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New MTA LIRR Schedules Start May 17th

Posted by
on May 11th, 2010 at 1:36 pm

Just a short time ago, the MTA Long Island Rail Road sent me a major press release to announce that new schedules will start May 17th. These new schedules are significant as they not only contain adjustments due to planned construction but service cuts as well due to their budget woes. Here are the complete details:

LIRR customers are advised to pay special attention to the new May 17, 2010 schedules as they include train cancellations and other adjustments related to budget reductions. Additional timetable changes are necessary to accommodate spring and summer track work and construction projects.

The service reductions included in the May 17 timetable change were required to address the MTA’s nearly $800 million budget shortfall for 2010. The LIRR developed reductions that will improve efficiency while attempting to minimize the adverse impact to customers. Further budget-related service reductions are scheduled to take effect in mid-September. A news release detailing those changes will be issued later this year.

These service reductions were proposed in December 2009. After a series of public hearings were held in early March 2010 on the proposed changes, the MTA Board approved the service reductions on March 24.

Babylon Branch:

• The 7:40 AM train from Seaford to Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn will be canceled. To accommodate customers from this train, the 7:33 AM train from Babylon to Atlantic Terminal will depart four minutes earlier at 7:29 AM, and stops will be added at Wantagh, Bellmore, Merrick, Freeport, Baldwin and Rockville Centre.

• The 4:39 PM train from Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn to Babylon will be canceled. To accommodate customers, the 4:37 PM express train from Penn Station to Wantagh will have added stops at Jamaica, Lynbrook, Seaford, Massapequa and all stops to Babylon. Brooklyn customers can take the 4:34 PM train from Atlantic Terminal and change at Jamaica.

• The 4:57 PM train from Penn Station to Wantagh will be canceled. Customers can take the 5:03 PM train from Penn Station with added stops at Merrick, Bellmore and Wantagh.

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Long Beach Branch:

• The 5:40 PM train from Atlantic Terminal to Long Beach will be canceled. To accommodate customers, the 5:55 PM express train from Penn Station to Long Beach will have a Jamaica stop added. Brooklyn customers can connect with this train by taking the 5:49 PM departure from Atlantic Terminal and changing at Jamaica.

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Oyster Bay Branch:

• The 4:54 PM peak train from Long Island City to Oyster Bay will leave 10 minutes earlier at 4:44 PM and add a Hunterspoint Avenue stop at 4:59 PM.

• The weekend 1:35 AM train from Jamaica to Oyster Bay is canceled. Customers can take the earlier 11:45 PM train.

• The weekend 7:20 AM train from Oyster Bay to Jamaica is canceled. Customers can take a train an hour earlier at 6:20 AM or later at 8:20 AM.

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Port Jefferson Branch:

• The 5:11 PM train from Hunterspoint Avenue will be partially canceled. It will instead originate in Huntington at 6:15 PM. Customers can connect with this train by taking a new 4:59 PM departure from Hunterspoint Avenue, and the 5:06 PM train from Penn Station to Huntington, which will have added Jamaica and Mineola stops. The new 4:59 PM departure is available by
re-scheduling the 4:54 PM peak train from Long Island City to Oyster Bay to leave 10 minutes earlier at 4:44 PM and adding a Hunterspoint Avenue stop at 4:59 PM.

• The 4:05 PM westbound train from Port Jefferson to Jamaica will now terminate in Huntington, where customers can connect with train service to western terminals.

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Port Washington Branch:

• The 4:43 PM train from Penn Station to Port Washington will be canceled. Customers can instead take the 4:22 PM train from Penn Station. Later options include the 4:46 PM train for those heading to Great Neck. Customers traveling to stations Manhasset, Plandome and Port Washington can take the 5:11 PM departure from Penn Station.

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Belmont Racetrack:

• The LIRR is no longer providing daily service to Belmont Park during racing season. Racing fans traveling to Belmont Park can take the LIRR to Queens Village Station and connect to the free shuttle bus provided by NYRA. Racing fans can also take the LIRR to Queens Village, then take the Q27 bus and transfer to the Q2 at Springfield Blvd. & Hempstead Ave. to Belmont; or take the E train to Parsons Blvd. and transfer to the Q110 bus to Belmont.

• Special LIRR train service will be provided to Belmont Park on Friday, June 4 and Saturday, June 5 – the day of the Belmont Stakes.

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Track Work & Construction Programs:

Port Washington Branch:

With the completion of track tie replacement work between Woodside and Bayside, half-hourly midday service has been restored on weekdays. Departure time will be moved 10 minutes earlier to accommodate track work between Bayside and Great Neck. However, beginning September 13, 2010 as part of the service reductions being implemented for the 2010 budget, the half-hourly weekday off-peak and weekend Port Washington branch service will be reduced to hourly service.

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Babylon Branch:

One of two tracks will be out of service between Valley Stream and Wantagh during midday weekdays as a track tie replacement program gets underway. One Babylon local train will operate in each direction each hour. The second local train will originate and terminate in Freeport every other hour. Express service to and from Babylon has been increased to hourly with added stops at Merrick, Bellmore, Wantagh and Massapequa.

Train departure times will be adjusted between two and 22 minutes. The work on this stretch of track will continue until September 10. Additional work, and its associated affect on midday service, will be performed on another stretch of track on the Babylon Branch beginning with schedules that take effect September 13, 2010.

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Brooklyn:

During the overnight period, one of two tracks will be out of service for track work. This requires later departure and arrival times (up to 8 minutes later) for three overnight trains.

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Ronkonkoma Branch (east of Ronkonkoma):

The single track between Ronkonkoma and Greenport will be out of service midday on weekdays May 17-21 to accommodate a grade crossing modernization project at Horton’s Lane in Southold. While the work takes place, buses will replace two eastbound midday trains and two westbound midday trains.

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Port Jefferson Branch:

Some midday weekday trains will depart seven minutes earlier or three minutes later due to a track work program between Hicksville and Cold Spring Harbor.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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No LIRR Long Beach Service This Weekend

Posted by
on May 11th, 2010 at 1:24 pm

Setting the pre-cast concrete bridge deck panels at the Powell Creek.
Setting the pre-cast concrete bridge deck panels at the Powell Creek. Photo courtesy of the MTA Long Island Rail Road.

This has become a familiar theme for riders of the LIRR’s Long Beach line. Once again, the MTA Long Island Rail Road has announced that service will be suspended on the Long Beach line this weekend as they wrap up the construction of two new railroad bridges over Powell Creek and Hog Island Channel. Here are the complete details:

Buses will replace train service for Long Island Rail Road customers traveling between Long Beach and Valley Stream the weekend of Saturday, May 15 and Sunday, May 16 as work is completed on the construction of two new railroad bridges over Powell Creek and Hog Island Channel.

The $24.5 million project, which is funded through the MTA Capital Budget and federal grants, began in March and is wrapping up as planned in time to accommodate the weekend beach crowds expected in Long Beach beginning Memorial Day weekend.

So, for Long Beach branch customers this coming weekend, Saturday, May 15 and Sunday, May 16, service will be provided as follows:

Eastbound: Customers will transfer to buses at Valley Stream for stations Lynbrook through Long Beach. Customers should allow up to 34 minutes of additional travel time.

Westbound: Customers will board buses at stations Long Beach through Lynbrook bound for Valley Stream, where they will transfer to trains to complete their trip. Buses will depart up to 33 minutes earlier than scheduled train times.

“Our workers have been doing a remarkable job keeping this project on time despite some very adverse weather conditions, especially in March,” said LIRR President Helena E. Williams. “We are also grateful to our customers for their patience on the weekends when the work required us to suspend train service and substitute buses. The new bridges are part of the railroad’s ongoing efforts to modernize its infrastructure and ensure safe and reliable service for decades to come.”

Both the Powell Creek Bridge (located between the LIRR’s East Rockaway and Oceanside Stations) and the Hog Island Channel Bridge (located between Oceanside and Island Park Stations) were built in the 1920s, and have served the LIRR well for nearly 90 years.

The old Powell Creek and Hog Island Bridges are open-deck wooden and steel structures supported by wooden piles through which water is visible below. They were replaced with pre-cast concrete structures, supported by reinforced concrete-filled, steel pipe piles, which will provide safer, closed-deck concrete roadbeds.

The project will also alleviate a recurring flooding condition at Powell Creek Bridge, which has at times led to delays and temporary service suspensions, by raising the elevation of the bridge by approximately one foot. Bridge walkways will also be installed at both locations to make it safer for LIRR employees.

For those interested in seeing a video showing the LIRR Long Beach Branch bridge replacement work, click here.

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MTA LIRR/CooCoo Partnership Grows

Posted by
on May 11th, 2010 at 1:14 pm

In late January, I wrote a brief entry about a pilot partnership between the MTA Long Island Rail Road & the Long Island based text engine messaging company CooCoo. The partnership enabled LIRR riders to get travel information via text messages.

Fast forward to this past Monday where the LIRR announced a new phase to the partnership with CooCoo as riders will now be able to obtain fare information via text messaging. Here are the complete details from the press release I received yesterday:

MTA Long Island Rail Road customers can now obtain train fare information via cell phone text message from CooCoo, the Long Island-based text engine company that has been providing train schedules and service updates via cell phone at no extra cost beyond your phone company’s standard texting fee.

Since CooCoo debuted its LIRR travel information in January, some 50,000 unique users have tried the service with 77% coming back to use it again. Between 300 and 500 additional LIRR customers are discovering the convenience of CooCoo every day.

Texting your station-to-station request to 266266 (that spells CooCoo) gets you the train information you need – departure/arrival time, ticket prices and service updates – in seconds. The company estimates it will answer more than 1.8 million requests this year at the current rate of daily usage.

“We are excited about the innovative way CooCoo is getting LIRR travel information to the public and that it’s being done at no cost to the MTA,” said MTA Chairman and CEO Jay H. Walder. “The addition of ticket prices to this service is another positive step in an experiment that is promising to help us revolutionize the way mass transit data is provided in New York.”

Long Island Rail Road President Helena Williams said: “Customer response to CooCoo has been very encouraging. Our customers like the option of getting train and now fare information via cell phone. It’s very convenient and in the long run should help drive down our costs.”

CooCoo Co-Founder John Tunney said: “The fact that CooCoo is so user-friendly is why we’re getting such a high delight factor among LIRR customers. At CooCoo, our plan is to continue to introduce more innovative services for mass transit riders as time goes on.”

CooCoo is the latest in a series of enhanced LIRR customer communication efforts. Customers can also receive free, real-time customer E-Alerts by signing up at www.mta.info/lirr. For more information about CooCoo and its LIRR service go the MTA’s home page, www.mta.info/coocoo.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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MTA Chairman Opines On Union Work Rules

Posted by
on May 10th, 2010 at 1:33 pm

The battle between the MTA & unions (especially the TWU Local 100) is an editorial gift that keeps giving. The latest round continues to be about the pending layoffs the MTA says is necessary to help clean up an ever growing budget deficit. The battle lines are clear in this one as the MTA is focusing on cutting their deficit & unions like TWU Local 100 are about saving the jobs of their members.

Today’s edition of the New York Daily News has a report in which MTA Chairman Jay H. Walder opines on how union work rules are a “shame on the system”. Pete Donohue has more:

MTA chairman Jay Walder is bashing union work rules he says allow workers to play pool or read on the clock, calling them the “shame of the system.”

Rules embedded in labor contracts are hampering the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s efforts to increase efficiency – and save money, Walder told the Daily News.

“That has to change,” Walder said. “It might mean some of our bus drivers aren’t as good at playing pool as they are now, but we might have to bear that cost.”

Some bus depots have pool tables in crew rooms for drivers to use on their so-called swing shift, a period of time when drivers receive half-pay but aren’t behind the wheel.

A typical bus driver’s schedule can span 12 hours: driving a route for four hours during the morning rush and another four hours in the evening rush, the peak travel periods when service is most needed.

During the middle four hours – say, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – drivers don’t have any work-related duties but are still on the clock.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen bristled at Walder’s comments.

“Our bus operators are away from their families 13, 14 hours a day and are compensated for it,” Samuelsen said.

“The MTA has agreed to these terms for 50 years – and it’s fair. Jay Walder is doing the exact thing the MTA has accused the union of doing in the past: trying to negotiate a contract in the newspaper.”

Click here for the complete report.

Let me first start off by saying the MTA is showing how they have mastered hypocrisy with the venue chosen for Jay’s opinions. Look back throughout the long battle history of the MTA & unions, & one specific tactic usually was thrown at the unions. The tactic was the MTA accusing the union of trying to negotiate their points through the media. Yet, this is exactly what Jay is doing.

I read the comments left to this article & some are your typical anti-union idiocy. Our region seems to have plenty of people who think driving a bus for instance is so easy, a caveman could do it. They choose to completely ignore how hard driving a bus is along with the big safety risks that face drivers daily. According to these “experts”, any person off the street could drive a bus & they should not get paid much to do so.

Are there some changes that should be looked into? Yes, I would be the first to say that some changes should be adapted in terms of rules in place for workers. However everything is not as cut & dry as the MTA & uninformed riding public have you believe. Instead of dishing out the reality of how complex things are, they revert to the typical bash the enemy routine. What does the MTA have to lose in doing that? They have a majority of the riding public supporting the idiocy that most transit workers are lazy & overpaid.

Why doesn’t the MTA take this same hard line stance with the levels of redundant management positions & the waste that goes on there? Why do they continue to always try & paint most of their problems on the blue-collar workforce? If they took this same intensity towards cutting wasteful management positions, cutting out waste & budget overruns with projects, getting better deals on products & services, etc…, their budget woes would be severely lower.

So Jay, instead of attacking the workers “pool skills”, focus on all of the real issues within your control at the MTA instead of cherry picking the ones that best protect your type & subsequent peers underneath you. Is that too much to ask for?

xoxo Transit Blogger

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MTA Station Agent Update

Posted by
on May 9th, 2010 at 9:56 pm

As you know by now, the MTA had planned to layoff hundreds of station token booth clerks due to their huge budget deficit. The first round of cuts were to have started this past Wednesday, but a judge issued a temporary restraining order against the MTA closing the booths. Yesterday evening, the MTA issued a brief press release to give an update on the situation. Here is the press release I received:

Budget Shortfall Requires Layoff of Station Agents

The MTA’s nearly $800 million budget shortfall for 2010 has forced us to make difficult choices to reduce costs, including laying off more than 450 subway station agents. The station agents are employed at subway booths that have been approved for closing and at other locations in the system.

A temporary restraining order issued by a court Wednesday night put the MTA’s closure of the 42 subway booths on hold for now. In light of the order, the MTA is refraining from laying off the employees needed to staff those booths while the litigation proceeds.

More than 250 of the station agents, however, are not required to keep those subway booths open, and those layoffs are now scheduled for next week to ensure that we achieve the maximum savings possible in light of the MTA’s budget shortfall.

I will continue to report on this as the situation develops.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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