For those heading to Manhattan on Saturday, there will be three additional westbound morning trains on the Babylon, Port Washington and Ronkonkoma lines as well as three added eastbound afternoon trains on each line with a fourth extra eastbound train added on the Main Line.

MTA Police will be enforcing the system-wide booze ban from 12:01 a.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Sunday. Anyone found violating the ban will have their beverages confiscated.

Those heading to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Montauk on starting at 11:30 a.m. Sunday can take the 7:42 a.m. from Penn Station arriving at 10:46 a.m.

The next train after that is a 9:42 a.m. from Penn to Montauk that arrives at 12:46 p.m. but the LIRR said it may add an extra train. An added westbound train from Montauk leaves at 1:23 p.m. followed by regularly scheduled trains at 3:35 p.m., 5:35 p.m. and 7:33 p.m.

The alcohol ban will continue on the Montauk line through 11:59 p.m. Sunday.

For more information, riders can call 511 or visit www.mta.info/lirr.

The MTA started the project in 2011 to add another 40 years to the life of the Shinnecock Canal Bridge, North Highway Bridge and the Montauk Highway Bridge, all of which were built about a century ago.

The work is expected to impact about 400 daily weekday riders in each direction, who should expect delays and plan for buses to take 40 minutes longer than regularly scheduled trains.

LIRR crews will also use the South Fork service suspension to rebuild railroad crossing on Montauk Highway near Flying Point Road as a part of a planned road widening project.

For more information call 511 of visit www.mta.info/lirr.

A passenger boards a Long Island Rail Road train in Long Beach (Joe Abate).

Fares are slated to spike this weekend for Long Island Rail Road commuters, subway straphangers and many bus riders along with drivers who’ll pay higher tolls on most major crossings.

The MTA approved the toll and fare increases back in December to fill budget gaps in the nation’s largest transit system with the $450 million added revenue projected to be generated.

LIRR fares will jump between 8 and 9 percent Friday, depending on the distance traveled and ticket type. Riders that bought weekly passes this week can still use their tickets Friday.

New York City bus and subway base fares will rise Saturday from $2.25 to $2.50, meaning monthly MetroCards will cost 8 percent more at $112.

Nassau County’s NICE bus system will keep its cash fares at $2.25, but riders who use MetroCards will pay $2.50 starting Sunday.

The Suffolk County Transit bus lines remain $2 on most routes for now, but public hearings are scheduled for next week to consider a proposal to double fares to $4.

Tolls are going up Sunday at seven bridges and two tunnels run by the MTA. Drivers who pay with cash will see tolls spike $7.50 from $6.50 versus $5.33 from $4.80 for E-ZPass users.

The affected bridges include the Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck, RFK, Verrazano-Narrows, Henry Hudson and Cross Bay and Marine Parkway bridges. Tunnels with toll hikes are the Hugh L. Carey and Queens-Midtown tunnels.

For a breakdown of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s latest toll and fare increases, click their website.

Authorities said the victim, whose identity was not immediately available, was running northbound across the tracks at the Willis Avenue and Hinck Way foot crossing when he was hit at 10:25 p.m.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. The 9:40 p.m. train from Ronkonkoma due in Penn Station at 10:59 p.m. was held at the scene.

Service was partially suspended on the Main Line while investigators were on the scene.

MTA police are continuing the investigation.

Gregory Lombardi was demoted from assistant chief mechanical officer to supervisor and had his salary slashed in half after the Metropolitan Transit Authority investigated the incident, the New York Daily News reported, citing unnamed sources.

A spokesman for the agency would only confirm that Lombardi was demoted sometime last week.

Lombardi’s $165,000 salary was knocked down to $83,000 a year following the investigation, and two other workers who helped him also faced disciplinary actions, according to the report.

The two unnamed transit workers helped Lombardi load the MTA’s generator onto a truck before Lombardi transported it home, the paper reported.

Another Long Islander, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s emergency management chief, got the ax last year after it came to light that he instructed government workers to clear a tree from his Suffolk County home after Sandy.

Long Island Rail Road

Taking the Long Island Rail Road further along into the 21^st century could transform Long Island and revitalize the region, says Nancy Rauch Douzinas, president of the Rauch Foundation, a civic-minded non-profit group which just released its latest Long Island Index report at an event held at Molloy College in Rockville Centre on Tuesday.

“The Long Island Rail Road is one of Long Island’s top assets,” Rauch told the audience, with “potential to be transformative.”

“Our goal is to look at the railroad differently,” she said.

For 10 years her foundation’s annual Long Island Indexes have been providing the Island’s “civic, academic, labor and business leaders” with “useful, unbiased information that will lead to greater community awareness of Long Island issues and to serve as a catalyst for action,” as the organization says on its website. Or as Rauch said from the stage of the college’s Madison Theatre: “Using the facts to think smart.”

This year the Index is called “The Long Island Rail Road: From Moving Commuters to Shaping the Next Economy.” During her presentation, Ann Golob, director of the Index, called the railroad “one of the great underutilized assets of Long Island.” As it is, she noted, the LIRR’s commuters to the city add an estimated $26 billion to Long Island’s economy, while taking more than 100,000 drivers off our major already congested arteries into Manhattan—which became a huge factor after Superstorm Sunday knocked the LIRR out of service for a week.

Making her case, Golob cited how Metro-North has helped transform White Plains from a blighted city in decline into a vital urban center, drawing almost as many reverse commuters from New York City each day as it sends to Manhattan. The railroad did that by building double-track capacity some 15 years ago. Long Island should follow their lead, she advised.

Among the conclusions raised by the Index is that upgrading the LIRR would not only spur improvements for commuters but help spark local economic development for all Long Islanders. With the East Side Access completed to Grand Central, now slated for 2019, the report found that Nassau and Suffolk residents would have better access to 560,000 high-paying jobs in Manhattan, and they’d reduce their commute by almost three quarters of an hour. More importantly, 400,000 homeowners in Nassau and Suffolk counties would see the value of their homes rise by an average of $7,300.

By expanding the Ronkonkoma line to two tracks east of Farmingdale and adding a third track to a 10-mile stretch of the main line from Floral Park to Hicksville—now a major choke point on the second largest commuter railroad in the United States—the region’s employers would have increased access to half a million potential workers in Nassau and Suffolk, unreliable service would vastly improve on the Ronkonkoma line, home values would rise near the stations, property tax pressure on individual residents might ease up and the overall economy would boom. Plus, young people who’ve fled Long Island for Brooklyn and points west might be tempted to move back if developers provided affordable housing within walking distance of the trains.

“We prefer to think of it as Long Island’s ‘fast track,’” said Golob, referring to the line upgrades. “This way we can catch up to our neighbors…. We have the potential to outpace them, but we’ve got to get moving fast.”

LIRR president Helena Williams, who spoke at a panel discussion after the Index presentation, said that restoring service in 2012 to the Port Washington line following drastic cuts previously imposed by the MTA’s budget problems “paid for itself” with increased ridership because those commuters could resume catching a train every half hour instead of once an hour. With the upgrades to the railroad, frequency up and down the line would increase, and the economy would benefit.

Left unanswered—for now—is where the money to finance the upgrades would come from. The East Side Access project alone costs some $8.2 billion, and New York State is rolling in debt. But the people behind the Index hope they can start moving the conversation in the right direction.