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.

Silly train study says what we already knew

Summary of Findings from the Lower Montauk Branch Light Rail Study:

 Initial analysis shows that it would be feasible to develop joint passenger-freight operations on the Branch, allowing for robust transit service while maintaining and upgrading freight operations if desired.

 Approximately 21,000 riders per weekday and 5.8 million riders annually would use the service, assuming a $2.75 fare, a free transfer to MTA Bus or Subway, and relatively frequent service throughout the day. Fare revenues are estimated at $15 million annually, while annual operations and maintenance costs are estimated at $55 million.

 Capital costs while maintaining freight service on the Branch are estimated at $2.2 billion, including substantial upgrades to rail infrastructure (track, signals, communications), new running track in key areas, new freight yard space to clear track for transit operations, transit vehicles, a storage and maintenance yard for transit vehicles, and property acquisition. Eliminating freight service altogether on the Branch – an option not analyzed in this study – would reduce total capital costs to about $1.1 billion. Value Capture financing, using a portion of the increase in property values induced by this new transit service, could potentially fund $300 million in bonds, or roughly 27% of total projected capital costs for passenger-only rail operations on the Branch and 14% of such costs under the analyzed option of both passenger and freight rail operations.

Preliminary Estimate: Projected Bond Support from 5 Key Station Areas ($2017)
Grand Ave./Flushing Ave. $50,000,000
Fresh Pond/Metro Ave. $39,000,000
Metro Mall $59,000,000
80th Street $61,000,000
Woodhaven Blvd. $100,000,000
Total: $309,000,000

Bottom line: Way too expensive + not enough riders = a no go. The mayor actually said this in front of Liz Crowley back at his December 2017 town hall meeting in Glendale. The DOT quietly threw this up on their website, probably because they didn't want to call attention to the fact that their agency and the council member blew $1/2M on this nonsense. The taxpayers' loss is AECOM's gain.