More LIRR track disruptions starting Friday night

Long Island Rail Road customers face another weekend of headaches, as planned track work will cause major service disruptions, but particularly on the Hempstead branch.

Disruptions are necessary, LIRR officials said, as crews continue upgrading track switch infrastructure near Elmont-UBS Arena station. Similar service changes are planned for every weekend in August.

Beginning Friday night, and lasting through early Sunday morning, there will be no direct train service between Manhattan and Hempstead, Country Life Press, Garden City, Nassau Boulevard, or Stewart Manor stations. There will be no eastbound LIRR train service from Hollis, Queens Village or Elmont-UBS Arena, and only limited westbound service at those stations.

There will also be no service in either direction at Bellerose. And service between Floral Park and Hempstead will be hourly, using a special shuttle train.

During the service outages, MTA buses in Queens will honor LIRR tickets for travel from Jamaica to Hollis and Queens Village, and NICE buses in Nassau will honor LIRR tickets for trips from Jamaica to Elmont-UBS Arena.

There will also be major schedule changes during overnight and early morning hours on the Huntington and Ronkonkoma branches, according to the LIRR.

Thursday night, there was also "extremely limited service" in Brooklyn between Jamaica and Atlantic Terminal due to repairs on an ongoing signal problem at Atlantic Terminal, the MTA said in a Thursday evening advisory.

More information on this weekend’s service changes, and others throughout the summer, are available at mta.info/lirr and on the MTA’s TrainTime app.

This disruptions are less pronounced than last weekend's, when there was no train service between Jamaica and Hicksville, nor throughout much of the Hempstead and Oyster Bay branches, as crews installed a new signal system at its Queens Interlocking, a major switching location near Queens Village.

“These outages we don’t take lightly. But they are a necessity, and we do everything we can do to accommodate customers,” LIRR President Rob Free said at a Monday meeting of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s railroad committee.

To make the most of the service outages, Free said the railroad took on “an incredible amount work” throughout its system last weekend, including grade crossing improvements, concrete platform fixes, track surfacing upgrades, welding, and bridge and drainage system repairs.

“We … want to thank our customers for their patience as we deliver these critical upgrades to improve our system,” Free said.

At an MTA railroad committee meeting Monday, David Kupferberg, of Passengers United, a rider advocacy group, chided the railroad for not doing enough to accommodate displaced customers with shuttle bus service, instead directing them to public buses in Queens and Nassau, including some that don't operate during overnight hours or stop far from train stations.

"This past weekend was a disaster for the MTA. And the MTA refuses to own up to the duress they put on its customers," Kupferberg said. "Shame on the Long Island Rail Road and shame on the MTA."

The summer-long weekend service disruptions, and ensuing frustration among riders, comes as the LIRR earlier this week released the results of its latest customer satisfaction survey, which found discontent at a two-year high.

While restrictive new ticket policies were the biggest driver of unhappiness among customers, rider satisfaction regarding service frequency and train delays also fell from the railroad's last survey in the fall.

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.