A meeting of the Long Island Rail Road Commuter’s Council (LIRRCC) was convened at 12:15 pm on April 3, 2008, in the 5th floor Board room, MTA Headquarters, 347 Madison Avenue, New York City.
The following members were present:
Ronald Breuer Sandra
Krebelj-Douglas
Gerard P. Bringmann
James L. McGovern
Ira Greenberg
Jerome I. Shagam
Via Phone: Maureen Michaels
In addition, the following members were absent:
Gary Babyatzky
Patricia McCauley
In addition, the following persons were present:
William Henderson – PCAC Executive Director
Ellyn Shannon – PCAC Transportation Planner
Karyl Berger – PCAC Research Associate
Holli Dunayer – LIRR
Steve Ritea – Newsday
Approval of Agenda and Minutes
The agenda for the April 3, 2008 meeting was approved. The minutes of the February 14, 2008 meeting were approved.
Chair’s Report
Ira Greenberg read the Chair’s Report which is attached to these minutes.
Holli Dunayer, LIRR Director – Government and Community Relations, introduced herself and described her background. She is a social worker by training and worked for several years working for Long Island Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy. She also worked for Congressman Steve Israel. Ms. Dunayer will be the LIRRCC’s point person at the LIRR.
The members discussed the causes of the recent derailment at Jamaica. Steve Ritea, a writer for Newsday, said that the installation of the new system caused the old system to malfunction due to crossed wires between the old and new system. William Henderson noted that the entire project has been put on hold until they are sure this incident won’t be able to occur again.
Maureen Michaels, who spoke via telephone, noted that one of the major problems is that the LIRR is extremely under funded and isn’t able to fund all the work necessary to resolve existing problems on the Rail Road.
Old Business
The members discussed the cleanup of the Right-of-Way. Jim McGovern noted that the MTA Board just approved a contract for clean up of the right-of-way but it did not specify the details of the work. Staff asked Holli Dunayer to follow up on this issue. The members agreed that the right-of-way between Flushing and Auburndale is a continuous garbage dump.
In response to Jim McGovern’s question as to the status of the Moynihan project, Mr. Henderson noted that, despite a number of negative stories about problems in reaching agreement on a financing package for the project and Madison Square Garden’s recent announcement that the organization would move forward with a major renovation of the current Garden, there is still a considerable effort underway to salvage the plan for Moynihan station. He said that there had been a Friends of Moynihan Station meeting scheduled for that morning, which was cancelled due to great activity taking place with respect to the project.
Mr. McGovern also requested that staff inquire about the status of the Gimbel’s passageway and whether it will ever reopen for pedestrian use as part of the Moynihan project. Staff will inquire about this issue.
New Business
Discussion of Information on Email Alerts from the LIRR.
Ellyn Shannon distributed a discussion paper about the issues.
Jim McGovern said that, in the event of a disruption on the LIRR, he wants to have a message sent immediately to inform him that there is a problem on the Rail Road but recognizes that the LIRR may not know immediately the complete nature of the problem that is causing the delay. Gerry Bringmann and Maureen Michaels commented that frequent announcements should be sent to customers.
Jerry Shagam emphasized that the Rail Road needs to have credibility with regard to these announcements and that the announcements should state that the LIRR will get back to its customers when more complete information is available.
Ira Greenberg said the LIRR must be ready for some criticism in spite of their best efforts.
Karyl Berger said that when an incident happens on the subway riders like to know that someone is there monitoring the situation. In addition, even if a resolution to the problem is not known, a less complete announcement telling riders about what is happening is very helpful.
Ms. Michaels said that there should be announcements within five minutes of the occurrence of a problem and that its location should be announced. She said it is important to know how long the delay is likely to be because there are people going to Jamaica via the LIRR to get the Air Train to JFK. She also said that Helena Williams had made a point about the need for conductors to use ‘plain talk’ and she said this needs to be more strictly enforced.
Sandra Krebelj-Douglas suggested that the Rail Road put together a brochure about what various incident descriptions mean as a way to educate the public about the implication of certain kinds of delays.
Mr. Greenberg said that no more than five minutes should pass between announcements, even if there is no change in information since the last announcement was made.
The Council discussed the protocol for passengers who get sick on the train. Currently the policy is to stop at the next closest station. Mr. Shagam said it would be helpful to know who is first to be notified in the case of a medical emergency.
Mr. Bringmann noted that there is often no way to identify train crews as they do not wear name tags or badges with employee identification numbers. He recounted and incident from last summer where a conductor had taped of a car and, after collecting the tickets, returned to the empty car for the remainder of the trip. He said that in this case the crew member’s only identification was his hat, which said ‘Conductor’ on it.
Mr. Bringmann asked Ms. Dunayer to find out what the LIRR’s policy on identification badges is. The members noted that they believed that that there could be a policy requiring Rail Road personnel to wear personal identification badges but that it is not adequately enforced.
Board Report
Jim McGovern said he was unable to attend MTA Board and committee meetings in the March meeting cycle, but noted not much is happening because the focus has been on congestion pricing and the budget.
The members discussed the impact of the slump in the real estate market on the proceeds of the Mortgage Recording Tax (MRT). Mr. Henderson noted that the word is that the MTA will reevaluate moving forward with the service enhancements when the next quarter financials are released. MTA Executive Director Lee Sander has indicated that they will make this decision in June.
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 1:45 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Karyl Berger
Research Associate
Chair’s Report
As you know our annual LIRR President’s Forum will be held next Wednesday, May 14 from 5 to 7 pm in the street level concourse of the AirTrain JFK that is immediately adjacent to Jamaica Station. We are excited about the new venue and hope that it will attract more riders than in years past. We would like to have as many council members present as possible. Previously the forum was held here at MTA Headquarters, so attending was a major inconvenience for people who wanted to come from work and catch the train home from Penn Station.
Please take a moment to look at the PCAC website, it has been updated with April news and approved minutes can now be found on the drop-down menus for each council. Thanks to Jan Wells for coordinating the new and improved PCAC website.
The replacement of the Queens Interlocking project will mean substantial service changes over the summer months. A copy of the changes is in your packet. Ellyn spoke with Mike Seman, LIRR General Manager – Service Planning, to ask what the LIRR plans to do to monitor crowding issues and if they are prepared to add cars to trains when necessary. Staff will forward the answers to these questions to you when we receive them.
Mr. Seman explained that the project will replace the existing signal system with microprocessor technology and reconfigure the track to include high speed crossover switches. Mr. Seman said that between March 2007 and March 2008 there were 131 signal problems caused by the Queens interlocking. The interlocking signal failures are compounded by the fact that the four mainline tracks are out of tangent and the short crossovers cause the trains to wear down the switches and rails. The project will make the ride much smoother, improve the reliability of the system, and enable trains to travel at much higher speeds over the interlocking.
The efforts to stop the Main Line Corridor Improvement Project, otherwise known as the LIRR Third Track, continue out of Floral Park. Recently, Senator Craig Johnson introduced a bill in the New York State Senate that would require a two-thirds approval from the communities adjacent to the Main Line Corridor for the project to move forward. Senator Johnson represents Floral Park and adamantly opposes the project. Given the Council’s strong support for the project, this would an opportune time to write to Senators who represent communities affected by the LIRR Third Track to outline the Project’s benefits to their constituents and urge them to vote against this bill. There is a proposed open letter on the subject from a consortium of transportation advocates in your packet today, and we can discuss the letter under Old Business.
On April 11, a small group of PCAC members and staff met with Tom Schulze, the Director of the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) project, which aims to construct additional tunnel capacity between New Jersey and Manhattan. Mr. Schulze discussed the factors that had guided the form of the project, including the elimination of track connections between the new tunnels and New York Penn Station. Mr. Schulze explained that, while he wishes to preserve options for expansion and connection to other projects, his primary focus is on completing the ARC project to provide badly needed tunnel capacity between Manhattan and New Jersey.
Last week Jan and Ellyn attended an invitation-only work session held by Vision Long Island. The session was dedicated to removing barriers to Smart Growth planning and implementation and focused on the role of the MTA and NY State DOT. The group of about 25 participants included, Michael Harrison, LI Director for Governor David Paterson, Paul Beyer, the Director of Smart Growth for New York State and a member of the Governors Smart Growth Cabinet, and Peter Fleischer, Executive Director of Empire State Future, a non-profit Smart Growth alliance comprised of 25 groups that represent environmental, housing and planning concerns. Representatives from the MTA and NYSDOT also participated. Under New Business, Jan and Ellyn will discuss the meeting and some thoughts they have for engaging the Council’s participation with elected officials on this issue.
Last Friday a press conference was held by elected officials from the Town of Babylon announcing an LIRR study that will examine the possibilities of building a new LIRR station at Republic Airport on the Route 110 Corridor. The funding for the station study is likely to be programmed for 2011. The Council expressed support for this station a year ago when they met with MTA board member, Mitch Pally. The project is also of interest to the Council in light of recommendations made in the PCAC’s report Where is the MTA on TOD? We will discuss this issue in more detail under Old Business.
On Tuesday Jan attended a conference hosted by Sustainable Long Island where Helena Williams moderated a panel discussion entitled Getting Around: Developing Around Transit to Create a Holistic Community. Panelists included David Fields, Principal-In-Charge of the NY office of Nelson-Nygaard, consulting planners. Mr. Fields, who has extensive experience in transportation and environmental planning, made an outstanding presentation on the concept of transit-oriented development. Also speaking was the Mayor of Patchogue, Paul Pontieri, who is overseeing a number of new developments within walking distance to the train station. After listening to the panelists, the audience participated in a mini-design workshop of the LIRR Republic Airport station area.
Jan reports that It was clear from the variety of distinguished speakers at the plenary sessions and the intensive workshops focused on smart growth and sustainability, that Long Island is finally waking up to the benefits of more compact development in downtown areas and the need for connecting services to get folks to and from the rail stations. In your packets there is a copy of the transportation section of the 2008 Long Island Index that was featured at the conference.