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Officials call for improved mass transit on East End
Improved rail service on the East End will be the topic of an upcoming meeting between town and village officials and representatives from the Long Island Rail Road, according to South Fork Assemblyman Fred Thiele.
The meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. July 8 at Riverhead Town Hall and officials are hoping to put together a priority list of things they’d like to see from the LIRR, Mr. Thiele said.
That list is likely to include a call to restore year-round weekend service on the North Fork, which was cut in 2010 and never restored, and bringing back the rail shuttle service that was used on the South Fork when County Road 39 was being widened, Mr. Thiele said.
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Mr. Tillman suggested that old rail stations like Calverton be reopened, so people going to businesses like Tanger Outlets, Splish Splash and the Long Island Aquarium could arrive by rail. Businesses could then provide a shuttle.
He said people could take a train to Greenport, and then have a shuttle to the Orient ferry for a trip to Connecticut casinos.
Mr. Thiele said another goal is to enact the recommendations of the state-funded Volpe study from 2009, which called for setting up a system of shuttle trains on the East End tracks that would coordinate with a network feeder buses to bring people to various places on the East End.
The state’s Capital Budget allocated $37.2 million for new “diesel multiple units,” often called “scoot trains.” The scoot trains were expected to ride back and forth on the LIRR main line between Ronkonkoma and Greenport in place of the passenger trains there now.
But earlier this year, MTA spokesman Sal Arena said in an interview that the scoot trains that were available for purchase weren’t compatible with the LIRR track system on the East End.
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As for the restoration of weekend service in the winter on the North Fork, Mr. Arena said in February: “Ridership on weekend Greenport trains is historically very light in the off-season, generally less than 30 people per train. Given the high cost of operating this service and the low utilization, there are no plans at present to restore weekend service to Greenport between December and May.”
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LIRR customers no longer have to wait until summer to take a ride to Greenport. MTA Long Island Rail Road President Patrick A. Nowakowski announced that the LIRR plans to provide weekend service to Greenport on a year-round basis.
Weekend service to Greenport, the seaside village and popular summer and fall destination on Suffolk County's North Fork, was scheduled to end after the Thanksgiving Weekend.
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"One improvement we can make immediately for the North Fork is to extend weekend service from Ronkonkoma to Greenport to year-round," said Nowakowski. "We have in fact included that extra service in the Railroad's July financial plan."
Nowakowski added that the LIRR was "looking forward to continuing the discussion with our East End partners and we are optimistic that we can come up with additional enhancements to improve our service "
Riverduckexpress wrote:It's nice to see the LIRR doing something to improve East End service, but if this is just going to be the same old schedule of 2 round trips a day that's literally impossible for people living on the North Fork to use to go to NYC, why bother?
hrfcarl wrote:Riverduckexpress wrote:It's nice to see the LIRR doing something to improve East End service, but if this is just going to be the same old schedule of 2 round trips a day that's literally impossible for people living on the North Fork to use to go to NYC, why bother?
Out of curiosity, how many round trips could a Greenport scoot make with current equipment, tracks and signals?
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