The East Side Access Project Discussion (ESA)

Do you believe that anyone at MTA will look at any of the messages left for MTA about these chopped up schedules? As we've discussed, for many of us they are not usable, while the old full branch schedules worked.

They're samples, not final. And not every train is going to go to Penn.

Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Thu Jun 30, 2022 9:56 am They're samples, not final. And not every train is going to go to Penn.

The draft schedules are meant to be the basis for public comment, but it seems to me that MTA made it as hard to use them as possible to discourage any useful comments.

More likely they were formatted by somebody who is not a commuter and never had to read the schedules the way we do. In my career we were constantly victimized by people who had never done our job, writing procedures for us to follow and spec's for our equipment and they just didn't get it. And BTW, that was in county government employment.

Incompetence accounts for more problems than maliciousness.

In the 'info' session tonight, it was clear that MTA is proud of these totally useless schedule PDF's. They very much understand how they are setup. I would agree that MTA employs people who are clueless about commuting - even at high levels. One thing about former LIRR pres Phil Eng - he actually rode on the Port Jeff line - he was proud of that, and I knew which car on my train he rode on inbound. But these high priced bozos running the show, I wonder if any of them have ever commuted by train. They think it is clever to do it this way.

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/li ... rth-shore/

Gee, still no response from the self professed transit bloggers and pundits in the local papers? That "couseling" is sure paying dividends!

I listened to quite a few spoiled brat Gold Coasters plus a few people who would have more difficult commutes. The thing is, that they have long had far better service than many others on LIRR, and now, not so much. Also, the 'community' blocked LIRR from increasing yard capacity that they needed to handle extra trains. MTA has made it clear, both with Garden City and now Gold Coasters (both GC), that if you block them, expect retaliation.


In the meantime, diesel country riders still get scr-wed, especially reverse commuters. On the PJ line, I remember seeing gaps of multiple hours even, for instance, as Stony Brook students get out of class.

The fun thing I learned the other day; that these so called draft schedules are the actual schedules already locked in from opening at least until Spring 2023. Draft, not so much. So these hearings will change little, if anything at all.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as 'retaliation' but the stubbornness and unwillingness to allow any expansion does come with a price, and thats less benefit. Oh well.

Any status updates on this project? I've found it hard to find any.

Checking on East Side Access Publications | MTA it says "Updated May 3, 2021" and the most recent document in it is from 2019.

Checking on Newsroom – A Modern LI, the most recent entry is on June 25, 2021, and the most recent ESA page there is Governor Cuomo Announces Completion of Major Construction of East Side Access – A Modern LI dated May 28 of that year.

I then searched Press Releases | MTA and I searched with "Long Island Rail Road". I found some recent entries, but nothing earlier than them.

The oldest one:
ICYMI: Governor Hochul Announces New Long Island Rail Road Terminal in Midtown Manhattan Will Be Named Grand Central Madison - 2022 May 31
ICYMI: in case you missed it.

Yes, "Grand Central Madison", named after nearby Madison Avenue.

The next one:
Long Island Rail Road Publishes Draft Timetables Showing Service to Grand Central Madison, Offering Details on Largest Service Increase in LIRR History - 2022 Jun 2

Railroad Proposes to Add 274 Trains Per Weekday, Increasing Weekday Service 41% Systemwide
Rush Hour Service to Manhattan and Reverse-Peak Service to Long Island Would Both Enjoy Massive Gains
Train Frequency to Increase Dramatically, Especially on Main Line and in Brooklyn

Has LIRR hired enough new engineers to operate these new schedules? I suspect that they would already need to be in training to meet school length requirements? Of course maybe some will come from conductor ranks but what are conductor training times? How many more conductors.

Good question. BTW, other than maybe tiny changes, these are apparently the actual schedules they will go live with - they've said that the soonest they could change anything (regardless of them being described as drafts) would be spring 2023. IOTW, all these QA sessions that supposedly would be input to 'final schedules for the go live' but really were not. Newspaper reporting from them only covers the PW feud between the NIMBY's / riders and MTA. Oh, and reverse peak improvement appears to only be for electrified lines.

Most of the trains will be diverted from NYP to GCM

I don't think that's correct. It appears from the new schedule to be more of a 50/50 or maybe 60/40 split.

From what I'm hearing, service to Grand Central will commence on Monday December 5th, 2022