May 2019 is the 44th Anniversary for the successful Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long Island Rail Road Mail&Ride ticket program. More than 160,000 Queens, Nassau and Suffolk County residents benefit from this program riding the LIRR on a daily basis to commute from home to work.
As a long time Mail&Ride member starting in the class of 1983 before retiring in January 2015, I know first hand how user-friendly LIRR Mail&Ride is. Few remember a brief period in the 1980s when the LIRR offered a one-year ticket which arrived monthly. By prepaying for your monthly pass one year in advance, you received a 4 percent discount. Sadly, there were only several hundred of us including myself who took advantage of this amazing bargain so it was quickly discontinued. Fast forward to today and you can also purchase an unlimited Metro Card with your LIRR monthly ticket. You end up with savings on your LIRR monthly fare plus unlimited monthly NYC Transit rides. This affords incredible savings for those who use the subway to and from Penn Station, Hunters Point, Long Island City, Woodside, Jamaica or Flatbush Avenue Brooklyn. The savings are multiplied with local trips at lunch time or after work. The card also provides you with unlimited free transfers to NYC Transit, MTA Bus and Nassau Inter County Express NICE Bus.
More LIRR riders continue to purchase tickets via Mail&Ride, ticket vending machines or various apps. By 2021, the new MTA One Metro New York (OMNY) fare collection system will be coming on line. Staffed ticket windows and offices may go the way of the dinosaurs.
Governor Cuomo proudly proclaims that relocation of the LIRR waiting room and ticket office from 7th Avenue to a new location between 8th & 9th Avenue as part of the new $1.6 billion Amtrak Moynihan Farley Building Train Hall will be a great benefit to riders. Creation of a new station, ticket office and renovated platforms below the Farley Building between 8th and 9th Avenue sounds great on paper. It will only benefit a minority of LIRR riders whose destinations are west of 8th Avenue or utilize the 8th Avenue A, C and E subways. An overwhelming majority of riders exit to destinations east of 7th Avenue. This includes using the 1, 2 and 3 subways (some transferring at Times Square for either the shuttle or #7 subway to access Grand Central Terminal) or walking to Herald Square (to access the B, D, F, N, R, Q and W subway lines or PATH). LIRR trains arriving and departing from platform space farther west in Penn Station will result in longer walks for a majority of riders coming east of 7th Avenue. This may be a waste of several hundred million dollars. Most LIRR riders would prefer that these monies be spent on basic track, interlockings and signal maintenance at Penn Station rather than a new ticket office and waiting area. Better track, interlockings, power and signal maintenance scheduled on a more frequent regular basis might help avoid the increasing number of train delays and cancellations. Any survey of riders would tell you that it is clearly a higher priority than any new Penn Station ticket office and waiting room.
—Larry Penner
Larry Penner is a transportation historian and advocate who previously worked 31 years for the US Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration Region 2 NY Office. This included the development, review, approval and oversight for grants supporting billions in capital projects and programs on behalf of the MTA, NYC Transit bus and subway, Long Island and Metro North Rail Roads, MTA Bus and NYC Department of Transportation.
Would you like to share your opinion about this topic? Is something else on your mind? Send a letter to the editor to kdijkstra@antonmediagroup.com for publication in print and online. Click here to view our letters policy.
