“LIRR screwed us up”: Long Island passengers on crowded trains see new MTA service cuts

During most of the pandemic, Chris Sloan, 41, traveled by train from Sayville, Long Island for his construction work in Manhattan. But when he arrived at the Ronkonkoma stop on Long Island Rail Road at 5 am on Monday, he was faced with the consequences of the MTA’s latest service cuts: while three trains bound for New York usually passed through the station in an hour, said, that number is now reduced to one.

Unsurprisingly, the train was packed, with passengers pressed against each other in the corridors and unable to distance themselves socially during the 90-minute journey, according to Sloan.

“It’s a mess,” he told Gothamist. “Everyone was upset, but kind of together in the fight against the silent knowledge that LIRR screwed us all.”

When the MTA began implementing its pandemic-driven service reductions for the LIRR on Monday, Long Island passengers from across the system reported similar problems.

“I can’t wait to hire greed, as I stay all the way to the city to be late for work every day!” tweeted a traveler. “I don’t think there are words to express how much I hate this company.”

Another knight questioned whether they should quarantine after the tour. Dangerous conditions, a traveler suggested, would not leave her choice but to start driving to work.

Although a new round of federal funding has enabled the MTA to avoid its most catastrophic cuts, the transit authority is still moving ahead with a plan to run the LIRR service during the week on an “enhanced” weekend schedule. MTA CEO Pat Foye described the decision as “scaled down”, framing the reduction as a necessary move when the number of passengers remains below 70 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

In a letter sent last week, eight state senators in Queens and Long Island urged Foye against implementing the new “basic schedule”, arguing that the cuts were illogical at a time when more New Yorkers were being vaccinated and much of the city ​​was starting to reopen.

“Reducing service at this point does not make sense, and we are seeing the fruits of that decision this morning, when people found themselves huddled with their neighbors,” State Sen. Todd Kaminsky told Gothamist on Monday. “This was not a shock. This is something that has been contested and discussed.”

Danny Pearlstein, director of policy and communications for the Riders Alliance, said the LIRR service had a direct impact on New York City residents, as the reductions would likely result in more people driving into the city. “This will mean significant damage to our quality of life and it must be an urgent priority for the governor to ensure that this does not happen,” he said.

In a statement released to passengers on Monday, LIRR President Phil Eng acknowledged that there have been “sporadic and isolated agglomeration incidents on some trains”. He promised to add additional service during the night rush hour and Tuesday morning, adding that the agency would “monitor the number of passengers and make necessary adjustments”.

A spokesman for the MTA also directed customers to its capacity tracking application, which shows the level of capacity on a given train.

Sloan, the Sayville traveler, said that when he used the app on Monday morning, he showed that most of his train was more than 85% full.

“People who travel on a daily basis understand that there is risk and they deal with it in order to continue to earn a living. But these schedule changes take everything we were told last year and completely ignore it,” he said.

“After all the sacrifices people have made, it is not the time for that.”