Epstein: Hey MTA, LIRR needs attention

Mark J. Epstein is chairman of the Long Island Rail Road Commuter Council, a legislatively mandated watchdog group made up of riders representing Nassau, Suffolk, Queens and Brooklyn.

As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority considers its 2012 budget and a new chairman takes over, riders want to send this message: Long Island Rail Road commuters can't stand another year like the past two.

LIRR commuters have faced a collection of windstorms, signal system fires, derailments, accidents, late completions of repairs, snowstorms, hurricanes and lightning strikes that have left riders packed into stations to wait for a train, any train, to take them to their destinations.

Now they've been told that the East Side Access project that is to relieve the East River tunnel bottleneck will likely be delayed until 2018. And needed repairs on the East River tunnels leading into Penn Station will cut the tunnels' capacity in half on most weekends and won't be complete until mid-2015.

And to add insult to injury, the past year featured a set of budget-driven service cuts that made commuting more difficult, even when service is operating according to schedule.

As we head into another winter, the MTA must take positive steps to make life better for LIRR riders. The first is to restore service cuts forced by shortfalls in the MTA budget.

The shortfalls largely result from Albany's decision to remove money from the MTA and use it to help balance the overall budget. Over the past two annual budgets, $243 million has either been cut from the MTA by Albany or shifted from the authority and its agencies into the state's general fund. We need a true "lock box"; the dedicated funds collected for the MTA must be dedicated to the running of the MTA.

Over the past year, riders lost individual trains on the Babylon, Long Beach, Montauk, Oyster Bay and Port Jefferson branches; all non-summer weekend service between Ronkonkoma and Greenport; all weekend service on the West Hempstead branch; and late-night service to Brooklyn. Riders also lost half-hour off-peak Port Washington service, which is now back to hourly trains on one of the railroad's most heavily traveled lines.

The MTA's finances are now stabilizing, however, and MTA cost-cutting has significantly reduced expenses. This is the time for the MTA and LIRR to develop a realistic plan to bring back service that was eliminated for the more than 18,000 riders affected by these cuts.

But restoring service isn't the only thing the MTA must do. The LIRR struggles daily with the physical limitations of its infrastructure. Commuters have firsthand experience of the chaos that results when just one of the four East River tunnels is taken out of service during rush hour, such as the disruption caused by track repair at the start of Passover this April. The system needs to be made more resilient and able to recover from problems, so that a single incident doesn't spell delay and frustration for thousands.

Unfortunately East Side Access won't be completed for years. Projects to add tracks to reduce bottlenecks, such as between Farmingdale and Ronkonkoma, are only in the planning stages. Other improvements, like central control and modernization of the LIRR's signal systems, must be priorities. Our elected leaders must ensure that resources are available to move these projects off the drawing board. While New York's budget is tight, these upgrades must be considered on the same basis as other critical state capital improvements.

The Long Island Rail Road Commuter Council has analyzed delays from April through September 2011 and found that 12,516 LIRR trains were reported delayed, and 905 -- 7 percent -- of them were late at least in part due to issues with the signal system. Signal problems delayed LIRR riders anywhere from 6 minutes to 2 hours and 37 minutes -- a total of more than 130 hours of wait time between April and September. Modernizing the infrastructure can prevent many of these delays and allow managers to deal more effectively with others.

LIRR riders and the Long Island economy depend on a reliable and efficient transportation system to move into the future. With fares up by more than 60 percent since 2000, LIRR commuters are paying 21st century fares for 20th century service. It's time to give riders the treatment they pay for and deserve by restoring service and modernizing the system.