The good folks out on the eastern end of the northern fork of Long Island aren’t too happy. Their estimated contributions to the MTA run to approximately $60 million a year, and the service offerings are sparse out to Greenport, to say the least. In its service cut plans, in fact, the LIRR plans to end all but some weekend train service between Ronkonkoma and Greenport in order to save nearly $1 million a year. While only 160 passengers per weekday and 190 over the entire weekend would suffer, Long Island pols are not happy.
Can you blame for it? Their constituents pay a reasonable amount of money and get very little train service. To solve this problem, the rumblings of secession are growing louder. East End pols are talking about establishing a local transit authority and taking over control of the Greenport Branch from the MTA. A recent study concluded that the trains could be operated on a more local level for approximately $45 million or a good 25 percent less than what East Enders pay to the MTA now. The MTA would be absolved of operating these trains, and the East End Long Islanders would be shelling out fewer bucks. That sounds like a win-win transit situation to me.
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and how much more money would the state surreptitiously siphon from the MTA if the greenport line were taken off its hands, using the reduced operating costs as an excuse?
The only winner would be Igor Panarin
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....38419.html
Well, to be fair, the East End wouldn’t secede from New York but just from the area known as the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District. No big loss.
LOL 🙂 A “Doomsday” scenario (at least a real one) gotta start somewhere!
😉
Not being familiar with LI, I can’t say that I blame them. Are there numbers to be found out there on how many East End residents commute to the 5 boroughs? I can’t imagine it’s a large number, that’s pretty far out there. Google maps tells me it’s a 2 hour drive just to get to Queens. Would be interesting to know how many of those 160 weekly are commuting all the way to NYC vs. to another job center on LI.
I remember that in the 1970’s, there was an unsuccessful movement to secede the East End completely from Suffolk County. The new county was to be called Peconic County.
Some people accused the advocates of secession of being out to
“fence off a preserve for the rich”.
A proposition was put on the statewide ballot in that year to repeal the requirement in New York State law, that in order to be a separate county, an area must have at least enough population to have an Assemblyman of its own. The backers of that ballot measure were explaining that it would only make Peconic County POSSIBLE, not a certainty.
If I remember correctly, that ballot measure was defeated.
At any rate, obviously the secession movement failed.
The Peconic County idea still rears its head every now and then (most recently, on January 31).
Long Island’s secession from the state, although it comes up from time-to-time, is not likely to happen. Schools and education are a high priority on Long Island, and the revelation that they’d be cut off from most of SUNY usually kills that idea.
Scott, that link is available only to paying Newsday subscribers.
Cesidio Tallini
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09.....f=nyregion
The Greenport line has been left to die a slow death by the LIRR. The track is in terrible shape so the trains go very slow, and at this point there are running only 2 trains a day, so no wonder the ridership is so bad. I can’t says I blame them for not wanting to pay for that. The Hampton Jitney took over local bus service on the North Fork to Manhattan, and actually expanded service, including a connection to the ferry to New London, CT.
Pardon for posting a second comment, but why would weekend service be preserved if weekday service is axed? I guess for the ferry connections for vacationers? Do the day-trippers really outweigh the residents’ westbound commuting by that much? Is there a technical capability to run 1-2 car shuttles between Montauk and Ronkonkoma (w/ a timed transfer) to generate more frequent service at a lower cost?
It does indeed seem like MTA would lose in the end in this, if the service costs $45m to run but the East End pays $60m into the system, but having said that, this is more of an argument for congestion pricing/east river tolls than it is an argument for getting Greenport and Montauk to pay an outsized price for services rendered.
This is a great idea and I hope that they do make there own transit network out east.
I took a look into going to Montauk by MTA once, and just couldn’t work out the schedule combined with the high summer hotel rates. It seemed easier, and cheaper, just to fly to some city elsewhere in the US.
If Suffolk County left New York state and joined Rhode Island, the resulting state would have about three times the population that Rhode Island now has, and a larger population than Connecticut. I think there is a ferry connection. It would do something for the disparity in the populations of our states.
Suffolk County would so dominate Rhode Island politics that I could see the original part of Rhode Island starting a secession movement from Suffolk County.
(replying on my iPhone, hope it threaded properly…)
@Russell: I can’t imagine either Suffolk or RI wanting each other, they may be close as the crow flies, but there’s no real community ties b/t the two… RI is actually a fairly poor state and Providence is in what seems to be a perpetual state of decay.
Pardon for posting a second comment, but why would weekend service be preserved if weekday service is axed? I guess for the ferry connections for vacationers?
The summer weekend service (which I have used) is packed, not just with vacationers, but with folks who have second homes out there. There are also a ton of folks who go out for wine tours.
Do the day-trippers really outweigh the residents’ westbound commuting by that much?
The Greenport Branch is not heavily used for commuting, which is why the MTA feels it can cancel the whole service.
Is there a technical capability to run 1-2 car shuttles between Montauk and Ronkonkoma (w/ a timed transfer) to generate more frequent service at a lower cost?
The issue is not the Montauk service, which is being retained, but the Greenport service, which is being cut back to summer weekends.
It does indeed seem like MTA would lose in the end in this, if the service costs $45m to run but the East End pays $60m into the system.
Right: because the payroll tax that the legislature enacted did not discriminate between well-served and poorly-served areas. Every county in the MTA service area was hit with the identical tax.
Marc – to take your last comment even further, every PART of every county is hit with the same tax. If those five towns secede from the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District, they’d still be in Suffolk county (along with Huntington and Islip, for instance, who are served somewhat decently) so they couldn’t break away from the tax. They’d pretty much need to form their own county, or change the definition of MCTD.
Part of the reason the Greenport branch is underused is because there are so few trains. Commuters in many east-end towns drive to a more western station which has more frequent service. It’s the whole chicken-and-the-egg mystery.
Part of the reason the Greenport branch is underused is because there are so few trains.
I don’t think that is the reason. Those distant stations are too far away for any sane daily commuter. Both the Montauk Branch (which is keeping its service) and the Greenport Branch (which is losing it) have just one morning train at the most distant stations. Montauk, of course, does have more service overall, simply because it is the more popular destination.
Perhaps investing in the tracks, electrification, and upgrading speeds, and closing a few stations will bring the Greenport and Ronkonkoma branch into commuting distance of NYC. Theres that “third track” on the main line project thats been floating around for years as a proposal by the MTA.
Realistically, there is a long list of projects that would be done before a huge investment in the Greenport Branch would make it to the top of the queue.
There are only six stations past Ronkonkoma. Which ones would you close?
The third track isn’t there to increase commute speeds from Ronkonkoma to New York. It’s there to increase capacity. Right now, there are 26 tph in the peak direction, which is beyond the capacity of the signaling used on the LIRR; this forces the LIRR to run trains in the peak direction on both tracks, which means that for two hours each day, there’s no reverse peak service.
In other words – the third track won’t help peak direction commuters at all, since they get service on both tracks. There’s little reason for peak direction commuters to support it.
If the LIRR wants it built, perhaps it needs to make the decision to use one track to serve the reverse-peak market, even if that means a severe service cut in the peak direction.