LIRR riders get first taste of service cuts

Long after "doomsday" began looming over the Long Island Rail Road, some commuters got their first taste Monday of a host of service cuts aimed to help plug an enormous budget shortfall.

Six trains were canceled throughout the LIRR Monday, and others modified, in the first round of many service cuts that officials say will save the agency some $11 million this year.

The cancellations include a morning rush-hour train out of Seaford to Brooklyn, and five evening peak trains bound for Long Island stations from western terminals.

LIRR spokesman Joe Calderone said cuts were designed to have minimal impact on customers and that, in most cases, passengers could take other trains running a few minutes earlier or later than the canceled ones.

The LIRR's efforts to soften the blow of the cuts were of little solace to some inconvenienced commuters in Penn Station Monday afternoon.

John McAlonan, 41, said he was annoyed that instead of his usual 4:57 p.m. train to Wantagh, he now has to take the 5:03 with added stops.

"I get home about 10 minutes later than normal, and I will also have to deal with a crowded train, and if I don't show up early, I don't get a seat," McAlonan, of East Meadow, said. "It stinks. . . . Why didn't they cut back on later trains?"

SEE PHOTOSLIRR trains and commuters through the years

Calderone said the LIRR saw a 21 percent spike in phone calls from customers Monday, but added that the figure was in line with what the agency usually gets in the first day of a new schedule cycle. The LIRR also saw an increase in e-mails from customers after publicizing the implementation of the service changes last week, he said.

Because "different days have different ridership patterns," and because some customers may not have been aware of the service changes until Monday, Calderone said it may be too early to measure the full impact of the service changes.

"It may be a full week before we have a full handle on it, but we're monitoring it closely," Calderone said.

Market researcher Caryl Kahn, 53, of Rockville Centre, was fuming about the added inconvenience to her already two-hour commute. She takes a Jersey Transit train to Penn Station where she switches to a 4:37 p.m. express train to Freeport. The LIRR train will now make additional stops, which means more riders, she said.

"It's probably going to affect the comfort factor," Kahn said as she waited in Penn Station Monday afternoon.

More cuts are on the way, including the elimination of two trains on the Oyster Bay branch starting this weekend. Most of the previously adopted service cuts will take effect in September.

They include the elimination of weekend service to West Hempstead and to Greenport, and the reduction of off-peak weekday service on the Port Washington branch from half-hourly to hourly.

With Pervaiz Shallwani