Newsday published an important article on Oct. 25: “Some LIRR regular commuters may be ‘lost forever’ rail experts predict.” It validates what the citizens and taxpayers along the 9.5 miles of the LIRR Expansion Project have known all along.
The article reports that the stagnant growth in LIRR ridership comes as the number of Americans working remotely remains around 46 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — about twice as many as in 2019. What’s more, it was reported in a recent survey by Owl Labs and Global Workplace Analytics that 80 percent of full-time workers expect to work from home at least three times per week after COVID-19 safety restrictions are lifted.
Janet Lenaghan, dean of the Frank G. Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University, said some of the changes in commuting patterns are likely “here to stay,” as the health crisis expedited a transformation in work culture that already was underway. She noted that major employers have signaled they’ll allow some employees to work from home permanently. In addition to telecommuting, Lenaghan said employers and employees alike are realizing the benefits of flexible work schedules, and of using smaller, suburban-based office spaces — all changes that could erode the LIRR’s traditional commuter base.
Railroad expert William Vantuono, editor-in-chief of Railway Age magazine, said the shift from the traditional rush hour is forcing commuter railroads across the country to reconsider their core missions. “The LIRR, Metro-North are going to have to adjust, if they can, to these new commuting patterns,” said Vantuono, who agreed that some of the changes were inevitable. “It’s been a trend, but COVID-19 accelerated it at a massive rate.”
LIRR President Phillip Eng said the changes in travel patterns have been apparent for a while, as evidenced by the fact that off-peak ridership has increased by 9 percent over the last five years, while rush-hour ridership has remained mostly flat.
So a few questions beg to be asked. Why did we need the LIRR Expansion Project and its companion, transit-oriented development if our governor, the MTA-LIRR, some state and county elected officials, and the experts knew these trends were already well underway before Covid? Why did they choose to spend billions of our tax dollars and cause massive disruption to our lives, our neighborhoods and our livelihoods for a train to nowhere?
Let’s face it. The progressive vision for Long Island’s future, one that elected officials and members of the Long Island Association and others have been peddling for years, is effectively obsolete before it was ever completed. The coronavirus just confirmed for us that the LIRR Expansion Project was a tragic consequence of living in denial of the facts – facts that have been largely documented by the experts for several years — and ignored by the decision-makers who pushed these projects through regardless of the groundswell of opposition by regular homeowners and taxpayers.
It is noteworthy that NYC dwellers are now increasingly seeking refuge in the suburbs; they are flocking to neighborhoods and communities across Nassau and Suffolk as they currently exist. Long Island’s single-family home sales hit new highs. Why? The suburbs have traditionally valued green space and low-density structures. The current trends have signaled (yet again) an overwhelming rejection of small apartments and mixed-use dwellings that are characteristic of the cookie-cutter, transit-oriented developments that are popping up everywhere. And, while L.I. developers continue to reap IDA tax incentive agreements (a.k.a taxpayer-funded sweet deals that take them off the tax rolls) to bulldoze and build, massive discounts have caused rents to drop precipitously in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens for the first time in history.
The same goes for the new retail opportunities being proposed as part of the “revitalization plans” and the purported “vibrant downtowns” especially along the LIRR corridor. Many of these stores are now in serious free-fall.
It is tragic that it took a global pandemic to bring the facts to light. Our elected officials must acknowledge that their intent to bulldoze and develop all over traditional suburbia is woefully off course and overwhelmingly rejected by longtime and new residents of Nassau and Suffolk.
Critical questions remain. Will elected officials make decisions based on the evidence in the future? Or will they deny the facts and travel down that road? Do the developers who seek to gain huge profits by exploiting our open spaces and traditional suburban milieu count more than “we the people?” If so, the present-day exodus out of New York will continue, and thus it will successfully bring the state to its knees.
Again, we the people demand nothing less than informed decision-making at every level of government – and that informed decision-making must include the voices of the regular homeowners and taxpayers across Long Island who have made their largest personal investment in their single-family homes in suburban communities across Long Island.
Diane Bentivegna
New Hyde Park
