the elevator machine room, metal panel trim, and tacky blue LED band and uplighting very much looks awkward and out of place.

The blue brick and modern LED band and uplighting contrasts awkwardly with the existing station aesthetic (Photo: The LIRR Today)

But I suppose it's function over form, so it's fine.

The MTA refers to Copiague station as now being "fully accessible", which I think is too far of a stretch. Like almost all other LIRR stations, step-free access comes in two major parts: the one that the railroad has mostly addressed (step-free access from the street to the platform), and the more difficult problem of solving the gap between the platform and the train.

Virtually no LIRR stations meet ADA requirements for platform gap widths (only NY-Grand Central does). Therefore none of these LIRR stations are or will be fully accessible until the LIRR complies with federal regulations regarding platform gap sizes. 49 CFR §38.53(d)(1) sets specific requirements for platform gaps between new or renovated stations and new vehicles, where horizontal gaps cannot exceed 3 inches and vertical gaps cannot be more than 5/8ths of an inch—a tolerance met at hardly any LIRR stations. With larger gaps, passengers with mobility devices may not be able to board or alight trains without assistance.

While the LIRR does have a call-ahead program where passengers with disabilities can notify the railroad (and the railroad can make train crews aware of passengers needing assistance with bridgeplates), this absolutely does not constitute equal access.

Both the horizontal and vertical gaps at Copiague station are significant, and far exceed thresholds set in federal regulations (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The platform gaps at Copiague, and all four stations that are getting upgraded along this stretch, are significant. And since this project is neither shifting the tracks or reconstructing the platform edge to close the gap between the platform and the train, riders with mobility impairments will still need assistance to board and alight, so there is still more work to be done to achieve full accessibility.

With the completion of this project, the LIRR will have step-free access from the street to the platform available at 111 of its 126 stations, with work underway upgrade 7 other stations for step-free access as well.

You can see photos of the work ongoing at Massapequa Park, Amityville, and Lindenhurst stations along with more photos of Copiague (taken at the beginning of the month) by clicking the links.

LIRR, Metro-North to abandon OMNY, grant no-bid contracts to upgrade existing systems

2024-05-20T05:00:00.010-04:00

As the MTA's New Fare Payment System OMNY continues to struggle, with the implementation running years behind schedule, the MTA is putting a trio of resolutions before the MTA Board this week to abandon plans to expand OMNY to the LIRR and Metro-North, and instead grant no-bid contracts to Scheidt & Bachmann and Masabi to continue and upgrade the current legacy ticketing systems. This is the first update the MTA has provided on the status of the OMNY program in over a year, since they announced that they would be transitioning the program to MTA C&D management and would be "rebaslining" the schedule (which means the project was so far behind schedule, the only path forward was to throw the old schedule out and come up with a new one). With this new schedule showing the expansion of OMNY to the LIRR and Metro-North would not happen until 2027 at the earliest and at nearly twice the cost, the railroads are jumping ship.

These rather abrupt changes are a major setback to hopes for a better-coordinated regional fare payment system, and will make it more difficult for the LIRR and Metro-North to move away from its archaic ticket collection practices that drive up operating costs significantly.

The MTA branded its New Far Payment System as "OMNY" in 2019, which stands for "One Metro New York". The original intent behind the system scope and the name was that OMNY would become the One fare payment system for mass transit travel across all of Metro New York. But constant delays, mismanagement, and insularity on the part of the MTA has led OMNY to fail spectacularly on this front, with the region's fare payment infrastructure splintering into four distinct and incompatible fare payment systems, with many of the region's smaller operators left out altogether.

Now, not only is OMNY not going to be the One system for all transit services in Metro New York, it won't even be the One system for all of the MTA's services...

MTA will replace and upgrade its existing ticket machines
and mobile ticketing platform instead of adopting OMNY
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

Instead, the MTA is seeking approval to grant no-bid contracts to existing vendors to continue and upgrade the existing ticketing systems used on the railroad. The MTA wants to grant Scheidt & Bachmann a no-bid contract valued at up to $134 million to replace the existing Ticket Vending Machines (TVM) and Ticket Office Machines (TOM) for both railroads, and another no-bid contract to Masabi valued at up to $97 million to continue and upgrade the current mobile ticketing system used by both railroads. In exchange, the MTA will take a $36 million credit from Cubic for the descoping of the railroad expansion—so at least at the moment, this move will cost MTA and New York taxpayers nearly $200 million in additional capital and operating costs.

With the railroads off the plate, MTA C&D says they will focus on completing the OMNY rollout on New York City Transit Subways and Buses, where they have struggled to add functionality over the last few years. MTA says "the ultimate goal is to ensure all NYCT customers and ridership classes are able to transition from MetroCard to OMNY by the end of 2024." In 2025, MTA expects to deploy an OMNY mobile application, rollout an OMNY virtual card (which the MTA previously abandoned but is now back in the mix), rollout of OMNY employee passes, and the expansion of OMNY to NICE Bus and Bee-Line in Westchester County, completing the implementation of OMNY on AirTrain JFK, with substantial completion for Subway and Bus scope expected in December 2025.

The MTA says that the OMNY back office systems are designed to be scalable to accommodate the railroads in the future, eventually allowing for transaction information to be consolidated onto one central back-office clearing house. But like other theories about implementing backend integrations between OMNY and other fare payment systems like NJT, Go CT, or TAPP, this will require a lot of complex work and I'll believe it when I see it.

Stuck in the 1860's

Both the LIRR and Metro-North currently rely on an extremely antiquated fare collection system that costs riders and taxpayers nearly $500 million per year. Both railroads presently rely on conductors to inspect every fare onboard every train, most of the time using a device patented in 1867 to manually cancel paper value tickets (the ability to buy mobile tickets and sell onboard fares using iPhone ticket issuing machines were only made available in the last decade).

Reforming rail fare collection and onboard staffing levels is essential to modernizing operations on the railroads—it would not only save the MTA a whole lot of money, but it would also dramatically reduce the marginal cost of running service, meaning that service improvements would be much cheaper to make (especially off-peak). It is effectively the modernization that unlocks a host of other modernizations that could lead to lower fares and significantly better service for riders.

The rollout of a new fare payment system presented significant opportunities for the MTA to overhaul how they collect fares on the railroads, rebuilding the system from the ground up to allow for proof of payment, more payment options, new fare types, and more. But instead of seizing this moment, this opportunity for progress has fallen victim to the MTA's trademark weak stomach when it comes to tackling productivity issues with the unions, and its general incompetence.

Swing and a miss

Even though the MTA always said that it was their plan to expand OMNY to the railroads, the agency never offered any substantive details on how OMNY would actually work on the railroads and repeatedly declined to answer specific questions about the rollout plans over the years. Even after awarding Cubic a change order to expand functionality to the railroads, the MTA never offered details or a timeline for how that would happen.

How OMNY should have worked on the railroads has been well demonstrated by systems elsewhere in the world that have managed to implement pay-as-you-go fares with farecards and contactless payments on suburban railways elsewhere across the US and around the world. The closest example is visible on SEPTA, where Key has been accepted for pay-as-you-go payments on regional rail for years—to both success and shortcomings.

A platform validator used by SEPTA
Regional Rail (The LIRR Today)

The right approach would have been to blanket station platforms across the system with validators that allow riders wishing to pay through OMNY to tap-on at the beginning of their journey and tap-off when they reach their destination, with the fare automatically calculated based on those taps. This would make ticketing far easier for riders, as they would just need to tap-on and tap-off and be automatically charged the best fare (instead of having to navigate through more than a dozen fare options on a TVM or TrainTime). Onboard trains, conductors would use handheld readers to verify that you have tapped on (and if you don't tap off, you are charged a maximum fare).

Most railways outside the United States accomplish this through a mix of turnstiles/fare gates at major terminals and busy stations, and platform validators elsewhere outside the city. This way, most riders need to pass through a fare at least at one end of their journey (therefore reducing the incentive to evade paying the fare) while avoiding the need to install turnstiles at outlying suburban stations where stations are much more open and ridership much more disbursed.

A new Clipper card validator installed for Caltrain
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

Ideally, this would be implemented hand-in-hand with a shift to proof-of-payment, where riders would self-validate their tickets using turnstiles or validators on station platforms and then be subject to only random ticket checks onboard trains (instead of relying on conductors to check every fare, which they often struggle or fail to do).

Cubic has even been implementing the same type of system with the same hardware elsewhere in the US. This type of approach has been used on Caltrain since it first adopted Clipper in 2009, and as the bay area transitions to Clipper 2.0, using the same technology (and even the same hardware) as the MTA's OMNY system—so it's certainly technically feasible, if designed the right way.

Siloed from the start

Certainly one of the major drivers of the problems and shortcomings with the OMNY rollout stem from the MTA's incomplete scoping of the program and its siloing of the New Fare Payment System program within New York City Transit.

Instead of following in the footsteps of successful implementations of regional fare systems on the West Coast and bringing everyone to the table to define the scope and business practices from the start, OMNY started as a project mostly under the supervision of New York City Transit. And instead of scoping and incorporating the requirements for other agencies, modes, and operators into the system from the start, the system was designed and built to suit the needs of NYCT first and foremost. This would make incorporating the different business needs of other agencies all the more harder if they did not fit with NYCT's use case. This proved problematic for the railroads, this proved problematic for other agencies.

The MTA was the first agency to go whole-hog into adopting contactless payments first, instead of going with the tried-and-true method of implementing the closed-loop farecard and getting the new functionality down first, and then adding contactless features later. This has not only been the root cause of many of the problems facing the OMNY rollout on NYCT, but has made expanding it to other agencies—and, in particular, the railroads—where the fare structure is more complicated a lot more difficult. Years into the program, OMNY can still only support six different fare types, all of which are flat fares. How did MTA plan to expand this to LIRR's 109 different types of fares, and 12 fare zones with 151 different combinations? Or NJT's 63 different bus fare zones, 46 rail fare zones, 4 light rail fare zones, all priced according to 4 different bus fare tables and 3 different rail fare tables?

OMNY validators do not have a way for riders to easily
scan QR codes on mobile or paper tickets
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

One example I often site is the design of the OMNY validator. It works ok as a reader for contactless farecards and EMV payments, but it is overengineered (there is a big screen that is not used to display any actual information, like the balance of the card, and is a smashing target/maintenance headache) and lacks some basic features that can increase functionality. The OMNY validators do not have easily usable optical readers, for example, that could scan QR codes displayed on mobile phones or printed on paper tickets. This means that integrating mobile ticketing into OMNY (e.g. if someone wants to purchase a joint LIRR monthly ticket and NYCT unlimited card through their phone, similar to what used to be available through Mail & Ride) becomes very difficult as the current readers do not easily support that. It also locks other agencies into using much more expensive tickets with single-use, disposable NFC chips (instead of being able to print QR codes on paper tickets).

NJT validators (similar to SEPTA example
above) accept both contactless payments
and can scan QR codes (The LIRR Today)

Implementing these types of changes later adds expense, and adds complication to an already overcomplicated system. And the smaller operators may not have been able to bear those extra costs.

When the rollout of OMNY across NYCT started encountering issues, engagement with and attention to the needs of the other agencies took a back seat. The MTA didn't finish developing the specifications for the railroads until late 2022, years behind schedule. As the schedule continued to slip and the MTA put the needs of other agencies on the backburner, they were faced with the difficult issue of continuing to maintain their current fare payment infrastructure (at increased expense, and often at inconvenience to their passengers) and hope that the MTA would get their act together soon. Or, they had to decide to go a different way.

PATH is a good example of how things went wrong. PANYNJ originally said in June 2019 that they would be adopting OMNY for PATH, with implementation expected by 2022. But as OMNY delays waged on and there was no movement on expanding OMNY to affiliate agencies, the PANYNJ reversed course and awarded a separate contract to Cubic to develop a similar but different contactless fare payment system, now called TAPP.

Railroads showed little interest

The delays in getting to the point where the requirements for the implementation of OMNY on the LIRR and Metro-North could be incorporated into the contract can't be entirely attributed to NYCT keeping things close to the chest—the railroads clearly never had much of an interest in making OMNY the most it could be.

In order to make the most of OMNY, the railroads would have to make decisions, and be open to change. And the railroads are extremely averse to change, and especially uninterested in making change that might be controversial or displease the unions.

The OMNY program was under the purview of former LIRR President Phillip Eng when he joined the MTA as its Chief Operating Officer in 2016 (the agency's first attempt to break down the OMNY silos). After becoming LIRR President, Mr. Eng trash talked the benefits of a modernized fare payment system at a 2018 meeting of the LIRR Commuter Council, expressing concern that it would slow down fare collection.

A fare payment system that would work across the agencies would also require coordination and cooperation across the agencies, and given the railroads are even more siloed than NYCT, that would have required a level of coordination that the MTA just doesn't seem ready for.

A hasty change

So instead of seizing the opportunity to modernize and harmonize fare payment systems across just the MTA (not even the region), the railroads are instead hastily changing course and instead looking to maintain and upgrade its existing, antiquated ticketing system. While new hardware and new investment in these systems will make it easier to expand functionality in the short- and medium-terms, this move will effectively lock the railroads into an outdated, balkanized fare payment system for at least the next two decades.

The LIRR and Metro-North also seem to be making this change quite hastily. One would think given the long history of delays plaguing OMNY, the fact that the schedule for expansion to the railroads would slip should have come as no surprise to the railroads. The milestones first started slipping more than three years ago when the MTA missed the launch of the replacement for eTix, originally expected in 2021.

But instead of seeing the problems ahead and coming up with alternatives or backups, the rebaselined schedule seems to have caught the railroads completely by surprise. Instead of recognizing that OMNY wasn't going to work, taking a step back, and conducting an honest and through evaluation of current ticketing practices, where there are shortcomings, where there are opportunities for improvement, asking riders and train crews for feedback, and building out a new system the right way, the MTA and the railroads are not only defaulting back to their existing vendors—they are looking to short-circuiting procurement procedures designed to protect riders and the taxpayers to do so.

No-bid contracts

As part of LIRR and Metro-North's sudden change in approach, the railroads are seeking approval to award two no-bid contracts to Scheidt & Bachmann and Masabi valued at up to $231 million to continue and upgrade the current legacy ticketing systems. No-bid contracts are a grave no-no except in exceptional circumstances when the immediate need for something outweighs the risk to the taxpayers of price inflation or fixing by an incumbent or favored vendor.

The MTA says in a staff summary for this week's meetings that the realization that OMNY wouldn't be ready for the railroads until 2027 at the earliest "created the critical and urgent need to find an alternative to the planned New Fare Payment System", which the MTA says would need to be in place by mid-2025. As a result, on April 3, 2024, Acting LIRR President Rob Free and Metro-North President Catherine Rinaldi, and MTA Chief Administrative Officer Lisette Camilo approved the declaration "immediate operating need", allowing the MTA to short-circuit procurement practices, including those required by NYS law designed to protect taxpayers. The MTA claims that "conducting a separate competitive procurement will cause extensive delays and a huge detriment to the MTA’s fare collection programs."

While falling back to existing vendors does allow for the most seamless transition and upgrades, incumbent vendors have unique bargaining power in negotiations to charge higher fees because their competition would have to factor in start-up and sunk costs that the incumbent vendor has already paid off. Incumbent vendors also know that change is painful, and that customers will be willing to pay higher prices to stick with the status quo, and often do so.

Procurement laws, regulations, and guidelines are in place to protect the taxpayers from fraud, abuse, and misuse—and the MTA should be following them properly, whenever possible. Not only is the MTA bypassing typical procurement practices, the agency didn't even attempt to see what is out there on the market. Typically, "sole source" procurements must be advertised is the NYS Contract Reporter, with an agency stating they intend to use sole source contracting and inviting others who may have an acceptable solution to reach out, at which point the alternative is evaluated and a formal bidding process takes place. In this case, the MTA didn't even follow that step, instead proceeding directly to negotiating with the incumbent vendors.

The existing S&B ticket machines were upgraded in 2019
and remain reliable (Photo: The LIRR Today)

MTA's hasty use of no-bid contracts for a change this significant is greatly concerning and highly inappropriate. The MTA is manufacturing urgency, saying the current systems need to be replaced by mid-2025, even though there is still two years left on the current contract with Masabi, and the existing TVM's are already well beyond their useful life, yet are still functioning very well. The German-designed S&B TVM's were first rolled out in 2000 and have a useful life of just 12-14 years. Despite now being more than a decade beyond their original useful life, the machines continue to be very reliable, with the MTA saying they maintain 99% uptime. The machines were upgraded with new screens, new credit card readers, and PIN pads in 2019 as part of an upgrade to support EMV chip-card payments. It's not clear how this would rapidly and immediately deteriorate in the next 14 months like the MTA alleges...

And it's not like S&B and Masabi are the only players in the market that can meet the railroads' needs. There are plenty of competitors in the market that, in an open, competitive procurement, could have either delivered a better solution, or, at a minimum, offer more competition to get better pricing for riders.

One example on the TVM front is Conduent, which just recently finished replacing all of NJTransit's TVM's across its rail, light rail, and bus networks. Keeping that production line going and providing the same type of machines for the LIRR and Metro-North would not only likely be rolled out in a more timely and cost-effective manner (since all of the upfront legwork, design, testing, etc. has already been completed), but it would have also created the opportunity to integrate the LIRR and Metro-North's ticketing system with NJTransit.

There are also plenty of other mobile ticketing platforms out there as well, including those built by Cubic, Conduent, Bytemark, and TokenTransit. While I like Masabi's JustRide platform the best, other firms should have had the opportunity to propose better or most cost-effective solutions.

New ticket machines

The LIRR and Metro-North are seeking MTA Board approval this week to award a no-bid contract valued at up to $134 million to Scheidt & Bachmann to design, manufacture, and install new ticket vending machines and ticket office machines for both the LIRR and Metro-North. The contract is for a 5.5 year base term, with two 5-year options (which the MTA Board is also being asked to pre-authorize the award of this week, without competition or knowledge of what will be needed in 5 or 10 years.)

S&B show off their latest ticket machine model at a
transit ticketing conference in London back in March
(Photo: Scheidt & Bachmann)

S&B will provide new "state-of-the-art" Ticket Vending Machines (TVM's), Ticket Office Machines (TOM's), upgrade back-office software for device management and compliance to new credit card processing standards and cybersecurity requirements, decommission and remove old machines, and maintain the new machines. Under this contract, S&B will provide a total of 471 TVM's and 114 TOM's at the cost of about $57,000 each. This is a reduction of approximately 96 TVM's and 6 TOM's compared to the current numbers. The MTA says that the installation will begin in 2025, with "the majority of the ticketing machines...installed by the end of November 2025, and the balance by the first half of 2026". TVM's that are not being replaced will be removed in 2026.

Because the MTA is starting effectively from a blank slate, the railroads have to go through system design specification/review/approval, software development and integration, testing, acceptance, manufacturing, delivery, installation, maintenance, and removal—all of which is on the critical path. S&B has a long and strong track record in this industry, so as long as the MTA doesn't try to reinvent the wheel (which it always does), this seems feasible.

While the current ticket machines are reliable, they are quite confusing to use. Hopefully as part of the design of the new machines, the railroads make improvements to the prompts and workflow to make the machines clearer and easier to use by riders.

Mobile ticketing upgrades

As part of the original OMNY/New Fare Payment System program, the MTA was expected to dump the current Masabi mobile ticketing system in favor of a solution designed and implemented by Cubic, which would be fully integrated with the rest of the OMNY system. Referred to as "eTix 2.0" in some MTA documents, this was supposed to be rail riders first introduction to OMNY.

eTix 2.0 was originally expected to launch back in February 2021, but the MTA said in January 2021 that it was behind schedule, and that they planned to begin testing later in 2021 to launch the new solution in 2022. That seems to have been an big lie, as not only was the MTA not gearing up to test and launch eTix 2.0, it seems like they hadn't even started development on it at the time (and, years later in 2024, never did).

In 2022, the MTA launched a new combined TrainTime application, merging together three separate applications (LIRR TrainTime, Metro-North TrainTime, and eTix) into a combined platform that handled trip planning and mobile ticketing for both railroads. Making such a significant investment built off the Masabi platform was perhaps the first indication that things were not right on the Cubic eTix 2.0 front...

Under another no-bid contract, valued at up to $97 million, the MTA is seeing approval to extend its agreement with Masabi for seven years, with an option for another five years (which, if exercised, would extend Masabi's agreement through 2037).

The railroads first launched mobile ticketing in 2016 after years of delays, and its use has grown considerably over the past several years. In 2023, TrainTime/eTix accounted for 57% of tickets sold, rides taken, and revenue collected by LIRR, growing from just 16% in 2017.

The MTA says that this no-bid contract will enable Masabi to continuously administer, maintain, and enhance the mobile ticketing program for the railroads "with integration to the new OMNY experience". Masabi will continue to maintain the current functionality, build out new platform capabilities that support OMNY fare media for payment, and implement new platform capabilities that support the potential for joint (Railroad and NYC Transit) ticket sales.

Additionally, the MTA says that Masabi will create an SDK that allows the MTA to build a new onboard sales and validation device for inspection and tap-and-go onboard sales, provide customer discounts based on ride history, and allow for a MTA single-sign on system.

These changes, if properly implemented, will at least allow the Masabi mobile ticketing system to be more closely integrated with the OMNY system. It seems like the MTA intends to allow people to purchase mobile tickets using funds off their OMNY cards (similar to how NJT now has a cash wallet that people can load at retail stores that support VanillaDirect payments), and implement a long-overdue single-sign on system (so you could use the same username and password to log into both OMNY and eTix). We will have to see if the MTA is able to deliver on these integrations.

As part of the contract, the MTA has also negotiated changes to the pricing structure with Masabi. For the first two years, the MTA will pay a $5.1 million upfront development fee, a $7.5 million annual fee, and a 0.55% transaction fee. For later years, the MTA pays a $4.8 million lump sum fee, which increases by 2.5% each year and a 1% transaction fee for sales over $800 million.

Five Metros New York

This abrupt and rapid change is a very disappointing step away from fare system modernization, and another swing and a miss for OMNY. Not only has the MTA so spectacularly missed the mark at making OMNY the regional fare payment system, it's now not even going to be used by all MTA agencies...

The further splintering of the region's fare payment infrastructure means that it will be all the more difficult to integrate fares, offer free or discounted transfers, or even implement joint ticketing in the future. The MTA is effectively getting a free excuse to avoid making progress on this front for at least the next 20 years. The MTA has been steadily chipping away at joint ticketing options, eliminating the joint unlimited Mail & Ride ticket in 2021, eliminating the Atlantic Ticket weekly joint MetroCard as well as joint round-trip MetroCards last summer. I'm doubtful joint ticketing options like this will ever come back now that the systems will remain separate.

The failures of OMNY are a textbook example of many of the problems facing the MTA. Mismanagement, insularity, and a lack of coordination amongst its own operating agencies (neverminded others). The MTA wants to vacuum up virtually all of the transportation funding in the region, but it repeatedly fails to live up to its role as the metropolitan transportation authority and further the cause for mass transit across the entire region. The MTA has the resources, the means, and the standing to see through the creation of a regional fare payment system moreso than any other entity across the region, and it should have taken charge of seeing this through. Just in terms of sheer size, the MTA's annual operating budget is 6.7 times the size of NJTransit's and 54 times the size of ConnDOT's rail, bus, paratransit, and dial-a-ride operations budget, and it absolutely dwarfs what smaller suburban transit agencies spend.

One wonders if the MTA will look to change the OMNY name at some point, or whether it will be a perpetual reminder of their fumbles and missteps... It's FMNY, not OMNY.

Marlon Taylor named NY&AR President

2024-05-19T11:00:00.005-04:00

The LIRR isn't the only railroad on Long Island to get new leadership lately. Last week, Anacostia Rail Holdings, the parent company of New York & Atlantic Railway, announced that Marlon Taylor has been named president of New York & Atlantic Railway. NY&AR operates freight services for the LIRR after the LIRR spun off its freight business in May 1997. Mr. Taylor joined NY&AR in 2016 and is currently its vice president, and has been working in the railroad industry since 1999.

Marlon Taylor
(Photo: ARH/James Street Media Group)

Mr. Taylor takes over for James Bonner, who has been president of NY&AR since 2016. Following a transition period until June 19, Mr. Bonner will leave to become president of New York, Susquehanna & Western Railway, a class II freight railroad that operates over 400 miles of track west of the Hudson River in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Bruce Lieberman, Anacostia EVP and Chief Financial Officer, said in a press release, “Marlon has become an integral part of the NYA team since he joined the railroad in 2016... We could not have had a better candidate to continue building on the success of NYA. The railroad is in its best-ever financial and physical condition, and it fields a team of unmatched professional railroaders.”

In addition to his work with the NY&AR, Mr. Taylor serves on industry and community groups including the Safety & Operations Management Committee of the Association of American Railroads, as President of the Railroads of New York, and as a member of the Queens Chamber of Commerce and the Big Brothers and Big Sisters Leadership Council. He lives with his wife in Lynbrook.

Suffolk County Transit launches East Hampton on-demand zone

2024-05-06T06:00:00.013-04:00

Last Sunday, Suffolk County Transit launched its second on-demand microtransit zone serving portions of East Hampton and all of Springs, Amagansett, Napeague, and Montauk. This is SCT's second on-demand zone, after launching its first on-demand zone on a pilot basis in 2021 serving portions of Southampton, North Sea, Noyac, North Haven, and Sag Harbor. The expansion of the on-demand zone in the Town of Southampton and the creation of a new zone in the Town of East Hampton were components of Suffolk Transit's Reimagine Transit bus redesign effort, which was [mostly] implemented back last October.

A SCT on-demand bus in Sag Harbor (Photo: The LIRR Today)

The launch of the new on-demand zone in the Town of East Hampton was put off due to the delays with the delivery of the smaller vehicles to be used for the on-demand service. Now that the new on-demand zone has launched, SCT has eliminated the 10B and 10C routes that were the last vestiges of the old route network that stuck around on their old schedules until the new service could launch. With the elimination of the 10B and 10C and the launch of the East Hampton on-demand zone, the redesign effort is now complete. With this change, route 92 (formerly the S92) is the only fixed-route SCT bus left on the South Fork.

Similar to the Southampton on-demand zone, the service in East Hampton will be operated by Hampton Jitney under contract with SCT. Both services are dispatched by Via Mobility, which is a leading provider of these types of pooled-ride/microtransit services. As part of the bus redesign, the hours for both zones have been expanded, and these will operate from 6:00a to 8:00p daily.

According to Suffolk County, the pilot zone in the Town of Southampton was 4,500 in 2021. By 2023, that had increased to 13,700 riders (more than double the annual ridership of the old 10A bus that it roughly replaced), and the new zone in the Town of East Hampton is expected to serve 16,800 riders in its first year.

The new on-demand zone adds significant flexibility for riders, especially those who are headed all the way out to Montauk (where the 10C bus service was very infrequent and only did a loop of the key points in central Montauk, with some trips extended to the lighthouse in the summer). Now the on-demand zone can take you to virtually any point in Montauk, Springs, and Amagansett during operating hours:

The new East Hampton on-demand zone launched on April 28, 2024

The Southampton on-demand zone launched on a pilot basis in 2021 and was made permanent on October 29, 2023

Fares for both SCT on-demand zones are equal to fixed-route buses, and it's now possible to transfer between the fixed-route and on-demand buses (though the process is a bit convoluted since the Via system can't sell or accept SCT's paper transfers). As with the rest of the SCT network, there are no free or discounted transfers between the LIRR and SCT's fixed route or on-demand buses.

This summer will be a big test to see whether the on-demand services can keep up with such a large service area and summer traffic. My experience riding the Southampton on-demand zone was that wait times could be rather long (20-30 minutes) but trips are relatively direct and faster than a fixed-route bus. The overall travel time more or less washes out.

Intra-city riders to get an extra 10% monthly discount

2024-04-28T20:00:00.010-04:00

The LIRR and Metro-North are putting a proposal before the MTA Board this week to offer an additional 10% discount on monthly ticket fares for trips that take place wholly within New York City. If approved, the lower-priced monthly tickets would go on sale June 25 for the month of July (the day after the MTA is hoping to start its CBD Tolling program). This discount would be in addition to the 10% discount on monthly ticket rates that was implemented in March 2021 when peak fares were restored offering another promotion on top of a promotional fare.

A LIRR train arriving at Douglaston
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

With the lower monthly ticket rates, travelling between New York/Brooklyn and eastern Queens will cost $198 per month, and monthly tickets for travel on Metro-North between New York and the Bronx will cost $180 per month. The 10% discount will also apply to Monthly School tickets, which offer a one-third discount to K-12 students who take the train to school (those fares will be $133 to LIRR's zone 3 and $121 to Metro-North's zone 2, respectively).

LIRR Zones	Base	Current	Promo	MNR Zones	Base	Current	Promo
1 - 1	$203.00	$183.00	$165.00	1 - 1	$192.00	$172.75	$155.00
1 - 3	$244.00	$220.00	$198.00	1 - 2	$222.00	$199.75	$180.00
3 - 3	$154.00	$139.00	$125.00	2 - 2	$75.00	$67.50	$61.00
1 - 91	n/a	n/a	n/a	1 - 311	$222.00	$199.75	$180.00
3 - 91	n/a	n/a	n/a

This discount is being paid for with the proceeds of the Outer Borough Transportation Account and will last for at least 12 months (though may be extended until the next permanent fare change, which is expected to be at some point in 2025), as long as funding from that account remains available. This account is funded by an additional surcharge on taxi/FHV trips within Manhattan below 96th Street that was imposed in 2019.

These monthly discounts are a significantly delayed and scaled back version of the Outer Borough Rail Discount pilot program that was approved in February 2020 but was never implemented by the MTA after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic a few weeks later (even though the surcharge was still being assessed). That program would have offered a more robust set of discounts for trips within New York City: a 10% price reduction on one-way, round-trip, ten-trip, and weekly tickets and a 20% discount on LIRR monthly tickets. This program will only offer the smaller 10% discount and only for monthly tickets (the MTA has since expanded CityTicket to weekday peak and off-peak hours on a pilot basis, which offers a better deal). The outer borough rail discounts were agreed to the MTA as part of the haggling over congestion charging in the state legislature in 2019.

It appears that three New York City stations will be excluded from the 10% monthly discount:

Mets-Willets Point, which is technically in its own separate zone 91 which doesn't have any monthly or weekly ticket fares. Even though the LIRR made Mets-Willets Point a full-time stop last April (and, aside from an 8-week hiatus, trains have been stopping there around the clock since February 2021), the railroad has still yet to put two and two together and allow riders to purchase monthly or weekly tickets to/from Mets-Willets Point. Mets-Willets Point is in its own zone 91 to allow passengers coming from Long Island to pay normal direct zone 1 fares to travel to that station, even though they are doubling back from Woodside and would otherwise be required to pay a higher via fare. The LIRR honors any monthly ticket valid to/from zone 1 at Mets-Willets Point, so you can just buy a monthly to Woodside and use it at Mets-Willets Point, but it's a silly oversight.
Far Rockaway, which is in zone 4 because trains pass through Nassau County and make several stops in Valley Stream and along the Five Towns peninsula before hooking back into Queens. Far Rockaway has historically been left out of intra-city fare discounts because of this reason (which, in my opinion, is justified), but I'm sure it won't be more than a few days until there is a press conference decrying the exclusion. (the LIRR last summer launched a Far Rockaway Ticket with prices equal to CityTicket but with extra strings attached, to mixed success)
Belmont Park, which is wholly within New York City, but the MTA lied to sneak the spur station into zone 4 in 2021 in order to charge higher fares to riders using the spur station to travel to and from events at UBS Arena.

This change will further complicate the LIRR and Metro-North's fare structure, and I continue to believe quite firmly that the LIRR and Metro-North need to completely overhaul their fare structure with an eye towards reducing commuting costs for everyone instead of implementing more bespoke discount programs. Between fare hikes, promotions, and discount programs, it has become extremely difficult to figure out what is the best ticket to use for your trip. The pricing of monthly ticket fares on the railroads used to be quite simple—historically, monthlies have been priced at about 22x the one-way peak fare (so if you commute into the city 12 days a month, it is worth it to buy a monthly). But these days, that formula has gone out the window completely and the cost of a monthly ticket now ranges from as little as 14.74x the one-way fare (for LIRR's zone 14 or Metro-North's zone 8) to nearly double that, 28.29x the one-way fare (for LIRR's zone 3) or 28.56x the one-way fare for the three Metro-North stations on the Pascack Valley Line (West of Hudson monthlies have historically been priced at higher multipliers because they included unlimited NJT 1-zone bus and light rail travel, while East of Hudson and LIRR monthlies do not).

LIRR Zone	OW Peak	Monthly	Multiplier	MNR Zone	OW Peak	Monthly	Multiplier
1	$7.00	$165.00	23.57	1	$7.00	$155.00	22.14
3	$7.00	$198.00	28.29	2 / 11	$7.00	$180.00	25.71
4	$13.00	$253.00	19.46	3 / 12	$12.00	$233.00	19.42
7	$14.50	$287.00	19.79	4 / 13	$13.25	$260.00	19.62
9	$17.50	$341.00	19.49	5	$15.25	$299.75	19.66
10	$20.50	$378.00	18.44	6	$18.25	$359.00	19.67
12	$24.50	$433.00	17.67	7	$20.75	$407.75	19.65
14	$31.75	$468.00	14.74	8	$24.00	$446.50	18.60
				9	$27.00	$489.50	18.13
				10	$28.50	$499.50	17.53
				14	$14.25	$280.00	19.65
				61	$10.75	$307.00	28.56
				71	$14.00	$376.00	26.86
				72	$15.50	$380.00	24.52
				73	$17.00	$391.00	23.00
				74	$18.50	$409.00	22.11
				75	$19.50	$423.00	21.69
				76	$21.00	$447.00	21.29
				77	$23.25	$480.00	20.65

In this specific case, the price of a LIRR zone 3 monthly ticket is calculated by the full one-way peak fare of $11.25 (even though it has been effectively replaced by the new CityTicket Peak), multiplying it by the old multiplier 21.66 ($243.67), rounding that to the nearest dollar ($244.00), then discounting it by 10% ($219.60), rounding that to the nearest dollar ($220.00), then discounting it a further 10% ($198.00), then rounding again to the nearest dollar ($198.00). The end result is still more expensive than if they followed the original calculation based on the lower CityTicket fare (which would be $153.00).

This also falls short of what some advocates have hoped for, as LIRR and Metro-North monthly tickets are still completely separate fares that are (a) not interchangeable between the railroads and (b) do not offer free or discounted transfers to NYC Subways and Buses. To commute by the train and then the subway will still cost up to $330 per month, significantly more than what it'd cost if you took slower Subways and Buses alone. The New York City Transit Riders Council has been campaigning for a weekly version of the CityTicket that has a more attractive price point and offers free transfers to buses/subways to replace the weekly Atlantic Ticket that was arbitrarily eliminated by the MTA last year.

Lower fares are always a good thing for riders, but in order to really drive the ridership growth that lower fares can bring, the MTA must stop beating around the bush and systematically overhaul the fare structure for LIRR and Metro-North. Results from more recent discount programs have shown that bespoke discounts that are not properly built into the fare structure in a way that riders can clearly understand are beginning to show more lackluster results.

Grand Central North to close evenings, weekends in latest East Side Access rollback

2024-04-27T06:00:00.005-04:00

The LIRR and Metro-North announced on Thursday that north end access and the cross-passageways north of 45th Street at NY-Grand Central will be closed from 9:30p on weekdays and all day Saturday, Sunday, and Holidays beginning Monday, April 27. This change will make it more difficult to access Metro-North tracks during the evenings and on weekends, as well as add a significant detour and inconvenience for riders transferring between the LIRR and Metro-North during these times.

Grand Central North was opened in 1999, has very 1990's decor,
and hasn't gotten all that much maintenance/attention since then
(Photo: The LIRR Today)

The quartet of passageways is commonly referred to as "Grand Central North" and provides a second access point to Metro-North tracks on both the upper and lower levels. Two of the passages run north-south: the Northeast Passage on the former track 22 and the Northwest Passage on the former track 31, and the 45th Street passage. These connect you to several street entrances at 230 Park Avenue, 383 Madison Avenue, 47th Street and Madison Avenue, and 48th Street and Park Avenue as well as two cross-passages that run below 47th Street (just below the main level tracks, serving the main level platforms) and 45th Street (just below the lower level tracks, serving the lower level platforms). Grand Central North was opened in 1999 at a cost of $112 million, and shaves several minutes off travel times for people headed to destinations north of 45th Street.

Grand Central North was originally open from 6:30a to 9:30p on weekdays and 9:00a to 9:30p on Saturdays and Sundays. In 2005, Metro-North began closing Grand Central North on weekends to save $650k per year in maintenance costs (page 43).

A short staircase and escalator connect the Madison Concourse
directly to the 47th Street Cross Passage (Photo: The LIRR Today)

One of the long-overdue improvements that came about as part of the opening of East Side Access was the expansion of hours at Grand Central North. Both the 47th Street and 45th Street Cross-passages provide very easy connections to the LIRR's Madison Concourse (which runs north-south at the west side of the terminal). The Madison Concourse even utilizes existing Grand Central North entrances at 47th Street and Madison Avenue. As a result, as part of East Side Access, the MTA expanded hours at Grand Central North so that it would now be open any time that the LIRR was operating (about 5:45a to 1:45a daily).

But starting Monday, Grand Central North will be reverting to its pervious hours and will only be open during daytime hours on weekdays. Grand Central North will close between 9:30p and 6:30a on weekdays and be shut all weekend.

Starting Monday, April 29, the LIRR / Metro-North cross-passageways north of 45 St in Grand Central will be open on weekdays from 6:30AM to 9:30PM and closed on weekends and holidays. The entrance/exit at 47 St/Madison Ave for LIRR street level access is not affected. pic.twitter.com/kaK8CUtxNa
— LIRR (@LIRR) April 25, 2024

This is a major downgrade for both LIRR and Metro-North riders. Not only do Metro-North passengers lose north end access during evening hours and on weekends, but closing Grand Central North also reduces the number of access points into the GCT complex for LIRR riders. Currently, it's possible and pretty convenient to enter Grand Central North at either 48th and Park or the 230 Park Avenue entrances, go down to the 47th Street Cross Passage, and then down to the Madison Concourse to access LIRR trains (instead of having to navigate to 47th and Madison at street level).

Now the building entrance at 47th Street and Madison Avenue will be the only street entrance that provides direct stair access down to the Madison Concourse (this entrance will remain open and available to LIRR riders, but there will be no access to the Metro-North tracks when Grand Central North is closed).

This reduction will also make transferring between the LIRR and Metro-North much longer and more complicated—instead of being able to take the staircases directly from the Madison Concourse to the 45th or 47th Street cross-passages, riders connecting between the two railroads will need to detour all the way south to the main GCT headhouse between 42nd and 43rd Streets. This adds roughly 4 minutes of walking time to these connections and pushes the total walking time between the furthest LIRR and Metro-North tracks to over 10 minutes (for comparison, it only takes about 13 minutes to walk from NY-Penn Station over to the GCT Headhouse...)

Several riders have already noted that this reduction will make it much more difficult to make tight connections between LIRR and Metro-North trains, which are especially common on weekends. Not being able to make these tight connections means that not only do you have to deal with the 4 extra minutes of walking time, but your door-to-door travel time can increase by 30 minutes to an hour as you have to wait for the next headway.

@LIRR Why, I use that connection all the time! It's the fastest way to transfer between the MNRR tracks and LIRR and the weekend schedule really has a lot of tight connections.
Thought about it some more - my entire use of the LIRR is to visit my friends and family on LI from where I live upstate. Forcing me to go through the terminal adds 5-10 minutes to this transfer.
I may as well go back to parking in NJ and going through Penn Station.
— CaprisArdent🔸 (@CaprisArdent) April 25, 2024

Riders can access the LIRR concourses from a staircase directly next
to the gates to Metro-North's tracks (Photo: The LIRR Today)

Easy connections between the LIRR and Metro-North was a big selling point of East Side Access, and one the MTA has hyped up frequently—but this reduction will make it much harder to easily travel between the two parts of the region during the evenings and on weekends. There is already virtually no circumstance where it's faster or cheaper to take the LIRR + Metro-North between points in Westchester and Nassau Counties vs. driving—and extending the walk between the two railroads to over 10 minutes makes it even more difficult to justify paying more to take the train.

An MTA spokesperson did not respond to questions about why Grand Central North opening hours were being rolled back. Dozens of riders have also asked the railroads for a further explanation on social media, but none have gotten a response. The railroads made the announcements quietly through their service alerts on Thursday.

The partial closure of Grand Central North is the MTA's latest rollback of the relatively short list of benefits that were actually brought about by the completion of East Side Access. The MTA has been steadily chipping away at these marginal improvements over the last year, cutting weekday off-peak Brooklyn service from 20-minute headways to half-hourly service, dropping semi-express service at several stations on the South Shore to further pad the OTP numbers, and eliminating more than half of the new trains that were added to boost service in the 7:00p hour during the PM Peak.

It is ironic/emblematic/sad that the MTA spent more than $12 billion building East Side Access, but now can't cobble together a few thousand dollars to make the place easy to use for riders.

LIRR turns 190

2024-04-25T06:00:00.007-04:00

The LIRR celebrated its 190th anniversary on Wednesday, marking the continued run of the longest running railroad continuously operating under its original name in the country. The LIRR was granted its charter on April 24, 1834 for its original mission to bypass the Connecticut shoreline and connect Brooklyn with Greenport, where continuing ferry service was available towards Boston—but its has grown and evolved a great deal from that original concept 190 years ago.

The MTA and LIRR celebrated the anniversary at an event at NY-Grand Central Wednesday afternoon that featured remarks by LIRR President Rob Free, author and LIRR historian David Morrison, and president of the Sunrise Trail chapter of the National Railway Historical Society Stephen Quigley. At the event, the gentlemen unveiled an exhibit of historic LIRR artifacts that will be on display across from the ticketing area on the Madison Concourse at NY-Grand Central and presented a commemorative ticket to Phyllis Klecka of East Islip, who the MTA says is the longest-tenured Mail & Ride monthly ticket holder, commuting on the LIRR for the last 60 years.

Former LIRR Branch Manager, author, and historian David Morrison delivers remarks at the LIRR's 190th anniversary celebration on Wednesday (Photo: MTA/Marc Hermann)

A collection of LIRR artifacts on display on the Madison Concourse
at NY-Grand Central (Photo: MTA/Marc A Hermann)

The festivities were overall rather subdue, as the LIRR continues to grapple with significantly lower customer satisfaction following the completion of East Side Access and the significant (and problem-ridden) overhaul of schedules that came with it. But LIRR President Rob Free suggested that there would be more events to come to celebrate the anniversary over the course of this year. The LIRR has also started to roll out blue, white, and gold 190th Anniversary decals that have been added to some electric trains over the last few weeks.

190 years of service is definitely a tremendous accomplishment and milestone, and a strong testament to the efforts of everyone who works hard day in and day out to keep the railroad running. The LIRR has played an extremely critical part of Long Island's history and how it has developed over the last 190 years, and it can help position our region's economy to grow and excel further in the years to come—if it puts the effort in.

But like any 190-year-old, the LIRR is facing some serious problems that need to be addressed forthwith. East Side Access, Third Track, and the $17.7 billion in capacity upgrades that have been poured into the LIRR over the last decade or so have yielded so little for riders. Customer satisfaction has plunged significantly over the last year as LIRR has badly bungled the rollout of its first major schedule overhaul since the 1970's. The railroad continues to have significant, fundamental, and structural cost problems, outspending every other railroad in the country on just about everything—and it has made little progress on reigning in costs despite significantly lower ridership. Despite constant, misleading claims about how much the service has improved, none of this has yet to yield any sort of substantive increase in ridership or revenue, as the LIRR continues to just narrowly outpace ridership recovery on Metro-North.

My favorite aspect of LIRR history is how the railroad has been able to evolve, change, and adapt as the times change and business and economic circumstances change with them. The LIRR was chartered to be a gateway to Boston, shuffling people down the middle of the Island to get them to ferries waiting for them in Greenport. When the Hartford and New Haven Railroad completed what is today the New Haven Line and the first all-rail route to Boston in 1848, the LIRR didn't simply abandon shop and pull up the rails. Instead, it totally transformed its business and its operation to focus on local growth here on Long Island, building branches out along the North and South Shores. The LIRR then pivoted again to focus on consolidation and growing through acquisition, which led to the unified and cohesive system we have today (and avoided the costly duplication of rail infrastructure common in other parts of the region and the country). At the turn of the 20th Century, the LIRR was acquired by the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad and shortly thereafter riders got direct access to Manhattan for the first time. LIRR invested significantly in electrification and bolstering its existing network during this time. During its lean years when rail travel across the country declined significantly, the LIRR was able to evolve, change, and adapt to stay relevant as car-oriented suburban development began to blanket Long Island—it invested in new safety systems, invested in its fleet, and undertook the massive Babylon Branch grade crossing elimination project. When the LIRR came under state ownership in 1966, there was again a period of great investment and modernization, with the MTA investing in new trains, the upgrade of stations to high-level platforms, and expanding electrification.

The LIRR is presently at a point where it must again evolve, change, and adapt to new times—though this time it has been approaching the challenge with little enthusiasm or vigor. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly and likely permanently changed the way we commute to work. Gone for many are the days of trudging into Manhattan office buildings Monday-Friday, 9-to-5. The traditional "commuter rail" model that LIRR has clung to since the 1960's is now unviable. The completion of East Side Access and $17+ billion worth of capacity upgrades presents significant opportunities to effectuate necessary changes, but 60% of LIRR stations have seen no increase in peak service compared to pre-pandemic, and riders are greatly unsatisfied with the changes that have been made thus far.

The LIRR must modernize and evolve, change, and adapt to provide service that is much more frequent (especially during off-peak hours) and much more affordable. To do this, LIRR must reign in overspending and drive down operating costs, overhaul its fare structure, and transform the way it thinks about how it delivers service, pivoting from the outdated Manhattan-bound commuter model to one that provides frequent and fast service all day long for all types of journeys, especially those during off-peak hours, intra-Island and reverse-peak trips, and those to places other than Manhattan like Brooklyn or Long Island City (which have seen the lion's share of the region's growth over the last 10-20 years). LIRR needs to operate service that will lure businesses back to transit-oriented downtowns and support further development and growth in downtowns across Long Island.

At the 190th anniversary event on Wednesday, Newsday's Nicholas Spangler posed a total softball question along the lines of '190 years of history is impressive, so what's the next big thing?'. And the response from LIRR President Rob Free was extremely disappointing: "we're still in the middle of developing [the next Capital Program]" and then a jumble of words about state of good repair. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the MTA has exhibited a great obsession to find new revenue sources so it doesn't have to be forced to curb spending—first it was campaigning for billions in bailouts from the Federal government, then a major increase in the MTA Payroll Tax on New York City businesses to plug its operating budget deficits, and shortly the implementation of CBD Tolling to continue fueling rampant overspending on construction projects. But it has presented little in terms of a grand new vision for the region's mass transportation network (certainly little new compared to the prior administration's efforts). The MTA's $50+ billion 2020-2024 Capital Program will deliver little in terms of system expansion—3 rail stations on an existing rail line in the Bronx for Metro-North, 3 new subway stations in partly existing tunnels in Harlem, and maybe some faster and slightly more frequent subway service after years of disruptions to install CBTC and upgrade signals.

It would have been much better to hear that the LIRR is committing to cutting operating costs by $1 billion annually and that it will reinvest that savings into lower fares and improved service, which would help to aggressively grow ridership and support increased development in Long Island's downtowns. But alas, the MTA and LIRR seem content to keep copying and pasting misleading talking points about 40% service increases and to put the further expansion and modernization of the LIRR on cruise control now that East Side Access, Third Track, and other major megaprojects are done—and its coffers flush with new subsidies, tolls, and higher fares from riders.

190 years of service is a tremendous accomplishment and cause for great celebration. But to stay relevant for the next 190 years, the LIRR will need to continue to evolve, change, and adapt to meet the needs of Long Islanders in this 21st Century, post-pandemic world.