(Newsday posted the following article by Joie Tyrrell on its website on February 17.)
NEW YORK — A dip in the number of Long Island Rail Road rush hour commuters has led to an overall 3.6 percent decline in ridership in 2003, the second year in a row that ticket sales have dropped.
LIRR officials blamed the decline on a weakened economy, the impact of Sept. 11, the bad weather and particularly a 25 percent fare increase instituted in May.
“We know historically that after a fare increase, ridership drops,” LIRR President James Dermody said after a Metropolitan Transportation Authority meeting in Manhattan Tuesday. “We lose riders in the beginning and then slowly they start to come back.”
There were 80.9 million riders who took the railroad in 2003, compared with 83.9 million in 2002. There were 85.6 million in 2001. The railroad posted its best year ever in 1949 when 91 million riders took the railroad. Rush hour travel was down in 2003 by 4.5 percent, with 49.6 million riders last year.
Dermody said the railroad relies heavily on commuters working in the financial, real estate and insurance industries. “The financial sector is beginning to come back and, hopefully with all the development going on in the city and the development of lower Manhattan, the real estate market will come back and we will see an upturn,” he said.
Riders during the non-rush hour dipped slightly from 32 million last year to 31.3 million in 2002. Dermody said the bad weather and elevated security alerts may have kept day-trippers away from Manhattan.
While ridership may be down, revenue jumped by nearly 12 percent because of the fare increase. In 2003, the railroad took in $393.3 million compared with $351.6 million in 2002.
Some transit watchers warn a continued decline in ridership could affect services and that the increased expense of commuting will continue to drive riders away. “If ridership keeps dropping, they are going to have to cut expenses, and the only way they can do that is by service cuts,” said Peter Haynes, president of a transit advocacy group, the LIRR Commuters Campaign.
The railroad is forecasting 81.8 million riders in 2004. Dermody is hoping a revenue increase could mean adding service this year, possibly for the Ronkonkoma line.
“We are going to do everything we can to encourage riders to come back,” Dermody said.
James McGovern, chair of the LIRR Commuters Council, said he expects ridership to rebound. “The railroad is on time more often than the LIE,” he said. “I believe the railroad ebbs and flows with the economy.”
LIRR officials also released January performance figures, showing 85 percent of 19,826 trains arrived on time in January. Nearly 3,000 were late, with more than 900 delays because of weather-related problems. The average delay was 16 minutes.
Earlier this year, LIRR officials had released year-end performance figures for 2003, which declined to 93.1 percent from 94 percent in 2002.
Ridership also was down at Long Island Bus with 2.4 percent fewer riders, said its president, Neil Yellin, at Tuesday’s MTA meeting. Bus fares jumped from $1.50 to $2 last year. “The weakened economy, fare increase in May, harsh winter and wet summer impacted our services,” Yellin said. “I do expect it to come back this year.”