Commuter Rails Could Help Outer Boroughs Escape Subways: Stringer

NEW YORK — Many outer-borough straphangers could cut their travel time in half by riding New York City's commuter railroads — if only they could afford them, a new report shows. That's why the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad should cost the same as a MetroCard swipe for trips within the city, Comptroller Scott Stringer said Tuesday.

Cutting the railroads' fares and integrating them into the city's subway and bus network could make transportation more accessible for the nearly 1.4 million people in Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx while reducing crowding in the already ailing subway system, the comptroller's office argues in its report.

Such a scheme would only cost the Metropolitan Transportation Authority about $50 million a year to implement, a paltry price compared to the cost of building new stations and tunnels, the report says.

"New Yorkers shouldn’t be held hostage by the MTA to get home to their families, and they shouldn’t have to spend extra hours crammed on the subway and bus to make ends meet," Stringer, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Affordable Metro-North and LIRR service would give New Yorkers more time with their family and friends, cut congestion on our streets and in our subways, and expand economic accessibility for hundreds of thousands of people."

Some 31 outer-borough neighborhoods that are home to more than 1.3 million people host 38 LIRR and Metro-North stations, according to Stringer's office. Eighteen of those stops sit in 13 Bronx and Queens neighborhoods beyond the subway's reach where more than 451,000 people live, 82 percent of them people of color and 41 percent foreign-born, the comptroller's report says.

The suburban railroads could transform those New Yorkers' commutes. A trip from Queens Village to Penn Station takes just 35 minutes on the LIRR but 80 minutes by subway and bus, the report says. Similarly, the Metro-North can get one from Riverdale in The Bronx to Grand Central Terminal in just half an hour — a trek that takes three times as long by subway and bus, the comptroller's office found.

But many working New Yorkers are "stuck behind an unacceptable paywall" built by the railroads' high prices, Stringer said — rush-hour one-way tickets into central Manhattan cost more than triple the subway fare at $9.25 for the Metro-North and $10.25 for the LIRR.

The MTA in June rolled out a pilot of its "Atlantic Ticket," a $60 weekly pass that covers trips between LIRR stops in Brooklyn and southeast Queens as well as an unlimited MetroCard. But the program doesn't offer discounts to Manhattan-bound commuters, Stringer's report noted.

Unlike the subways, the commuter rails have room to spare — the average LIRR train has 233 empty seats during the morning peak times and 282 empty seats for the evening peak, Stringer's report found.

But the trains skip local stations within the city nearly 80 percent of the time during the morning rush, the report says, leaving riders who might want to use them without much choice.

In addition to cutting intra-city fares and making more local stops, Stringer's report says the MTA should improve bus connections to commuter rail stops and make all the stations fully accessible.

Several upgrades are already in the works that would allow the MTA to create a more seamless train system, Stringer's office contends. For example, the long-delayed East Side Access project will soon improve LIRR capacity at Penn Station, new stations will be built for The Bronx and Queens, and a third track is being added to the LIRR's Main Line artery through Nassau County.

Such integration would require stronger coordination between the LIRR, Metro-North and New York City Transit, three sub-agencies that "for too long have operated in bureaucratic silos," the report says.

The MTA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the comptroller's report. But transit advocates praised his pitch, saying it pointed to how important a role the commuter rails could play in the city's transportation system.

"Frequent service, affordable fares, and connections to local buses would make commuter rail a real asset for city residents, not something that passes them by," Steven Higashide, the director of research at TransitCenter, said in a news release. "By making full use of its commuter rail stations, the MTA could take pressure off the crowded subways and give residents of Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn faster ways to get around."

(Lead image: A Long Island Rail Road is seen at a platform in Brooklyn in July 2014. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)