Normal LIRR service planned Tuesday after storm-chilled road, air and train travel

Long Islanders on the move after the most impactful winter storm in years endured slippery roads, reduced train service and canceled flights.

And frigid temperatures will continue to pose a threat to Long Island Rail Road service for the rest of the week, though it planned to return to normal service Tuesday morning, the LIRR’s president said.

The railroad ran on a weekend schedule Monday, operating about 750 trains for the relatively few riders in the system, officials said. Although delays on several branches lingered throughout the day, LIRR president Rob Free said the railroad "operated remarkably well" throughout the storm, without any trains being stranded.

"That storm brought a little bit of everything: strong winds, high accumulations, extreme cold, frozen precipitation," Free said in an interview Monday.

Free said the railroad planned to return to a normal weekday schedule in time for the Tuesday morning rush hour, but acknowledged the subfreezing temperatures would continue to pose risks to service, including the potential for track switches freezing in place and broken rails. Free said the LIRR will keep station waiting rooms open for customers throughout the cold snap.

Janno Lieber, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the LIRR’s parent organization, trumpeted the "very robust service" offered by the LIRR Monday morning, as well as the performance of New York City buses and subways, which experienced delays, but ran throughout the storm and into Monday.

"We got service this morning. We got subway. We got bus. We got Metro-North, Long Island Rail Road," Lieber told WNBC/4 on Monday morning. "Fifteen thousand MTA workers showed up and worked their tails off this weekend so we could run service both yesterday through the storm and today."

Treacherous road conditions complicated travel across Long Island, including for public buses. Nassau’s NICE Bus operated limited service on all its routes Monday, with buses running once per hour.

"Roads are still dangerous and we are proceeding with extreme caution," NICE officials said in a statement.

After suspending all service on Sunday during the storm, Suffolk County Transit resumed operations Monday morning.

"We will continue to monitor road conditions and post route specific alerts if necessary," the agency said in a post on X.

New York State Department of Transportation spokesman Stephen Canzoneri said more 250 DOT plows cleared over 4,000 lane miles of state roads across Nassau and Suffolk, and would continue working throughout Monday night ahead of the Tuesday morning commute.

Canzoneri thanked drivers for "heeding warnings to avoid travel during the wintry weather, which allowed crews to clear the snow more efficiently."

Airline travelers were hit with delays both on their way to the airport and once they got there. The JFK AirTrain running between Kennedy Airport and the LIRR’s Jamaica station was suspended for several hours before resuming with limited service Monday afternoon.

Between Sunday and Monday evening, there were 819 flight cancellations at Kennedy Airport, 730 cancellations at LaGuardia Airport and 25 cancellations at Long Island MacArthur Airport, according to FlightAware.com.

The Port Authority, which operates Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, in a statement said the airports "will be able to operate at normal capacity" by Tuesday.