North Fork's LIRR riders blow the whistle

Rebels are once again rattling swords and threatening secession. The East End’s awake.

This happens every so often and then dissolves in simmering resentment. Usually it foments a brief resuscitation of the Peconic County movement, which is now probably around 50 years old and getting gray around the muzzle.

Generally the spark is financial, as in too much tax going out and not enough services coming in, but once in a while there are specific flashpoints, such as the Shoreham nuclear plant. When East Enders complained that they wouldn’t be able to escape westward in the event of a meltdown, who can forget then-Suffolk Comptroller Joe Caputo replying something to the effect of, “What’s the problem? They all have boats, don’t they?”

Some feel that kind of nurturing attitude is evident in the latest flare-up. This time it’s not Suffolk but the Metropolitan Transportation Authority playing the heavy. At issue is the MTA’s plan to shut down one Long Island Rail Road train from Brooklyn to Montauk and all service to the North Fork except for summer weekends.

Adding outrage is the timing, coming on the heels of Albany’s approval of the payroll tax to help close the MTA’s monster budget gap. “It’s taxation without transportation” was the snappy battle cry issued by Southold Supervisor Scott Russell at a recent rabble rousing in Greenport. “The East End can no longer serve as a cash cow to fund a system that mainly benefits New York City,” said County Legis. Ed Romaine. If the MTA doesn’t relent, he will call for immediate secession from the MTA and creation of a Peconic transportation authority.

Also backlashing has been William Schoolman, president of Hampton Luxury Liner, who recently wrote a $7,000 check to cover his MTA tax and then filed a complaint challenging the law’s constitutionality. It’s illegal on a number of counts, he contends, but on a personal level it’s “particularly outrageous” because it forces him into the unpleasant position of subsidizing his competition, as he wrote in a recent commentary for Long Island Business News.

This is a sad turn in many ways, but especially for the North Fork, which has had a long love affair with the LIRR, dating back to that joyful July 27, 1844, when an all-day celebration marked the opening of the Main Line to Greenport. That put the North Fork on the agricultural and economic map, and forged an emotional bond that would be severely tattered by this cutback.

But you can’t run a railroad on sentiment. The MTA faces a $400 million budget gap. Deficits have been run up “across the MTA family,” authority spokesman Aaron Donovan told me the other day. Cutbacks are planned “across the region, from the East End of Long Island to Rockland County. New York City is getting the most because that’s where the most service is.”

Of the LIRR cutbacks, the greatest impact is seen in the move from four peak trains to two on the Babylon branch, according to documents supplied by Donovan. There it’s projected that 1,100 passengers would be affected daily and $1.05 million would be saved in 2011. Second greatest would be the Greenport cutback, saving $991,000 but affecting only 190 passengers on weekdays and 160 on weekends.

Parsing those numbers, is it fair to say that the North Fork is the LIRR’s least profitable run? That’s kind of beside the point, MTA and LIRR spokesmen told me. All mass transit runs at a deficit. In the case of the LIRR, fares make up only 44 percent of the cost of the service, the rest coming from government subsidies. So the question isn’t so much revenue as it is ridership, and there the North Fork isn’t big. In 2008, for instance, those 160 weekend passengers meant 960 empty seats.

But still, it’s been a longtime and dedicated ridership, and those riders and their representatives deserve a chance to weigh in on the issue. In an unfortunate example of tone deafness, the MTA scheduled no hearings on the East End, “the latest slap in a long list of slaps in the face,” groused William Lindsay, presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature.

The hearing is now slated for Monday, March 8, at County Center in Riverhead.


Long Island Business News / Feb. 11, 2010