What to Know
- A new poll has found LIRR riders are deeply unsatisfied with the transit service
- The comptroller of Nassau County George Maragos threatened to delay a $28 million payment to the MTA until it reveals a plan for improvement
- The MTA, which runs the LIRR, defended service and said it has invested billions of dollars to transform the railroad
A newly released poll of Long Island Rail Road commuters found that a considerable majority are dissatisfied not only with overall service, but with on-time train performance, overcrowded conditions and the cleanliness of train cars.
In results released Wednesday by the Nassau County Comptroller’s Office, only 35 percent of riders said they were satisfied with LIRR service. The results vary significantly from the LIRR’s own internal survey released last year, which found 84 percent of commuters were satisfied with overall service.
Comptroller George Maragos announced he will delay the county’s $28 million station maintenance payment to the MTA, which runs the LIRR, until the agency provides a plan for improvement.
“Management is only deceiving itself with their internal polling which appears to be as unreliable as the service being provided,” Maragos said in a statement. (Maragos is currently running in a Democratic primary for county executive.)
LIRR riders have faced delays, sometimes hours long, caused by track issues, power problems and derailments in Penn Station and in the tunnels leading to it.
MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan defended its service in a statement provided to NBC 4 New York, saying the agency has made "an unprecedented investment of billions of dollars to transform the LIRR into a 21st Century railroad."
Local
Donovan also said that in July the LIRR had its best month of on-time performance all year, a feat it credited to "the robust and successful measures taken to mitigate the impacts of Amtrak’s summer repair work at Penn Station."
"Comptroller Maragos should set aside his grandstanding," Donovan said, adding that Nassau County can't by law withhold funds to the MTA.
"[Maragos] would be hurting his own constituents and be a part of the problem, not the solution, if he withheld critically needed funding from the LIRR," Donovan said.
The new poll surveyed LIRR riders in Nassau County and found: 65 percent of riders are unsatisfied; 64 percent think on-time train performance is poor; 55 percent think trains are overcrowded; 54 percent find the announcements on platforms to be poor; and 54 percent say that trains are unclean.
The survey was conducted between July 17 and August 6 of this year by interviewing LIRR riders online and in-person at stations in Floral Park, Garden City, Great Neck, Merrick, Mineola, Stewart Manor and Rockville Centre. It had a sample size of 380 and a margin of error of ±5 percent. Riders ranked LIRR service on the basis of “very satisfied,” “satisfied,” “average,” “unsatisfied” or “very unsatisfied.”
Among the specific complaints riders had were that older stations are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and that ticket prices are high compared to the service provided.
Earlier this summer, some LIRR riders said they were filing a class action lawsuit alleging emotional distress and negligence. The plaintiffs said they're seeking unspecified damages along with reimbursement of monthly LIRR passes for the month of May.
Speaking to a meeting of the Long Island Association last month, Gov. Cuomo said $5.6 billion in upgrades will transform the LIRR and help make up for decades of neglect. The work will involve laying 10 miles of new track to ease congestion along the busiest part of the rail road, along with the replacement of 20 miles of aging track. Stations will be renovated, parking will be added and signal switches and other equipment will be upgraded.
Transit in and around New York City has been plagued by a series of recent derailments, delays and breakdowns, prompting Cuomo to warn of a "summer of hell" for commuters. He has since eased off of that prediction, with repairs at Penn Station ahead of schedule and set to be completed by Sept. 5.
More than a half million people pass through Penn Station daily on New York City subways and trains run by Amtrak, NJ Transit and the LIRR.
The station, which is owned by Amtrak, is undergoing accelerated repair work to replace several thousand feet of track, switches and other aging infrastructure. The speedup was prompted by two derailments in the station during the spring that wreaked havoc on rail service.
On Wednesday morning, a non-passenger New Jersey Transit train derailed at Penn Station. No one was hurt and service was running on or close to schedule for the morning rush.
