More seats coming to Grand Central Madison for LIRR riders, MTA says

The MTA will add more seating for Long Island Rail Road customers at Grand Central Madison, the agency’s chairman said Wednesday following reports that riders still craved more spots to take a load off.

Janno Lieber made the announcement at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s monthly board meeting, where he noted the popularity of the transit hub's first seating area recently constructed at one of eight stairway and escalator landings linking to Grand Central Madison’s track levels.

Newsday reported last week that even with the 28 new seats, LIRR riders have said more seating in the station’s mezzanine level is needed.

Lieber said he "read Newsday and it inspired me tremendously." He said the MTA was also "learning from [the] success" of the new seating area, which opened near the escalators below 47th Street on Oct. 18.

"All of a sudden, people are very happy to take advantage [of the new seats.] And we’re going to actually expand that seating to other areas in the mezzanine," Lieber said.

The MTA is "looking at the other areas where the escalators land" to add new seats, according to Lieber. He didn't offer specifics about how many new seats would be put in, when they'd be installed, and how much they would cost the agency.

Lieber said the station was designed with the anticipation that customers looking to get off their feet would do so at the concourse-level seating area, which is separated from the mezzanine by the longest escalators in the MTA system. But "that has not proved out to be the case," he acknowledged.

"People seem to like to get much closer to the train while they're waiting," Lieber said.

Gerard Bringmann, chairman of the LIRR Commuter Council, a rider advocacy group, agreed that the 29-seat waiting room on the upstairs level, adjacent to the ticket office, "is really not that convenient" for customers looking to quickly get to their seat on the train.

"I think it's great that they're adding more seating at the mezzanine level," said Bringmann, who believes there's plenty of space in the 700,000-square-foot facility for more seats. "The complex is so huge down there."

Grand Central Madison opened in February 2023, following nearly two decades of planning and construction. Lieber said around 40% of the LIRR's Manhattan commuters now use the station.

The scarcity of seating in the station, which is used by about 80,000 riders daily, has led some commuters and experts to assume that station designers aimed to prevent homeless people from loitering at the station. Riders have similarly complained about insufficient seating at Penn Station and the adjacent Moynihan Train Hall.

Asked about that perception, Lieber said he would not speculate on planners' intentions, but noted that he "inherited" the design of Grand Central Madison when he took over the East Side Access project as the MTA's development chief in 2017.

But Lieber noted that as a commuter railroad station, Grand Central Madison is "generally not a seating-intensive environment," because riders' waits are typically short. 

Syosset commuter Meri Baker, who uses Grand Central Madison daily, said adding more seating areas "would be a great idea," even though the benches that were recently installed "aren't very comfortable."

"It beats sitting on the floor," Baker, 44, said.

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.