Because the LIRR isn't packed enough now

From Crain's:

The city’s Department of Transportation is studying ways to get more New Yorkers to use commuter rail lines and take pressure off of the beleaguered subway system, public documents show.

The department has tapped engineering firm AECOM to look at potential changes that would boost ridership on Long Island Rail Road and Metro North lines running within the five boroughs.

Reducing fares within city limits, for example, would entice more residents to use commuter rails like the subway system and connect more neighborhoods to transit hubs like Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station in Manhattan, Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn and Jamaica and Woodside stations in Queens.

“AECOM is under contract to … investigate service and policy strategies for the city zone of the commuter rail network to connect residents to more frequent and affordable regional rail service, and potentially reduce crowding on nearby subway lines,” a spokesman for the department said in a statement.

In particular, the de Blasio administration has floated the idea of running trains more frequently between Atlantic Terminal and Jamaica Station so Queens commuters could then transfer to a number of subway lines at the Brooklyn hub.

The agency and the Economic Development Corp. are jointly spending around $787,000 on the study, which began in January and will end in October.

The City really seems to like AECOM. First they hired them for Liz Crowley's dopey light rail proposal, now this.

The commuter lines will not take Metrocards and the people who ride commuter rail lines won't stand for more crowding.

Waste. Of. Time. And. Money.

Transit infrastructure can't keep up with population

From the Daily News:

New projections show the New York region’s population should reach 20.5 million people by 2020, further taxing the region’s already overcrowded and cash-strapped subway, bus and train systems.

The projections — calculated by the mapping service ESRI for The Associated Press — estimate the region is growing at a clip of almost 100,000 people annually. Long Island, Westchester County and much of northern New Jersey are included in the metro area.

The importance of these systems can’t be overstated: 31% of metro area commuters use transit to get to work, the U.S. Census estimates.

As the region’s population booms, the strains on mass transit are increasingly evident.

Overcrowding was the single biggest cause of delays on the New York subway system during the last year, MTA stats show. Ridership has also grown on NJ Transit and the PATH trains.

Yet politicians display little appetite for funding transit, while fare hikes have riders digging deeper.

Overdevelopment headed to the Bronx

From DNA Info:

The Department of City Planning would like to see waterfront development come to the areas around some Metro-North stations as part of a plan to foster economic growth and accommodate a booming population in the borough, according to a new report.

In the study, which focused on improving underused areas around the stations as well as better integrating them into the community, the department advocated redeveloping the waterfront by the University Heights and Morris Heights stations to help people more easily reach the Harlem River.

Many of the Metro-North stations in the Bronx have underutilized areas around them or are next to recreational areas that are cut off from the rest of the community by highways and other obstructions. They also are underutilized despite being in densely populated areas, compared to the subway, the report said.

Bloomberg didn't rush back after train accident

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Bermuda on Sunday when a train derailed in the Bronx, the most recent time that the mayor has been out of town when a major incident in New York City occurred, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Bloomberg, who steps down on Dec. 31 after 12 years at City Hall, was playing golf Sunday at Bermuda’s majestic Mid Ocean golf club, a person who spotted the mayor said. The Metro-North Railroad train derailment — killing four people and injuring more than 60 others — occurred at roughly 7:20 a.m. New York time.

Mr. Bloomberg was golfing in the early morning and did not leave the course until roughly 1 p.m, the person said. Bermuda is one hour ahead of New York time.

A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, a 71-year-old billionaire businessman, declined to discuss his whereabouts on Sunday. The mayor did not attend any of the briefings at the scene of the accident Sunday, but he visited with the injured at two hospitals after nightfall.

MTA Police are rolling in dough

From the NY Post:

Nearly nine out of 10 MTA police officers who patrol the Staten Island Railway, Long Island Railroad and Metro-North rake in more than $100,000 a year, according to MTA salary data obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request.

The commuter-rail cops averaged $27,000 in annual overtime and more than $127,000 in total pay last year. More than 86 percent took in $100,000 or more in total earnings, and 11 cops topped $200,000.

The biggest cheese of all — bagging an eye-popping $234,641.84 last year — was Brian Sullivan, a Metro-North detective sergeant who joined the force in July 1992.

He took home $76,000 in overtime and almost $158,000 in base pay, which, in a 40-hour work week, would mean he was paid $75.96 an hour. But according to the MTA, his hourly pay rate in 2012 was only $53.21 an hour. Sullivan’s total earnings could buy more than 93,800 MetroCard rides, 11,732 round-trip tickets from Grand Central Station to New Rochelle, or eight MTA police cars.

Proposal for a Metro North station in Queens

From the Daily News:

A college student from Queens has launched a petition urging the MTA to open a Metro-North station in Queens. 

Quinnipiac University sophomore Ali Fadil, 18, of Whitestone, began collecting signatures about two weeks ago after he learned the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was looking at running trains on Metro-North’s New Haven line through western Queens. 

“If you’re running through Queens, why not have a stop in Queens?” said Fadil, who commutes from Queens to Connecticut for school. “There is a decent amount of demand from Queens to the Bronx and from Queens to Westchester and Connecticut,” said Fadil, who has collected more than a hundred signature so far on the petition, www.gopetition.com/petitions/petition-to-get-a-metro-north-new-haven-line-station-in.html. 

The MTA is exploring opening up four new Bronx stations along its New Haven line and offering service to and from Penn Station. MTA officials said there are no plans to open a station in Queens — a borough that doesn’t have any Metro-North stops. 

An Astoria station was considered years ago but was deemed too expensive to build on an elevated platform for a relatively low number of riders, officials said. However, the agency is conducting a feasibility study on running Metro-North trains on Amtrak lines, which go over the Hell Gate Bridge in Astoria. 

The study “does not contemplate any new stations in Queens,” MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said.

Sorry, the MTA is too busy building stations to nowhere in Manhattan.

Idling MTA vehicles costing us plenty

From AM-NY:

MTA employees waste about $800,000 each year by illegally leaving their work vehicles idling while on the job, according to a report released Wednesday.

Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North workers driving highway vehicles kept them running while they were parked for a combined total of more than 20,000 hours each month, the MTA's Inspector General found.

In one incident, investigators found that two trucks in Forest Hills had idled for a combined 25 hours over one weekend.

New York drivers are prohibited from leaving their cars unnecessarily running for more than five minutes.

Cops riding trains out of the city

From the NY Post:

The NYPD has begun sending teams of uniformed city cops onto commuter trains to patrol the suburban rails outside the Big Apple in a surprise move that startled MTA police brass and angered their union officials, The Post has learned.

An NYPD sergeant and eight officers -- all transit cops on overtime -- made their maiden voyage on Nov. 24, boarding Metro-North trains out of Grand Central Terminal around 6:15 a.m. heading north to Yonkers on the Harlem River line, according to police sources.

The nine officers reached their destination at around 7 a.m., took a return trip south to the 125th Street Station and then switched to a northbound commuter train heading back up to Yonkers. They then headed back to Grand Central on an 8 a.m. rush-hour train.

Each cop was paid nearly three hours of overtime, which comes out of the recent $35 million in federal funds earmarked to help defray NYPD anti-terror train, bus and ferry salaries, according to sources.

The NYPD plans to send out the nine cops several times a week on random patrols as part of their expanding anti-terror efforts and push to bolster potential targets like the regional rail lines.

But MTA police union President Raymond Gimmler said his officers don't need the help.

"I think it is a waste of resources," Gimmler said. "The NYC transit system is their primary responsibility."