Statement of the Long Island Rail Road Commuter Council
to the MTA Board Long Island Rail Road/Metro-North Railroad Committee
January 24, 2011
The Board Agenda book for this month did not include complete operating numbers, but we’ve heard some performance statistics for days impacted by the December 26 storm, and as we would expect, the storm had a major impact.
I want to raise a particular concern of the LIRRCC. Members of the Council want to ensure that the Rail Road has the capacity to respond effectively to winter storms. The December storm highlighted the special vulnerabilities of the LIRR system, both in terms of geography and the system design and infrastructure. Long Islanders rely on the system and its operation. We need to ensure that snow fighting capacity is present to allow service to be restored as promptly as is prudently possible.
We are pleased to hear that an MTA-wide group is meeting to evaluate storm response and ID needs. We call for findings of this group to be brought back to this committee and any results and recommendations to be made available to the public.