Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Long Island Railroad reduced fare during A train shutdown
1:38:12
ยท
173 sec
Council Member Brooks-Powers inquires about the reduced fare for Long Island Railroad riders from Far Rockaway during the A train shutdown. MTA officials discuss the impact on ridership and the possibility of making the reduced fare permanent.
- Explanation of the $2.75 reduced fare for LIRR riders during the A train shutdown
- Discussion of the City Ticket program and its benefits for Far Rockaway residents
- Clarification that permanent fare changes require MTA board approval and would need to be applied citywide
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
1:38:12
Long Island Railroad reduced fare.
1:38:14
First of all, you for the reduced fare in light of the a train outage.
1:38:20
So due to the a train shutdown in the Rockaways for infrastructure work, the MTA began offering reduced fares for Long Island Railroad riders from Far Rockaway to Manhattan or Brooklyn via Jamaica with a reduced Long Island Railroad fare of $2.75 offered for the duration of the shutdown.
1:38:39
What data concerning ridership on the railroad has the MTA observed during this time and would the MTA consider making the reduced fare permanent?
1:38:49
Why or why not?
Demetrius Crichlow
1:38:52
I'm gonna just say we do have ridership before and we do have the ridership after you know starting the work that we did.
1:39:01
I'll turn to John to answer the second half of the question.
John McCarthy
1:39:05
Yeah.
1:39:06
Sure.
1:39:06
So, you know, this is you know, there's ridership.
1:39:10
You know, people are able to use it and that's good.
1:39:15
We do have with your support and effort, we were able to apply the Citi ticket, which is an incredible discount to the Long Island Railroad, for tickets that are purchased for folks who are getting on and off at Far Rockaway.
1:39:30
And because remember for about twenty years they were treated as part of Long Island, Nassau County, yet they weren't.
1:39:36
So finally we were able to bring that in.
1:39:40
So they're getting that $5 charge for the off peaks and so it's a discount during the peak as well.
1:39:50
The thing is, any application of a new fare, that's something that the MTA board has to look at.
1:39:57
It's not a staff level decision.
1:40:00
But once you start looking at that, that becomes the entire city.
1:40:04
We've made this discount available for all city stations.
1:40:07
So I think we want to focus on things that apply to all the stations as opposed to picking and choosing winners and losers.
1:40:15
But look, we're happy to get more customers on Long Island Railroad.
1:40:19
It's great that people are using it.
1:40:20
The big uptick was though when we went to city ticket for our Rockaway and got that big win.
1:40:27
Let's
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
1:40:27
And it was another uptick with the outage of the atrium.
John McCarthy
1:40:31
With the
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
1:40:32
outage, that's I was trying to get
John McCarthy
1:40:34
you think of record.
1:40:34
I get it.
1:40:35
I'm just saying that that's a decision that would have to be made by the board.
1:40:39
But in fairness, it has to be applied citywide.
1:40:43
It's, I think, the idea of going so far below what the fare is.
1:40:47
This is a very expensive system to run at the Long Island Railroad level.
1:40:50
So at some point, the board has to make tough decisions and you know I don't see that being direct citywide?
1:40:57
No, I would say I think we want to keep the city ticket as low as possible citywide.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
1:41:03
That's where we're focused.
Sharon Brown
1:41:05
Okay.