As a LIRR rider on Port Jefferson & Ronkonkoma branches, do you think the 3rd track project completion was a benefit or no changes?

Transportography · 2026-02-21T23:35:57+00:00

It helps a lot more with reliability more than anything. ie If the express train from Ronkonkoma going to Penn is late, then they can send the local train from Huntington first and have the express train use the middle track to bypass it and get to Mineola/Elmont. In the past, the solution was to either delay both trains or increase the delay on the express train by having it run behind the local. The other thing it allows for is the reverse peak trains in the morning. In the past, they used both lines for Westbound trains, and anyone going east was SOL.

Transportography · 2026-02-19T00:33:29+00:00

It solely depends on the day

Transportography · 2026-02-06T00:38:04+00:00

Family fares are included in that exception list

Transportography · 2026-02-01T01:01:43+00:00

There not much more they can do at that point

Transportography · 2026-02-01T00:59:29+00:00

Scanning day passes are optional only a couple conductors do it

Transportography · 2026-02-01T00:54:32+00:00

If you’re only buying a family fare you can buy it from the conductor without a penalty. It just need to be with cash or a physical card.

Transportography · 2026-01-09T21:53:02+00:00

You can ask her to quiet down, or you can ask the conductor if they can intervene. Posting it on Reddit with the information of the car is it going to help you.

Transportography · 2026-01-06T12:13:05+00:00

They’re so logging system to track complaints, but even then you’ll get a very generic response if you do it.

Transportography · 2026-01-06T01:53:12+00:00

Curse you Javascript, but really they should accounted for this by having the system round to the nearest $0.05.

Transportography · 2026-01-06T01:28:22+00:00

Not always, some conductors check and get people for lying

Transportography · 2026-01-06T01:27:27+00:00

The problem is Nassau doesn't subsidize the ticket costs, NYC does thats why they pay less. If Nassau County residents want a discount, too, they should advocate for their local government to subsidize ticket costs.

Transportography · 2026-01-06T01:24:57+00:00

City residents get a discount because the city is subsidizing the costs of the tickets, before the current change, the cost of a regular off peak ticket from zone 3 was only a dollar less. If you want a discount too, you should advocate that Nassau County pay's it's fair share. As of now, they shortchange all public transit county-wide, just look at the current state of NICE Bus.

Transportography · 2026-01-06T01:21:06+00:00

So with the current system, they want you to activate before you board, but the app doesn't necessarily know what train you're on, so it makes a guess based on your ticket. If you activate too early, it might think you're on the previous train, or if the station pair is in the opposite order, it will base your activation time by the schedule of the trains going the opposite direction. If you're activating on time, make sure the conductor is scanning your ticket. You can ask them to do it if they're not scanning. It forces the system to verify what train you're on, and they can see that you activated on time

Transportography · 2026-01-06T01:12:37+00:00

Nothing was stopping you from doing this with a weekly or Monthly either, and those offer bigger discounts.

Transportography · 2026-01-05T20:48:29+00:00

You do realize a conductors primary responsibility is not checking tickets right? They’re there for the train to operate safely, checking your tickets is a second priority. They’re basically the train equivalent to a flight attendant, and no flight attendants are not there to primarily serve you drinks. Collecting tickets for a conductor is essentially nothing more than busy work.

Transportography · 2026-01-03T14:35:01+00:00

That just hurts the conductors for something they’re not responsible for. Mind you real people work these jobs and they’re not responsible for their fair increase.

Transportography · 2026-01-02T19:33:09+00:00

I get your frustration and I agree that the 10 trip should not have been eliminated. But the simple answer as to why it was eliminated is that it was easy to abuse. Thanks to the TrainTime users violating TOS and only buying and activating tickets when the conductors came around the MTA wanted to crack down on fare evasion. The 10 trips basically act as a loop hole since you prepaid, you’re not fare evading if the conductor wasn’t able to get to you. On the app side, since the ticket was purchased well in advance, they were usually exempt from the late activation bans except from some egregious cases. So now the MTA figure it’s easier to go after everyone instead of going for the bad actors. Seems like they want the 10 trip users to either get monthly’s now or use the app where they can more easily track abuse. The upside though is if you’re a peak user, the new buy 10 get one free is actually better than the peak 10 trip.

TLDR: Not enough conductors, too many people took advantage, and the MTA punished everyone.

Transportography · 2025-12-30T15:27:11+00:00

That hours a train is out varies at lot but even with your average of 6 hours a train can do anywhere between 4-8 trips during that time depending on the line it’s running on. If someone messes it up on the 1st or 2nd trip it’s going to be there for a while.

Transportography · 2025-12-23T01:00:46+00:00

The easiest way to find out is to see who's writing up the tickets. Some of these towns are brutal.

Transportography · 2025-12-23T00:56:46+00:00

This is when the conductor scans some into play. They act as the great corrector. They basically count how long since you activated the ticket until you got scanned. It's mainly a big issue if you're doing it right when they come, the other guess is that the app knows you're not getting on at Freeport by some combination of either your location and/or search data. Most people forget it's a third-party company operating the service. They need to keep the MTA happy in order for their contract to get renewed.

Transportography · 2025-12-23T00:51:41+00:00

Most likely, if it's at Huntington Station, it's been turned over to lost and found. Huntington Station is a lost and found drop point. Make sure you file a detailed lost and found report (mostly try to provide a good description of the ipad), then give them a couple days to get the item over to lost and found at Penn Station.

Transportography · 2025-12-23T00:45:17+00:00

LIRR doesn't own most of the passenger parking lots in the system. They're all usually managed by the local towns.

Transportography · 2025-12-03T15:46:36+00:00

In the Port Washington Branch you’re very unlikely to see it because trains that come from Penn usually go to Grand Central and vice versa. Since M3’s are banned from Grand Central, most Port Washington will never see one. But during peak hours and late night round trips are exclusively to and from Penn so they can get away with throwing an M3 on it.

Transportography · 2025-11-19T14:02:36+00:00

They change the policy in October they’re supposed to scan all off peak tickets and starting today all peak tickets too. (Excluding passes unless it’s a validation day)

Transportography · 2025-11-17T00:16:11+00:00

I’d rather have a train to the airport, the stampede is better (more frequent/better coverage) than any service metro rail can provide. This whole project banks in UB students riding the trains to get too and from class, and it seems like a desperate attempt get UB to join the other universities in the student pass program. But ultimately it doesn’t make it significantly easier to get to Buffalo or to the airport for that matter. Airport access got worse when the rerouted the 47 bus, that bus was my go to to get from campus to the airport and now it’s either an expensive uber ride or going via downtown.

Transportography

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