Long Island Rail Road confident it can handle U.S. Open travelers to Shinnecock

Thursday will be a stress test for the Long Island Rail Road, which will carry golf fans to the first day of tournament play in the U.S Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton and Knicks fans into Manhattan for a victory parade – along with everyday commuters and the occasional beachgoer.

Railroad officials said earlier this month that they planned to double the Shinnecock service they offered in 2018, the last time the tournament was held on Long Island, when the LIRR carried 77,000 tournament fans. On Thursday LIRR will operate 12 arrivals and 13 departures from Shinnecock, versus 15 total in 2018. The railroad will also add trains Friday and over the weekend.

“Hopefully, it will be business as usual for the morning rush,” said Marc Herbst, Suffolk County’s representative on the MTA board, in a phone interview. “The regular trains are going to be working and we anticipate standby trains for the afternoon commute back.” Officials believe that passengers travelling to watch the first morning tee-offs, which start at 6:35 a.m., will not overlap with those going into the city for the parade, which starts at 10 a.m., Herbst said, though both may overlap with morning commuters. Some parade attendees may also linger long enough in the city to add to the afternoon rush.

The Open is expected to draw more than 150,000 fans this week, and LIRR and tournament officials have touted rail service to the temporary platform built once more next to the tournament venue. In 2018, close to 30,000 fans attended each of the first two days of tournament play, with LIRR carrying as many as 9,000 people a day to and from the temporary Shinnecock station. But that event snarled traffic in the area and some fans who came by road sat for hours in traffic.

In an email Wednesday, Julia Pine, a United States Golf Association spokeswoman, wrote that “there will be periods when trains and platforms are busier than usual as spectators and commuters travel at the same time.” Practice rounds this week brought about 10,000 fans per day and tournament days are expected to bring 25,000 to 28,000. But, she wrote, tournament officials and their partners worked to improve transportation and the fan experience by lowering attendance by 15-20 percent and providing pedestrian access to the tournament venue from the Stony Brook Southampton campus.

“USGA, LIRR and local officials will continue to monitor operations and make adjustments if needed throughout the week,” she wrote.

In an email, LIRR spokesman Michael Cortez wrote that ridership for the tournament was higher than in 2018, though numbers were not yet available. In 2018, he wrote, the tournament’s busiest day was Saturday.

Over beers or snacks in one of the tournament hospitality areas Wednesday, many fans said they’d opted for the train over driving or rideshares.

“Nice and easy,” said Sean Austin, 52, an alarm technician from Sag Harbor, describing his train ride from Bridgehampton to Shinnecock, for which he’d paid $6.75, round trip. He anticipated gridlock on area roads Thursday and Friday as tournament traffic combines with what locals call the “trade parade” of plumbers, electricians and irrigation technicians headed to work in the Hamptons.

Ari Rechtweg, 18, a high school senior from Hewlett, caught a train shortly after 7 a.m. from Lynbrook to Jamaica, then out to the tournament. By the time it hit Babylon, he said, “people were just standing.” Thursday, he predicted, “will definitely be worse.”

Ralph Lush, 70, a retired New York City firefighter who took the train from Patchogue to arrive at around 10:30 a.m., paid $19 for a LIRR day pass. Given that his Wednesday trip was already “standing room only,” he too predicted crowded trains for the rest of the week.

In a phone interview, LIRR Commuter Council Chairman Gerard Bringmann said LIRR had the capacity to accommodate multiple events on the same day, though 95% of its trains are already in use at any given time.

Trains may be more crowded than usual Thursday, but the system will work, he predicted. “This is not their first rodeo.”

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.