Long Island Rail Road President Rob Free said the transit agency is in the process of acquiring land at the Port Washington Station to establish a third track, which would bolster service that commuters say was lost with the opening of Grand Central Madison.
“We’ve met with them and we’ve explained to them what our intentions are and to show that this would benefit the community,” Free said at a media roundtable Thursday with local news outlets.
The Town of North Hempstead and the Long Island Rail Road entered into a memorandum of understanding in July that started the process for the railroad to acquire space at the station for the third track. The town’s vote to enter the agreement was unanimous.
Metropolitan Transit Authority CEO Janno Lieber described the memorandum as the first step in the process of acquiring the land. Free said it also permits the Long Island Rail Road to conduct studies on the land’s use.
“Once we know that we have the real estate, that’s when we can start to design the yard expansion if and when we get the real estate,” Lieber said.
Free said the memorandum was something the Long Island Rail Road was “very excited” about after he estimated what was 15 years of work building up to this.
Free said there are about 4 ½ miles of single track between Port Washington and Great Neck. He said this limits the number of trains that can be run back and forth and turned around on the tracks.
The land under discussion to be acquired by the Long Island Rail Road would serve as yard capacity at the Port Washington station to provide extra service and store additional trains overnight. He estimated that at least two more trains could be stored in this yard overnight.
“So what we’re seeing now is very limited ability to increase service on the Port Washington Branch,” Free said.
Free said the original plan was for the third track to be established before East Side Access to bring the LIRR to Grand Central Station was opened, but an agreement could not be reached.
Residents have also complained about crowded trains, but Free said this is not exactly the reality.
Free said ridership “exploded” with the introduction of East Side Access. Compared to the prior year, ridership increased by 16.9%.
Ridership overall on the Long Island Rail Road has grown since drops during the pandemic. Lieber said it has grown to 80% of pre-pandemic levels.
In August, Free said more than 20,000 trains operated during weekdays. He said 0.35% of those trains were crowded, or had reached more than 90% capacity.
As for rush hour trains, Free said 0.007% of those trains were classified as crowded. He said this amounted to 45 trains out of 6,600.
Free said the additional track at the Port Washington Branch would help bring these numbers down even further.
“So we’ve done an incredible job mitigating that throughout the system, and this advancement of this project would drastically help service on the Port Washington Branch, which has some of the best service in our operation already,” Free said.
The transit authority will be releasing its 2025-2029 capital plan in the coming week, Lieber said, which would include projects and plans that the Metropolitan Transit Authority has for the next five years.