New seating at Grand Central Madison for LIRR riders draws focus to why there isn't more of it at transit hubs

The delay in adding seating for Long Island Rail Road riders at the mezzanine of Grand Central Madison could be the latest example of transportation providers deliberately forgoing customer comforts in order to dissuade homeless people from loitering at stations, experts say.

But the head of the MTA said it took 18 months to add the seating because the transit agency did not anticipate that so many LIRR riders would want more opportunities to get off their feet at the new station.

“We saw a need," Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Janno Lieber said at a Grand Central news conference Monday. "We put in some seating to deal with it."

The addition of 28 new seats at Grand Central Madison is the latest development drawing attention to the relative lack of seating at some new, and newly renovated, transit hubs serving Long Island commuters, including Penn Station and the adjacent Moynihan Train Hall.

Merrick commuter Kyle Bullock, sitting on one of the new aluminum benches at Grand Central Madison Monday afternoon, said he’s “really glad they’re here.” When he previously commuted into and out of Grand Central Madison, Bullock said, he’d have to “sit down on the floor and just wait” for his train.

“Or you stand and you suffer,” said Bullock, who believes the scarcity of seating at the LIRR’s new Manhattan terminal is by design. “I always assumed they were trying to keep the homeless away.”

Mitchell Moss, urban policy and planning professor at New York University, believes Bullock is on to something.

“The MTA realizes their goal is to attract riders, not homeless [people],” Moss said in an interview Thursday. “So not having benches is an effort to discourage the homeless, not necessarily to discourage riders. But that may be a secondary effect.”

Asked whether the addition of seats was driven by concerns over the homeless, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan, in a statement, said, “Everything we deliver, whether it's levels of service, or retail establishments, or seating, is something we review against demand."

A welcome addition

Donovan added that the addition of the seats came after the MTA observed riders regularly sitting on the floor at Grand Central's mezzanine level.

The new seating area, located near the escalators and stairs leading to the track levels under 47th Street, was a welcome sight for Allison Krieger, of Woodmere, who broke her foot about a month ago and was “very much” happy to be able to get off her feet while she waited for her train Monday.

“It’s a nice addition,” said Krieger, who previously would wait for her train at the station’s concourse level waiting room — a long escalator ride from the mezzanine level — because it had the only seating area in the station. “Then you’ve got to rush to get downstairs. So, better to sit here than upstairs.”

Addressing why the MTA waited a year and a half before adding mezzanine-level benches, Lieber suggested the transit authority was caught off guard by the demand for seating.

“We saw more people than we, in the planning process, anticipated, crowding around the entrance, the escalators, directly to the tracks,” said Lieber, adding that the new seats are "principally for people with mobility challenges.”
About 80,000 passengers travel through Grand Central Madison each day, roughly half the 162,000 riders the MTA had projected as recently as March 2020.

Asked whether the MTA would add more seats at Grand Central Madison, Lieber said the agency will “see how they're used and learn from it.” The new seating section is at only one of eight stairway/escalator landing areas leading to track levels.

Michael Smart, associate professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, said he believes the omission of sufficient seating in Grand Central Madison — which was designed and built over nearly two decades — was no oversight.

“It is 100% the case that the lack of seating in new facilities is because of the homeless,” said Smart, who has studied how transit agencies address homelessness in cities throughout the world. “The bosses of the designers of the station … when they look at that issue of balancing their passengers’ comfort and homeless folks using the space, they tilt immediately in the direction of providing no seating.”

The picture at Moynihan, Penn

The lack of seating is even more "egregious” at another new Manhattan transit facility, Smart said. Opened in 2021, the $1.2 billion Moynihan Train Hall, serving both Amtrak and LIRR trains, includes 225,000 square feet of space but very limited seating.

Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams pointed out in a statement that “there is seating available for customers” in Moynihan, included in a ticketed waiting area, the food hall, and the Metropolitan Lounge.

“Any additional opportunities to increase seating would have to go through Empire State Development,” the state agency that developed the facility, Abrams said.

Right next to Moynihan, the LIRR’s Penn Station concourse underwent a $700 million renovation, largely completed last year, that added far more standing room for passengers but not significantly more seating. There are two small waiting areas on the east and west ends of the station with some seating for passengers who show tickets.

“It's so obvious . . . what it’s about, and it’s such a disservice to existing riders,” said Smart, who noted that ticketed waiting rooms, like those at Moynihan, Grand Central Madison and Penn Station, are often far from where travelers usually congregate, near the gates heading to the tracks. “We all want to have a place to sit while we’re waiting for our train.”

While declining to speculate on the intent behind leaving abundant seating out of the design for modern transit hubs, David Giffen, executive director for the Coalition for the Homeless, said there is no shortage of examples in transit hubs of “hostile architecture” and restrictive regulations “aimed at deterring people that have nowhere else to go from being able to sit down and rest.” Among them: the 90-minute time limit on the use of Grand Central Madison’s new seats.

“It’s inhumane and insane,” Giffen said. “Transportation facilities are supposed to be for the public, and your status as a member of the public is not contingent on you having a home or not having a home.”

Rather than “creating spaces that are unfriendly to everybody," including commuters looking to take a load off, Giffen said, public planners should focus on “creating enough affordable housing” for New York City’s 350,000 residents without homes.

Moss, the NYU planner, said the city’s transit system is especially inviting to homeless people, particularly during cold weather. Their presence, Moss said, can contribute to perceptions of a dangerous climate for commuters.

“You don’t have to be the victim of a crime to feel that the stations are not safe,” Moss said. “The homeless and emotionally challenged people . . . reinforce the sense of uncertainty about safety. And that's why they are a serious problem.”

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.