LIRR ridership rebounds 17% in first 6 months, outpacing other transit

Customers are returning to the Long Island Rail Road, with ridership up 17% in the first half of 2024 compared with the same period last year and expected to climb even higher now that the summer is unofficially over, the LIRR’s president said.

Though still below pre-pandemic levels, MTA officials and experts attributed the railroad’s recovery to the increased capacity and service that came with the completion of two major capacity-expansion projects, the Third Track in Nassau County, and the LIRR’s new Manhattan terminal, Grand Central Madison.

The 35.8 million passengers transported by the LIRR in the first half of 2024 was well ahead of its forecasts and about 80% of the total for the first half of 2019 — a year in which the railroad went on to set a modern annual ridership record.

The recovery of the LIRR, whose ridership plummeted to just 3% of 2019 levels at the height of the pandemic, is outpacing all Metropolitan Transportation Authority agencies, including New York City subways, which are around 70% of pre-COVID levels. Metro-North has recovered about 76% of its riders, according to MTA statistics.

LIRR President Robert Free said the railroad’s numbers remained strong even through the summer months, when ridership tends to dip. The 271,784 customers carried by the LIRR on June 25 was the most for any day since the start of the pandemic in 2020. For the month of June, LIRR ridership reached 83% of pre-COVID levels.

Free added that the LIRR has "high expectations" for ridership going forward, especially post-Labor Day.

"We expect ridership to increase. Teachers are coming back. We’re hearing of return to work mandates at businesses," Free said in an interview at Penn Station Tuesday, when the LIRR moved 263,763 people during the morning rush hour.

While the MTA continues its push to return to pre-COVID ridership levels, some commuters fear a return to the crowded conditions that were the norm.

After being "quiet over the summer," Ronkonkoma commuter Allen Wone said his Tuesday evening train was standing-room-only by the time it got to Jamaica.

"Yesterday was crowded — more crowded than in a long time," Wone said Wednesday. "Yesterday was like pre-COVID."

The LIRR’s recovery is already well ahead of the projections of a consultant hired by the MTA in 2022 to analyze the pandemic’s impact on the transit authority. The consultant, McKinsey & Co., predicted that the number of paying LIRR riders would be around 70% of pre-COVID levels by now.

Meanwhile, city buses and subways are well below the consultant’s projections, due in part to a high rate of fare evasion, MTA officials have said.

Although the MTA has said it may take until 2035 to get back all the riders it lost during the pandemic, Christopher Jones, a senior research fellow at the Regional Plan Association, expects it could happen "considerably before" then, driven in part by new customers discovering the railroad.

"The Long Island Rail Road is the only one of the transit services that has added major new services in the last few years. They opened up Grand Central Madison, which significantly shortened commute times for a number of Long Island residents," Jones said in an interview Wednesday. "And also the Third Track, the Main Line improvements, have allowed for a lot of increased service in the reverse direction from New York City to Long Island, and also intra-island commutes."

The railroad’s largest ridership growth has come outside of the traditional rush hour commuters. Through July, the number of off-peak and weekend riders have surpassed that in 2019 for 11 consecutive months, LIRR officials said.

Helping the railroad’s off-peak numbers were 67 more events and major concert and sporting venues served by the railroad in the first half of 2024 as compared to the same period last year, according to LIRR stats.

The LIRR’s continued ridership growth comes as Manhattan office occupancy rates remain about 35% below pre-COVID levels, according to the New York State Comptroller’s office.

Lisa Daglian, executive director of the MTA’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, which includes the LIRR Commuter Council, said the numbers "highlight the trend toward traveling [on the railroad] because you want to, not because you have to."

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.