LIRR to increase service to Penn Station, add more direct Brooklyn trains 

The Long Island Rail Road will increase service to Penn Station and add more direct trains to Brooklyn in September after the opening of Grand Central Madison nearly five months ago upended travel routines for many passengers.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has announced service adjustments that will start Sept. 5, following complaints from riders inconvenienced by operating changes rolled out after the $11.1 billion East Side Access project was completed.

The MTA will redirect some trains now traveling to and from Grand Central Madison to Penn Station instead, including in the late evening for customers attending sporting events and concerts, officials said.

The morning rush will include more direct trains to Brooklyn from Far Rockaway, Long Beach, Hempstead and Huntington stations, as well as more express service between Jamaica and Penn Station.

The new schedule also will create more morning express service on the Huntington and Ronkonkoma branches. All but four morning peak Ronkonkoma trains will operate as express trips to Jamaica from either Hicksville or Bethpage and two trains from Huntington will operate as express trips from Syosset or Hicksville, according to the MTA.

There also will be two new morning rush hour trains originating from Hicksville and Westbury. 

The MTA is “responding to many of the concerns that we have been hearing consistently from our customers," LIRR interim president and Metro-North Railroad president Catherine Rinaldi said in a statement.

The new fall schedule is based on customer input, ridership data and observations, according to the transportation official.

"We have made many adjustments to our schedules since GCM service was launched in February to best accommodate ridership patterns we were seeing as quickly as possible,” Rinaldi's statement added.

Overhauled operations necessary to accommodate added service to the new terminal on Manhattan's East Side initially included removing several Penn Station trains from the schedule and operating the Brooklyn line as a shuttle service from a dedicated platform at Jamaica station.

Several commuter advocates and transportation experts previously told Newsday they had warned the agency during public hearings last summer that the planned schedules were problematic.

Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said the new changes will be a step in the right direction after many commutes were hampered.

“It’s a restoration of some of the loss that we've seen,” Daglian said. “This is what you want to see from the railroad … listening to its customers, being responsive, especially as we know that fares are going to go up and as we are a year away from congestion pricing.”

But Charlton D’souza, president and founder of advocacy group Passengers United, said it was premature to applaud the changes.

"We are going to wait for actual schedules to be released before we are actually pleased with any announcements," D’souza said.

With Alfonso Castillo