Islanders fans say UBS Arena plagued by traffic, transit woes

Katie Lake was fed up with fighting the snarling traffic on the drive from her Medford home to games at the Islanders' $1.1 billion arena at Belmont Park.

She tried the Long Island Rail Road, which stops a half-mile from UBS Arena, but she was often getting home too late because of the long lines for the shuttle to the station after games. She tried walking in hopes of catching an earlier train and avoiding a groggy morning at her job as a special-education teacher at East Northport Middle School.

“Honestly, it’s too much to get there,” said Lake, 50, a die-hard fan who often opts to stay at home now and watch the games on TV.

“By the time I get home after the [night] games … I couldn’t do it anymore,” she said. The former season-ticket holder said in February that she’d been to only four games this season.

Lake isn’t alone.

Newsday interviewed nearly two dozen fans, area residents and executives about the experience of attending Islanders games at privately funded UBS Arena, which opened in November 2021. While many fans say the arena itself is first-rate, the most common complaints are the hassle of getting there, whether by car or train, and the high cost of attending games. The team's early lackluster play didn't help.

In February, the Islanders informed season-ticket holders via email that prices for next season would be increasing by 11%, and that some would be losing access to the parking lots closest to the arena, according to multiple fans. 

These factors are chipping away at attendance. Through the team's first 28 home games this season, attendance dipped 4.7% since the arena's inaugural 2021-22 season.

The Islanders have lost four straight games after winning six in a row and are fighting for a playoff spot with 15 games remaining in the season. Despite the recent slump, the team has shown signs of improvement under its new coach, Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy, who was hired in January to jump-start the team.

Team and arena officials said they expect attendance to improve as the team makes a push for the playoffs, and fans said a winning team is key to a resurgence.

“I think if they keep winning, the attendance will revert back up,” said Ric Stark, 55, a season-ticket holder from Oceanside.

The Islanders lost seven straight games in November, which led to the team parting ways with Lane Lambert in favor of Roy.

“I think [Roy] is a huge shot in the arm,” said Tim Leiweke, CEO of Oak View Group, which oversaw construction and is part of the UBS Arena ownership group. “I think he wants to win and he’s going to put some juice in the building.”

Rick Kern, a 58-year-old season-ticket holder from Roslyn Heights, agrees.

“It’s really about the team winning,” Kern said. “Over the years, it’s been the same story — when the team is doing really well, people come to games.”

'Bumps in the road'

UBS Arena sits next to the Cross Island Parkway and Hempstead Turnpike in Elmont, about 2 miles north of where the Southern State and Belt parkways merge and 3 miles south of the Grand Central Parkway.

On a recent rainy Saturday evening, traffic heading south on the Cross Island Parkway was at a near standstill 40 minutes before game time — the final few miles taking nearly 30 minutes as drivers converged on Exit 26D and the Emerald Lot.

“Driving was ridiculous,” Lake said. “It was just too much.”

The area around the arena is still being developed, which is impacting travel. A 415,000-square-foot retail village south of Hempstead Turnpike is scheduled to open this summer and will at least temporarily make parking worse for Islanders fans. The Belmont Park racetrack is undergoing a $455 million renovation and is set to reopen in 2026.

Leiweke said some travel issues were expected because of the arena's location.

“This has always been a 10-year vision,” Leiweke said. “There will be a lot of bumps in the road as we go through other aspects of the campus. We’re always going to have to be nimble as to how we’re getting people in and out of the campus. But, overall, we’re somewhat subject to the transportation and the infrastructure that’s around us. We can’t reinvent the turnpike.”

The arena's location, what was then the lack of a serviceable LIRR station, the tight construction timeline and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic created early challenges, Leiweke said. They have, though, taken steps to remedy some of the problems, including expanded LIRR service and the building of the Belmont Park Garage across the street from the arena, which expanded parking options and curbed some of the bottlenecking while exiting the arena's biggest lot.

Future development of the area “is a very large economic positive for Long Island and New York,” Leiweke said, adding that construction of the new racetrack “creates some additional opportunity for development and parking. That’s going to be a work in progress.”

In addition to Islanders games, the arena has hosted concerts, college basketball games, pro wrestling, mixed martial arts and monster truck events.

“Overall, UBS has been an amazing success story,” Leiweke said. “We built it in the middle of COVID, so that created a lot of issues. Obviously, our transportation plan that we would have hoped would be ready to go the day we opened the arena was delayed, so it required patience.”

For many Islanders fans, that patience is wearing thin.

Parking getting worse

Bruce Temple’s season-ticket plan for next season was set to go up to $11,880, from $10,560, an increase of $1,320. But that increase isn't why he decided to cancel his plan.

The deal breaker was losing his ability to buy a spot in the Belmont Park Garage, where he’d been able to park his car for two of UBS Arena’s three seasons, he said. He was told his parking spot will be used by those shopping in the retail village.

Using the Emerald Lot — where many fans are forced to park — is a no-go for Temple, who is 67 and doesn’t want the headache of regularly waiting for a shuttle in inclement weather. The half-mile walk to the lot isn’t an option for him, either. One of the reasons he upgraded from a partial plan to a full one two years ago was the promise of parking in the garage.

“I’ve about had it with [the Islanders],” said Temple, a retired teacher from New Hyde Park. “It’s ridiculous, and I think what makes it more ridiculous is the fact that the way they built the arena and where they built it is terrible.”

Andrew Ford, 54, of Bethpage, canceled his plan after three years as a season-ticket holder when he heard that he, like Temple, would lose his opportunity to purchase garage parking.

“I don’t think the Islanders appreciated how big of a deal it was,” Ford said. “I told them if I don’t have the option of taking the garage, I’m just going to pick and choose my games because there’s really no benefit to being a season-ticket holder.”

There are five parking lots at the arena, with 5,500 total spots, according to Ticketmaster, although the Islanders would not confirm that number. The arena seats more than 17,000 fans.

The four closest parking lots — Diamond, Ruby, Silver and the garage — are available for purchase only as part of season-ticket packages, though some spots can be purchased on the secondary market. A parking spot in the Belmont Park Garage for the April 2 game against Chicago costs $58.41 with fees on Ticketmaster. A spot in the garage for the April 9 game against the Rangers costs $91.60 on Ticketmaster.

The garage, built by Ronkonkoma-based construction company Aurora Contractors, has six levels and more than 1,450 parking spots, according to the Aurora website. 

Season-ticket holders will retain the option to buy parking spots in the Emerald Lot, but access to the closest lots will be determined by tenure and seating locations. The number of parking garage spots lost has yet to be determined and may even vary from game to game, an arena source said.

Asked about the loss of Belmont Park Garage spots and change to season-ticket prices, Islanders director of communications Jay Beberman wrote: “The 430 acres at Belmont Park are undergoing a multiyear, [circa] $2.5 billion investment including UBS Arena, Belmont Park Village, the new state-of-the-art Belmont Park Grandstand and equine facilities, and the first new LIRR station in 50 years. These together will make Belmont Park a remarkable destination, for which transport and parking infrastructure will continue to evolve.”

A representative of Sterling Project Development, which is in charge of the retail village, confirmed the shopping center will be serviced by “existing parking opportunities across the Belmont Park master plan.”

But even those retaining garage privileges, such as Plainview's Matthew Moskowitz, aren't happy. “I like to be treated right,” he said. The franchise should “reassure fans. Don't put your thumb on their throat.”

Community impact

A 2018 environmental impact study on the project predicted traffic as the greatest concern, stating that the project “would not have the potential to result in significant adverse cumulative impacts [on the environment] other than in the area of transportation.”

Bob Barker, a community leader from Elmont, said the situation has improved, but that problems remain and could get worse as the area develops.

“I have to stress that we welcome the arena,” said Barker, who is president of the Locustwood/Gotham Civic Association. “[But] we have to make changes that [positively] impact the community. … My wife came from work one night and got off at the exit [near UBS] and it took her almost 45 minutes to get from there to the two blocks” home.

Ross McDonald, 69, who lives about a mile from the arena, said parking on local streets is a problem, requiring residents to file for a new parking permit every year.

“We’re forced to apply every year to park in front of our houses or face fines of $250,” McDonald said. “You still have people and Islanders fans park in front of Elmont houses and so-called restricted zones about four blocks deep. That’s the major headache as homeowners we’re faced with.”

'Obnoxiously expensive'

Capacity for hockey at UBS Arena is 17,255. The Islanders were averaging 16,286 fans per game through the first 28 games this season, according to NHL attendance figures obtained by Newsday.

That’s 799 fewer fans per game, compared with the first season at UBS Arena in 2021-22, and 425 fewer per game than last year, according to NHL sources. (The league does not publicly disclose yearlong averages.)

The Islanders are one of only a handful of NHL teams to see a decline in attendance in what has otherwise been a bullish year for the league.

Islanders fans are also predictably paying more to go to games, compared with the team’s days at Nassau Coliseum.

Tickets purchased on the secondary market ranged from $21 for a game against the Seattle Kraken in February to more than $400 for a game against the Rangers in March.

Season-ticket packages this year range from $25 per seat in the upper bowl over 44 games (41 regular season and 3 preseason) to an average of $326.43 per seat in the Verizon Club; parking is an additional cost for every tier below Verizon.

The average cost of attending an Islanders game for a family of four is $445.84, according to the 2021-22 NHL Fan Cost Index, which is published by Team Marketing Report, a Chicago-based sports business firm. That figure is below the league average of $462.58 and ranks 16th in the 32-team league, but is a 15.7% jump from average prices in the team's last year at the Coliseum, where tickets, parking and concessions were more affordable.

UBS Arena is “a state-of-the art building that Islanders fans have been waiting for forever,” said Bill Huber, 45, a fan from Port Jefferson. “But it’s obnoxiously expensive.”

Leiweke was empathetic but noted the pricing should be taken in context.

“When you consider that we spent $1 billion to privatize the building, and we’re in New York where the cost of living and the cost of business is higher, I applaud [the Islanders for being] in the lower half of the NHL” in cost, he said. “Are we perfect? No. I get how expensive it is to go out to a live event … We’re trying to pay down the debt [for building the arena], pay back to the state … It’s a balance. I think we do a pretty good job.”

But it makes sense that fans are balking, said Robert Boland, law professor at Seton Hall, where he concentrates on gaming, hospitality entertainment and sports law.

“For as beautiful an arena [as] it is, it’s suffering from similar problems as [Newark's] Prudential Center in that it’s in neither place. It’s not really in Long Island and not really in New York City. It’s on the border ... and not near a transportation hub,” he said. “We haven’t seen drops in other stadium openings [in other states], but there’s a tendency in New York to see some displacement of fans …

“At Citi Field, Yankee Stadium and certainly in the MetLife renovation, the people who have been significant fans who are price-conscious have been priced out. And for the Islanders, it’s price in addition to geography. Potentially, if the team was in a championship or regular-season best record, I’m not sure location or cost would be an issue. But add those three, it adds to sensitivity.”

Train to the game

Like the Emerald Lot, the Elmont-UBS Arena LIRR station is about a half-mile away, and fans can then either walk or take a free shuttle to the arena. Fans exiting the train, though, can get stuck showing their fare tickets as they exit, Temple said, and are moved to an unsheltered area to wait for shuttles.

“There are long lines and the weather is sometimes crazy,” said Craig Dixon, 38, a fan from Lynbrook. “That’s bad, especially if you have kids.”

For fans traveling from the city, a peak ticket (weekdays from 4 to 8 p.m.) from Penn Station to UBS Arena costs $13. An off-peak return ticket is $9.75. A ticket from Ronkonkoma to the UBS Arena station is $8 in both directions and is not subject to peak fares.

There have been improvements to the train service. Originally, only westbound trains went to the Elmont station, but eastbound service was introduced in November 2022; additionally, LIRR trains now run from Grand Central Madison — not just Penn Station.

Tom McGuire, 31, a West Islip native who lives in Manhattan and usually takes the train to games, said travel “got much smoother [recently], but there's already that reputation of it being difficult to get to because of how year one went.”

After having season tickets for the first two years, McGuire didn’t renew his package.

“It definitely soured me,” he said. “The first year [at UBS], I went to 30 games and the same with the second year, but I couldn’t keep doing it anymore. Fun stuff shouldn’t be burning you out.”

David Gross, 42, of East Meadow, began using the LIRR last year and has been buoyed by recent improvements.

“You step off the platform and 99 times out of 100, there’s a bus waiting for you and two minutes later, you’re walking into the arena,” he said. “It’s incredibly easy to the point where I’ve become annoyingly preachy to people who go to the games because I think it’s overlooked.”

John Collins, operating partner for the Islanders and UBS Arena, is encouraged by the LIRR usage, saying that around 20% to 30% of fans were taking the train this year. A spokesman for the MTA could not confirm ridership numbers.

“It’s clearly the easiest way to get in and out,” Collins said. “I think there’s a lot of great things that have happened, and I think that situation is getting better.”

Long road to 'world class'

The Islanders tried for years to have a new arena built on the site of the Nassau Coliseum. Former owner Charles Wang moved the team in 2015 to Brooklyn, where it played for parts of five seasons, sometimes splitting home games between Barclays Center and the dated Coliseum.

In 2017, then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that a development team led by the Islanders won the bid to develop the state-owned land at Belmont Park. The proposal called for $1 billion in private funds to build a state-of-the-art arena as the centerpiece of a sports and entertainment destination.

The Belmont Park site presented challenges because of its location in a mostly residential area and sparked opposition from local groups. Despite those challenges, the arena opened to rave reviews, with Daniel Atamanchuk, 35, a season-ticket holder originally from Smithtown, calling it “absolutely world class.”  

Floral Park's Matthew Bernstein, 31, whose family has had season tickets for 51 years, said: “I’ve had a really great experience so far. It was never going to be the Coliseum, which I would obviously prefer forever.”

With Andrew Gross and John Asbury

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.