Ridership is down since 2008, but Metro-North is finally more popular than the LIRR. (Source: Wall Street Journal)
In the unofficial war for commuter rail dominance, Metro-North in September won a decisive battle for the first time in its history under the MTA. As the Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Grossman reports, ridership on the Grand Central-bound Metro-North lines was higher than that of the Long Island Rail Road, and Metro-North, long the leader in on-time performance, can now lay claim to being the most popular commuter rail line in the country. According to the September figures — available in the latest MTA board books — the LIRR saw 6.83 million passengers pass through its doors in September while Metro-North serviced 6.9 million.
Overall, though, ridership on the commuter rail lines is still significantly off the record-setting pace set in early 2008. Before the economy plunged, the LIRR served over nine million riders per month while approximately 8.6 million took Metro-North. Still, the MTA expects the LIRR’s popularity to grow again. “Economic recovery is occurring at different rates in different parts of our region and both railroads will continue to pursue ways to show that public transportation is still the best way to travel. As the economy picks up, we expect the LIRR ridership will rebound,” an agency spokesman said to the Journal.
Interestingly, Grossman pegs two drivers behind Metro-North’s four percent increase in ridership. He attributes it to “growth in the city’s northern suburbs and an increase in people commuting out of the city to jobs in big employment centers like White Plains and Stamford.” But what of the declining LIRR figures? Ridership sunk one percent over the same time period from a year ago, and while officials look at the economy, two other factors leap out at me. First, due to the threat of bad weather, the LIRR suspended service to the East End over Labor Day, and second, service cuts have eroded the frequency of trains and their popularity.
It’s worth commenting too on a statement by Maureen Michaels, chair of the LIRR Commuter Council. In fact, she fingers the service cuts as a main driver behind the LIRR’s second-place finish, but she claims that less frequent service means that the commuter railroad is no longer “cost effective” for commuters. It’s certainly true that fewer trains and higher fares lead to inconvenienced and disgruntled passengers, but the LIRR remains far more “cost effective” than the alternative — which is driving into Manhattan from Long Island. The fares would have to jump by a magnitude of around four or five for the trains to become less cost effective, and statements such as Michaels’ should not go unquestioned.
20 comments
Those numbers are per month, not per day, right?
Per month. That’s right. I’ve corrected that mistake.
I can absolutely say that reduced LIRR service makes it less cost-effective for me to keep my monthly ticket. I’m on the Port Washington line, which got gutted the other month. I now have hourly service weekends and mid-day (i.e., what the other branches saw on their ‘apocalyptic’ weekends recently) and, frequently, I find myself hopping on the bus and subway to get where I need to go because otherwise, I’d be waiting 45 minutes for the next LIRR train.
I spend more than $3000/yr for my combined LIRR/Metrocard ticket — even with every discount available. But most of those discounts will be reduced with the next fare hike. With the cost-per-use of my LIRR monthly rising because I have to take the subway/bus instead, do I keep the LIRR pass when the fare hikes boost the combined annual cost closer to $4000? Or do I give up my easier commute and start leaving the house a half-hour earlier and watch my commuting cost drop down to $1200-ish? I can’t be the only person faced with that choice who has opted to save some money and lose the LIRR.
But your commuting costs don’t drop to $1200. The cost of your MetroCard will, but are you factoring in your added gas costs, toll costs, depreciation and maintenance and insurance costs? It adds up to be significantly more than the $1800 it seems you save.
I have no car, ergo I have none of those and my commuting costs are exactly the purchase of my Metrocards and maybe the odd LIRR offpeak ten-trip.
That’s a different story then. It’s certainly going to be less convient and less cost-effective to purchase a monthly pass, but I think Michaels was saying that it will be less cost-effective overall to switch from the LIRR to cars. In your case, I agree it’s less cost-effective, but I still think her overall point is wrong.
There are alternatives to the LIRR, depending on where you come from and where you’re going. The Long Island Transit Bus goes from several north-shore towns to midtown or Wall Street, with free on-board WiFi. Their website says they’ll soon start express service from the Rt. 110/LIE area as well.
For those farther west, or those working on the East Side of Manhattan, it may make sense to drive to the old Shea Stadium lot ($4 parking, I think) and take the 7 train in.
I don’t know if Metro-North has reasonable, cheaper alternatives, particularly on the west-of-Hudson section.
Well I feel as though this trend will at least continue into October/November with those system wide disruptions regarding the Jamaica signal crossover.
Keep this in mind LIRR is rarely used for intrasystem travel, while MNR has been increasing intrasystem ridership over the past few years. Now I don’t know if that has continued to be the case, but it is something to think about.
What happens when the ESA project opens, how much service gets diverted from Penn Station to Grand Central, or will the service be newly created?
I’ve often wondered about this. Less frequent service to two terminals is even less valuable than the current service to one, I think.
I think people who work in Manhattan are becomming less likely to live on Long Island, and wrote about it here.
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/larry.....d_arc.html
This is a cheery way to frame the stunning 22% decline in commuter rail ridership. Larry, that change in commute patterns didn’t happen in the last two and a half years as ridership tanked. Ben, can you run the same graph, but for the last ten years?
Can anyone venture an explanation as to why, on the graph above, ridership on both railroads, but especially Metro-North, plunges every year over January and February, then rebound in March?
Are all the Connecticut commuters vacationing in Florida or something?
The LIRR is even more monocentric than Metro-North. Metro-North is usable for travel from the suburbs to Manhattan, and from New York City to certain suburbs. Fordham is a very popular reverse commuter station – I believe it has 10,000 weekday reverse commuters. LIRR is not usable for reverse commuting, because the Main Line runs one-way at rush hour; apparently, having basic reverse-peak service is less important to the LIRR than running 26 as opposed to 24 peak tph.
Metro North knows how to lie with statistics. A train arriving 5:59 secs late is on time. Not a particularly reasonable metric when many scheduled runs from lower westchester are less than 40 minutes. There are often traffic backups into Grand Central in the morning. My morning trains often arrive at the edge of the fudge zone.
Metro North probably has a higher utilization rate as it serves 3 significant employment centers close to its stations – White Plains, Greenwich, and Stamford. The reserve morning express service to Stamford (Rye, Greenwich, Stamford) serves both higher income finance workers and lower income service workers. The Bronx provides lower cost housing for the poorer workers to live. This is what makes Fordham a key station. Younger workers use mass transit until they are stable enough to get a car. Once they get a car, the highly congested roads (95, the taconic, and the hutch are a mess going north in the mornings) makes the train a viable alternative to many.
I know several people who work in Greenwich and Stamford who chose to live in Harlem and commute from 125th. Others live in midtown and use GCT.
To improve service, Metro North needs to get some better signals (the New Rochelle slowdown where a line splits off to Penn Station) and fix the bridges so there aren’t speed restrictions over the bridges. The joke is the Acela train doesn’t travel between New Rochelle and New Haven faster than the regular train – it has the same speed restrictions.
The on-time sleight of hand is used on both the LIRR and Metro-North.
New Rochelle’s biggest problem is not the signals, but the tight curve and the at-grade split. It’s one of the single worst curves on the Northeast Corridor away from station areas.
The bridges are a big speed restriction, yes, but even trains, trains could travel faster. The FRA has abnormally low speed restrictions on curves, and curve speeds could be boosted by about 20% on Metro-North and 25% on the Acela using existing rolling stock and no increase in superelevation.
It’s used by NYCTA too, IIRC. It results in the Franklin Avenue Shuttle having about 100% on-time performance. The FAS only has a ~7 minute run.
On NYCT they recognize that at high frequency, constant headways matter much more than schedule adherence. So they have an alternative measure of on-time, based on how large the maximum gap is. They allow up to 4 minutes of slack (2 at very high frequency), so that if 5-minute trains arrive with 9-minute gaps, then it’s alright.
“Larry, that change in commute patterns didn’t happen in the last two and a half years as ridership tanked.”
We’d need up to date Journey to Work data to see, and I’m not sure the American Community Survey has it.
The NY State Dept. of Taxation used to, based on who was paying the NYC commuter tax. Perhaps they still do have place of work and place of residence data by taxpayer, or is the place of work counted where the payroll is processed (ie. Paychex in Rochester)?
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