LONG ISLAND RAIL ROAD COMMUTER COUNCIL
MINUTES OF MAY 10, 2012
A meeting of the Long Island Rail Road Commuter Council (LIRRCC) was convened at 4:30 pm on May 10, 2012, in the LIRR East Side Access Readiness Conference Room at 450 7th Avenue, 20th Floor – Manhattan, New York.
The following members were present:
Gerard Bringmann Ira Greenberg
Mark Epstein Maureen Michaels
Mike Godino Bryan Peranzo
Larry Rubinstein
The following members were absent:
Sheila Carpenter Owen Costello
Matthew Kessler
In addition, the following persons were present:
William Henderson -PCAC Executive Director
Deborah Morrison -PCAC Administrative Assistant
Hector Garcia -LIRR
Ned Rogers -Concerned Citizen
Approval of Agenda and Minutes
The agenda for the May 10, 2012 meeting was approved. The minutes of the April 5, 2012 meeting were approved.
Chairman Mark Epstein announced that the LIRRCC has a new member, Michael Godino, introduced Mr. Godino, asked each member to briefly introduce him or herself, and asked Mr. Godino to say a few words. Mr. Godino briefly introduced himself. He said that lives in Malverne, New York and grew up on Long Island. He said that he had become disabled prior to losing his vision in 1992 and has become an Americans With Disabilities Act advocate. Mr. Godino noted that in the past he has been involved with MTA issues through the PCAC and the NYC Transit Paratransit Advisory Committee.
Chair’s Report
The Chair’s Report is attached to these minutes. Mr. Epstein said that he had received three project updates at the meeting of the Regional Economic Development Council. Work at Ronkonkoma is in the planning stages. The Wyandanch rising project, including station area and parking improvements that will affect commuters, is the farthest along, with sewer installation to be finished this summer. The next step is to finalize a site for a four story parking garage. He said that the Hempstead project is in an initial stage of sewer work, which will require $38 million; there is $5 million available now. There are indications that the Heartland developers may be backing out of this project.
Mr. Epstein reported that the Council is making progress at having information included with town commuter parking permit renewal materials. Bryan Peranzo said that everyone with an existing parking permit in Oyster Bay was renewed in March and that the only applications being taken now are for new permits. Mr. Epstein also commented on the ongoing problems with escalators on the Babylon Branch.
Board Report
Ira Greenberg said that the change in the completion schedule for East Side Access was in the news recently. Chairman Lhota had stated at a Long Island Association meeting that the completion date for the project would be pushed back to 2019. He also said that there has been an effort to look at on-time performance goals and that the LIRR is to present a plan to improve service at this month’s Board meeting. He said that the on-time performance was better than last year but there are still parts of the system that lag behind. The past month was the best on-time performance of the year. Mr. Greenberg said that if members have any additional questions for the LIRR, they should email them to him and he will ask at the Board’s LIRR Committee meeting.
Staff Report
Mr. Henderson discussed the changes to Brooklyn LIRR service that will result from the East Side Access project. He noted that all riders with a one-seat ride from Long Island to Brooklyn will lose it and that transfers for those who currently need to change trains in Jamaica will become much more difficult.
Maureen Michaels said that the changes that are planned for Brooklyn service ignore the growth in Brooklyn and on Wall Street and that this is an example of the lack of coordination between business development and transportation planning. She asked how many riders use Atlantic Terminal. Mr. Henderson said that he had not looked at the statistics recently, but he believes that the total is about 30,000 passengers. Mr. Greenberg remarked that many Brooklyn trains are heavily loaded.
Mr. Henderson discussed the Federal Transportation Bill; he said that the news was not positive for a long term extension and that the fate of a long term extension largely lies with House Speaker John Boehner.
Old Business
Mr. Henderson said that the Legislative Committee had discussed Council members making a trip to Albany to visit legislators, but that this trip could be arranged outside of the meeting, given the time remaining and other business to be discussed. Mr. Epstein said that among the issues that could be addressed with the legislators is giving the PCAC and Councils some budgetary independence from the MTA, similar to the process that has been set up for the MTA Inspector General.
Mr. Epstein said that there will be an announcement next week that the Hicksville platforms will be getting a reconfiguration and that the formal announcement will take place at the MTA Board committee meetings. Bryan Peranzo asked if this will include needed repairs that he had discussed, and Mr. Epstein indicated that the work would address the deterioration at the station.
The Council discussed on-time performance. Gerry Bringmann said that he experienced one trip where he was a passenger on one train that was late by 7 minutes, but that this delay caused him to be almost 30 minutes late for work. He said that the LIRR had failed to hold his connection in Jamaica, which put him 28 minutes behind schedule. He said that the statistics need to focus on the rider’s experience, rather than the number of minutes that individual trains run behind schedule.
Hector Garcia responded that in many cases holding a train 4 minutes for a connection will cause 4 other trains to be late. Larry Rubinstein asked how a passenger-based performance statistic could be documented. Mr. Henderson said that it would involve estimates of impacts on passengers based on their expected destinations, but that the ridership statistics that are reported monthly are also based on estimates. Ms. Michaels said that the standard of performance should be the train being on time according to its schedule, not less than 6 minutes late. She said that being even 5 minutes delayed is viewed in the workplace as being late, and this situation could be quite serious if a rider is late to work 5 days a week. Mr. Epstein agreed and said that he emphasizes this point frequently in discussions with the press.
Ms. Michaels said that she did not know whether the Cold Spring Harbor station clock is functioning, but the station platforms’ digital signs have not been working for 2 weeks. Mr. Epstein added that the same thing was occurring at the Wyandanch station.
Ms. Michaels commented on the LIRR’s air conditioning standards. She asked whether there is any communication among the crew regarding the regulation of temperatures, as air conditioning is often switched on when it is not warranted by the temperatures. Mr. Garcia replied that he did not have an answer about the way that on-board temperatures are regulated at that time and that he will research the subject. Mr. Rubinstein said that he believes that the heating and cooling on trains is either on or off. Mr. Bringmann stated that he has seen monitoring of temperatures on trains and asked whether the Rail Road is monitoring temperatures on all trains, or just on the double-decker coaches.
New Business
Mr. Epstein said that he had met with Nassau County Deputy County Executive Rob Walker. He said that they spoke about vacancies on the LIRRCC and the vacancy in the Nassau County seat on the MTA Board. He said that Mr. Walker indicated that there are discussions about the MTA Board seat currently being held with the Governor’s office.
Mr. Epstein stated that he will be forming a bylaw review committee to make recommendations for potential changes to the LIRRCC bylaws. Matt Kessler will chair this committee, and Mr. Epstein asked members to let him know if they want to be a part of the committee.
Mr. Bringmann asked how the LIRR determines how to staff particular trains. Mr. Greenberg stated that staffing depends on number of stops, as well as the number of passengers that generally ride the train. Mr. Bringmann said his concern is that during an emergency people on a lightly staffed train could have trouble finding a conductor. For example, he noted that the 5:09 train has 8 cars with two crew members but other 10 car trains have 5 member crews. Mr. Garcia stated that he will get information on the standards that are used and get back to the Council with this information. Mr. Greenberg said that if there are a lot of stops, there needs to be more crew members.
Mr. Epstein stated that when he met with Rob Walker he discussed the possibility of getting briefings about issues that impact LIRR riders. As a result, Mr. Epstein received an offer of a briefing on plans for the Nassau Transportation Hub project, which is being planned for the area between Hempstead and Mineola. The County has 80 percent funding for the initial phase of the study and have offered the Council a briefing on the project on May 31 at 6:30 in Garden City.
Mr. Garcia said that there should be another meeting of the LIRR ADA Advisory Committee and that May 30th or 31st are possible dates.
Ms. Michaels commented on recent reports about the Moynihan Station project moving forward. She said that the first phase of the project won’t change patterns of usage. Mr. Bringmann said that he has heard that there is a study to develop a vision of what new passages at Penn Station should look like. Mr. Greenberg said that there is also a study underway to look at signage and the appearance of Penn Station.
Mr. Greenberg said that he will be writing a letter on the need to restoring service to the members of the MTA Board and that he will do this in his capacity as PCAC Chair.
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 6:00 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
William Henderson
Executive Director
Long Island Rail Road Commuters Council
Chair’s Report
May 10, 2012
Since we last met, MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger issued his report on the series of errors that led to the lightning-related breakdown of LIRR signals around Jamaica Station last September 29. While both the LIRR and the system designer were faulted, the actions of the LIRR in attaching additional equipment to the system and making decisions after the lightning strike that brought down the signal system both east and west of the station are troubling. The report also went into some depth on the customer communication problems during the breakdown, which mirrors this Council’s concerns over many years. Unfortunately, while we did participate in the review process, we did not have advance notice of the report’s release, and we later spoke with Inspector General Kluger, who committed to ensuring that we are given advance notice when his office releases findings related to the LIRR.
The past month has been a busy one with several meetings. On May 2 I attended a meeting of the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council’s Infrastructure Work Group. The purpose of the meeting was to review the status of funded projects at Islip, Ronkonkoma, and Wyandanch and to discuss the timeline for this year’s cycle of the second round of Consolidated Funding Application process.
On Monday of this week MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota spoke at a Long Island Association meeting, which I attended. Chairman Lhota’s speech at the breakfast meeting largely echoed our op-ed piece that appeared in last Friday’s Newsday. Although it was not the primary focus of his presentation, the major news stories from the breakfast focused on the Chairman’s announcement that the East Side Access project is likely to be delayed until 2019, a year later than had been previously been announced. The MTA quickly moved to backtrack from Mr. Lhota’s remarks, saying that the 2019 completion date is the conclusion of one engineering team and that the analysis is ongoing. Still, this is another setback for a project that until recently had an official completion date of 2016.
I arranged a technical briefing from the LIRR on Positive Train Control for the PCAC Executive Committee this past Tuesday. The briefing was very useful in clarifying what the law requires, what the LIRR has done to date, what remains to be done, and the differences in capabilities between the LIRR’s existing cab signaling system and the full implementation of Positive Train Control, which overlays Amtrak’s ACSES II system over cab signaling to create a fail safe system. If anyone is interested from our Council, I will be glad to arrange one for our Council.
I’ve also agreed to serve on Senator Schumer’s task force that is charged to guide development of a new Long Island Rail Road station and transit hub near Republic Airport. The task force will also include Helena Williams, Mitch Pally in his capacity as CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, and Babylon Supervisor Rich Schaffer. It’s gratifying that the Council is being recognized as a voice for the riders with respect to this critical project. The task force will be initially meeting at the end of this month.
We’ve been making some progress on our efforts to include an invitation to sign up for our mailing list in the parking permit renewal notices of towns and villages that operate LIRR station parking lots. We’ve had positive responses from Babylon, Huntington and Oyster Bay, and we would like continue making progress. We have a list of the municipalities responsible for parking lots throughout the system and contact telephone numbers. If you can help with getting in touch with these municipalities and approaching them about adding a simple tag line inviting riders to contact the LIRRCC to their parking application materials please let me know.
We received a response from Helena Williams to our March letter containing our observations and questions about the LIRR Quiet Car program. A copy of the letter and response is in your packets today. In her response, Ms. Williams noted the change of the location of the quiet car and emphasized the program’s reliance on voluntary compliance, rather than enforcement actions that could delay trains. The program is clearly a work in progress and we will continue to offer our observations and recommendations as it evolves.
We also received a response to a letter that I wrote concerning a scheduled outage of ticket vending machines and the LIRR’s effort to inform riders of the change. In the letter I questioned whether the LIRR’s communication about the outage had reached those who would be affected by it and called upon the Rail Road to establish a policy to waive penalty fares for any riders who can make a reasonable case that they were unable to purchase tickets before boarding due to an outage and to hold harmless those who, due to an outage, are unable to use credit or debit cards to purchase tickets before boarding.
Ms. Williams noted that the outage in question was scheduled for a low ridership period to minimize these issues. She stated that it is impractical to suspend the collection of on-board penalty fares during ticket vending machine outages, but also committed the Rail Road to reimburse the on-board penalty fare in any instance where a ticket vending machine malfunction or outage prevents a rider from purchasing a ticket before boarding. A copy of our letter and the response is included in your packet today.
This week we also received a letter from President Williams responding to our concerns about seat checks and tickets being discarded on the tracks at the Port Washington station. The letter stated that the Branch Line Manager and Transportation Manager have been instructed to ensure that this does not happen again and that the LIRR is monitoring the situation and will take action to prevent future incidents.