Transit chaos as predicted
MTA warned about ‘Hell’IRR swap
The MTA was warned a decade ago that the Long Island Rail Road’s Jamaica hub would be overwhelmed and face frequent commute meltdowns — like the ones riders have been forced to endure all week, The Post has learned.
The dire prediction came in an analysis of the Queens station’s capacity, completed in 2012, that simulated service changes nearly identical to the ones launched by this week for the MTA’s new $11 billion terminal on the East Side of Manhattan and found it would overwhelm operations at the station.
“Evaluation of the new operation on the existing conditions indicates an inability of the current infrastructure to accommodate the higher volume of service during the morning peak period and evening westbound direction due to cascading delays,” the analysis determined.
The simulation showed trains arriving into Jamaica on-time 93% of the time under the existing runs, even when encountering routine service disruptions, like a medical emergency or mechanical problem.
But the on-time percentage with the new service plummeted to just 72%, a 21% drop, the analysis prepared by San Diego-based TranSystems Corporation determined.
The prophetic study found that the operational collapse occurred even if the MTA simplified the Jamaica operation by axing one-seat service from Long Island to Brooklyn and instead ran a shuttle to Atlantic Terminal — and even if officials axed timed transfers to boost station capacity by reducing the amount of time trains spend parked at the platforms.
A key fix, the analysis determined, was to replace low-speed switches that run through Jamaica Station — which limit trains to just 15 mph — with modern systems that allow trains to run at 30 mph.
MTA officials approved spending $85 million to do just that in 2020 — some eight years after the engineering report was completed. That project is not expected to be completed until December 2027.
It does not appear that the MTA ever made the analysis public, but it was heavily excerpted in an academic article that the firm subsequently prepared.
“If that report is valid, then the railroad shot themselves in the foot,” said Gerry Bringmann, a nonvoting MTA board member.
In a statement, the MTA said that it had “factored existing infrastructure” into the schedules it drafted to begin full service to the new East Side terminal.
“The LIRR increased weekday service from 625 trains per day to more than 900 trains per day and has factored existing infrastructure into that effort,” said MTA spokesman Michael Cortez.
‘Can’t anybody here play this game?”: Casey Stengel’s legendary words of despair all too aptly fit the MTA and Long Island Railroad managers who’ve bungled the East Side Access project once again.
It’s been cursed from the start, not least by revolving-door management atop the MTA. In all, the work to run the LIRR into Grand Central Terminal is easily $10 billion over its initial budget and a decade late. And now commuters are united in fury at the result.
Folks who’d had a single-seat ride to Brooklyn suddenly face beyond-challenging, time-consuming train changes at Jamaica, as well as packed cars on more limited service. Those still heading to Penn Station get squeezed, too.
Even folks who already had to change at Jamaica are peeved: “It’s turned into the Hunger Games,” one told The Post.
“We don’t quite know what people will want to do,” says Gov. Hochul. Nobody thought to figure that out in advance? Did they think commuters through Brooklyn wouldn’t notice being screwed over?
Yes, current MTA managers had to make the best of bad decisions made long before their time. But the idea was to do better.
“I just don’t see how we spend billions of dollars — I mean, billions of dollars — and anybody’s commute should be getting worse,” fumed Glen Cove’s Danielle Fugazy Scagliola. “It unfathomable.”
Other than the few commuters overjoyed at exiting at Madison Avenue instead of Penn (we know one), the only winners here are the scholars who can now write a fantastic case study in how not to run a railroad.