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| Rendering of the proposed Elmont station (Photo: Executive Chamber) |
Belmont Park is already served by a dedicated LIRR station (and has been since the park's opening day in 1905) located on a spur about 600 feet due west of the grandstand and a third of a mile south of the Main Line, which forms the north border of the park. The spur station sees very little use, much to the chagrin of local residents. The LIRR runs just two round-trips to and from the station on race days (Wednesdays through Sundays during only certain weeks of the year) as well as all day service for the annual Belmont Stakes (which has seen its ups and downs). The LIRR sunk $4.26 million in upgrades into the spur station in 2015 after it caught national press attention for major service meltdowns the year before. In recent years, Belmont Stakes service has gone either really poorly or more or less fine. This past year there were fewer problems (and fewer riders) on LIRR's trains to the Belmont Stakes, but the railroad achieved that in part by slighting regular weekend riders on the Hempstead Branch, slashing service in half for much of the day and busing passengers to Hollis and Queens Village (combined adding up to 1 hour, 40 minutes of travel time).
Transportation has always been a great point of contention in any Belmont Park redevelopment proposal, and it has a significant impact on the redevelopment's overall impact to the surrounding community. Traffic is always a problem on Long Island, and the congestion issue is particularly acute in Elmont right on the border with Queens. Horse racing does not attract many spectators these days, so the impact from normal business at Belmont Park is negligible on the surrounding community (except for the day of the Belmont Stakes, which is written off as a once-a-year headache). But a new mall and hotel open for business everyday, and a new arena with 41 Islanders home games and dozens of additional events attracting thousands of people will certainly cause transportation headaches. The Cross Island Parkway and Hempstead Turnpike (NY-24) are both already congested, and adding thousands of extra cars, especially during the evening rush hours when many of these events start will certainly cause traffic issues.
Local community groups and elected officials in this portion of Nassau County have been pushing the LIRR to make better use of its Belmont Park facilities, relying on the hope that a robust train service that people would want to use would mean more shoppers and spectators could arrive by train, limiting the impact of congestion on the surrounding roadways. Support for a full-time LIRR station at Belmont Park has been there from multiple levels of government, dating back to before the Belmont Park redevelopment plans were announced. Residents in the areas of Elmont and North Valley Stream currently have very poor access to mass transit. There is a 4.25-mile gap between the Main Line and South Shore Branches in this area, and parking at surrounding stations is either non-existent or limited to residents only. As a result, these areas have long commutes as most have to tough it out on slow NICE bus services to Jamaica. Islanders co-owner Jon Ledecky has also said during the planning process for the redevelopment that a full-time LIRR station to serve the arena, shopping mall, hotel, and surrounding area would be highly desirable.
But despite the clamor and potential demand for better rail service at Belmont Park, the MTA and LIRR have been dragging their feet at every step of the way. Both have long ignored calls from local officials and residents to step-up efforts at Belmont Park the 364 other days of the year. Despite then-new LIRR President Phillip Eng telling Newsday's editorial board last year shortly after moving over to the railroad that LIRR should "not limit ourselves in terms of our imagination", the LIRR has so far only committed to providing 2 round-trips to Belmont Park for special events only, well short of what everyone else has been pushing for.
New Main Line station to be full-time
The new station, which would be constructed on the north end of the site, would operate on a full-time basis, according to the Governor's press release. The station would be served roughly every half-hour during peak periods, and hourly during off-peak times, which suggests the stop would be served predominately by Hempstead trains on normal days.The station, which would be located more than two-thirds of a mile from the proposed arena, would be served by electric shuttle buses and connect the station to parking lots within Belmont Park, the arena site, the grandstand, hotel, and retail areas. The parking lot north of the racetrack, which has 2,860 spaces, will be shared by commuters and arena patrons (though diagrams show only a small portion of that space, roughly 150 spaces, would be allotted to LIRR commuters).
This new Main Line station would be constructed in two phases. The first phase would involve constructing one 8-car platform to handle passengers in the eastbound direction only and would be completed in 2021, prior to the opening of the arena. The second phase, which would construct a pedestrian overpass, extend the eastbound platform to 12-cars, and build a new 12-car westbound platform would be put into service until after East Side Access and the Main Line Grade Crossing Elimination project were completed, expected in 2023.
I wrote more about the Belmont Park LIRR question back in January, including the layout and arrangement of the infrastructural in this area, what constraints or barriers exist to providing additional service on the spur both to/from points west and to/from Eastern Long Island using the east leg of the wye. Overall, I continue to think that the demand/need for daily service to the Belmont Park spur station is sufficient to warrant daily service, and the infrastructure constraints to providing increases event service to the spur station are either non-existent or easily resolvable (e.g. adding/relocating a crossover to allow trains exiting from the east leg of the wye to reach the Main Line tracks to LI).
The plan for a new Main Line station is the result of several months of handwringing with the MTA, ESD, and New York Arena Partners have reportedly over transportation question for Belmont Park. While the real solution should be obvious...LIRR should use the existing infrastructure it has to run daily/full-time service to the Belmont Park spur, with sufficient extra service for special events, this half-heated alternative is what we have. The construction of a new Main Line station would allow the LIRR to keep up its extremely half-hearted service plans for the spur station, since they could have existing trains add stops at a new Main Line station.
The FEIS says that the LIRR's previous plan to provide just 2 shuttle trains from Jamaica to the spur station would remain in place, and the Main Line station would see its normal service, plus select additional trains to/from other destinations (Huntington, Ronkonkoma, etc.), which "would be chosen based on available capacity".
According to the Governor's announcement, previously-agreed-to upgrades to the existing spur, including the installation of interlocked track switches and what appears to be a new substation are still included in the project. These would allow trains leaving the spur after an event to serve stations both east and west of Belmont Park, correcting a mistake the LIRR made in 2009 relocating a switch in QUEENS Interlocking that previously allowed trains from Belmont park to reach any eastbound track on the Main Line to points east. The FEIS says that up to two direct eastbound trains could be provided from the spur station to points east (Huntington, Ronkonkoma, etc.) after events.
The Governor's announcement confirms the station will be located just east of the Cross Island Parkway, a literal stones throw from the Bellerose station a few thousand feet to the east:
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| Diagram showing the proposed station location (Empire State Development) |
All in all, I think a new Main Line station at Belmont Park is not a great idea, for a couple of reasons:
- Station would be located more than 0.5 miles from arena: in order to get between a new Main Line station and the proposed arena on the south side of the racetrack, people would have to walk more than 3,500 feet around the west edge of the track (two-thirds of a mile) to reach the station. That is a longer walk than most riders are generally willing to tolerate (generally people will be willing to walk only 0.25 to 0.50 miles for transit). It is also much longer than walking distances between other sporting arenas and rail stations (rail stations are 1,600 ft away from Citi Field and 1,400 ft away at Yankee Stadium; at Philadelphia's sports complex, stadiums and arenas are between 1,600 and 2,500 ft away from the station; at both the Meadowlands and the Barclays Center (where the Islanders play now), the rail stations are just steps away from the arena). The arena operators have said they would provide a shuttle service on event days, but it seems nothing will be offered on regular days, making attracting riders for the hotel and shopping mall an extremely hard sell. Shuttles also have very poor scalability, as sporting events generally involve arenas disgorging thousands of people in a short period of time after a train arrives or an event ends.
- Station would be located less than 0.25 miles from Bellerose: if a new Main Line station were to be built with full 12-car platforms, the east end of the platform would just about a quarter-mile (1,400 ft) from Bellerose station, which typical walking distance. At that rate, if the arena operators have already resigned themselves to operate shuttles, they might as well just run the shuttles a few hundred feet further east to Bellerose station, and skip the new Main Line station altogether... The shortest distance between two LIRR stations now is 1,586 ft (Inwood to Far Rockaway), and Bellerose is already very close to Floral Park station, which is just 2,107 ft more to the east. Between Queens Village, a new Main Line station, Bellerose, and Floral Park, LIRR will have four stations in a 1.65 mile span (that's about one every 2,100 ft). There are some NYC Subway lines that don't even have stations spaced that closely together (that stop spacing is comparable to the spacing on most of the subway lines in Southern Brooklyn). Local trains between Hillside and Floral Park will have to make six stops in 3.8 miles...stops that close together mean trains can't ever get up to track speed, and so will take a lot longer to traverse that distance.
- Same/similar service constraints as serving the spur station: the constraints of serving the Main Line station are more or less the same than that of just using the existing spur station. The only difference is now, instead of needing to slot in whole extra trains, the railroad needs to find a way to cram Islanders fans onto already crowded Main Line trains. The planned LIRR upgrades to both the spur and the Main Line station would mean the LIRR can provide the same service to the same destinations from both the spur station and the Main Line station.
- Mixing regular and event service doesn't work (especially at large volumes): the LIRR is likely angling for the Main Line station to get out of having to run more than the measly 2 trains they have already committed to. But relying predominately on existing trains to serve large swells of special event riders, like the LIRR does at Mets-Willets Point and for events at the Forest Hills Stadium can be undesirable. Most Main Line trains (or their NY connections if they start in Brooklyn or LIC/HPA) are crowded on a normal day, and adding as many as several thousand additional riders to those trains over a short span of time can exacerbate crowding issues. Hempstead trains—the primary trains that would serve the Main Line station—are often very crowded out of New York, as they usually double as FHL/KGN stops and carrying large connecting loads, in addition to normal Hempstead-bound riders. Complicating the matter is Belmont Park is considerably further from NY than Mets-Willets Point or Forest Hills, meaning people would have to stand for longer (over a half-hour). That extra crowding can also delay trains (like what often happens through Mets-Willets Point or Forest Hills on event days), and unlike the Port Washington Branch, delays through this important junction are more likely to ripple through the system. After events, relying on existing evening service can result in long wait times. Having to wait up to a half-hour for a train after arriving at the station can be a hassle.
- Belmont or Elmont? The FEIS suggests that the LIRR would offer both eastbound and westbound service from both the spur station and new Main Line station, which seems bound to breed confusion. Riders would need to know what station to go to for the next train to their destination before potentially going more than a mile out of their way to the wrong station. And judging by how poorly LIRR communicates train departure information at Brklyn-Atlantic Terminal after Islanders games, this is a disaster waiting to happen. What's worse, the FEIS and renderings suggest the new Main Line station would be called "Elmont" (despite it being located mostly in Bellerose Terrace), and "Belmont" and "Elmont" sound an awful lot alike.
The new Main Line station would not offer any direct service from the South Shore branches, which join several miles to the west, closer to Hillside and Jamaica, however the FEIS indicates that one possible congestion management measure could be to run a shuttle bus service from the Rockville Centre station to the arena. Riders would connect there with regularly scheduled Babylon trains.
The LIRR's plan to mix limited extra service in with existing service is workable, it's just very prone to overcrowding and delays. Between the overcrowding, delays, and long walk to the arena, taking the train would likely be a hard sell for most people. The LIRR is already persona non grata in the eyes of most Islander fans, as issues with overcorwding, poor management of crowds and operations at Atlantic Terminal, and poor communication have gone largely unresolved since the Isles moved to Brooklyn in 2014 and make "taking the train to the game" a very unpleasant experience for most. Ridership figures show a downward trend in the number of attendees taking the LIRR, and the overall hassle of taking the train and getting to the Barclays Center play no small part in the Isles seeing worst in the NHL for attendance the last two years and precipitating their search for a new venue in the first place.
Put simply, the LIRR clearly does not want to be in the business of providing extra service for special events, and will want to have service for the new arena at Belmont Park be able to stand entirely on its own with existing trains. Blowing tens of millions on a new station allows LIRR to take the easy way out and do just that—serve Belmont Park with existing Hempstead Branch trains, with added stops on Main Line trains during events. Who cares if it happens to be three-quarters of a mile away from the proposed arena and delivers much poorer service for passengers. While LIRR is committing to a measly 2 shuttle trains to/from Jamaica now, watch them try to cut that service as soon as possible after a new Main Line station is ready for service.
To make a new arena work for everyone, the LIRR must put their best foot forward from day 1, and have a robust daily and event service offering, and they simply cannot do that effectively at a Main Line station. It is important they surmount whatever barriers there are (and they are more psychological than physical) and figure out how to make effective use of the spur station for both westward service, and limited direct trains to/from Huntington and Ronkonkoma for major events.
The cost factor
The total cost of the LIRR improvements in the Belmont Park vicinity is expected to be $104 million. While that includes the cost of the switch and power upgrades for the existing spur, the bulk of that will be the cost of constructing the new station, which is very high. The LIRR has previously done total station renovations for $20-$25 million, which is comparable to infill station costs elsewhere in the world, and even the highly inflated/bloated stations for the Main Line Grade Crossing Elimination project are only costing about $50 million each. While the Governor's announcement said that New York Arena Partners would finance $97 million of the cost, the real arrangement highlights the very precipitous nature of these public-private funding schemes. According to other project documents, NYAP will in fact only be contributing $30 million to the construction of the station. The state will finance the $75 million balance, and NYAP will pay back all but $8 million of that amount "once the development is completed" under undisclosed payment terms.
The Belmont Park Main Line station is another page out of the same playbook that gets us projects that delivery lower value for significantly higher costs. And it doesn't matter that the money being wasted is the arena developers (though the New York taxpayer is effectively serving as a bank, financing most of the project and then getting reimbursed by NYAP at some undisclosed later date under undisclosed payment terms)...a dollar wasted is a dollar wasted. If NYAP had $97 million burning a hole in their pocket, the state could have recovered it as part of the PILOT agreement and put the funds to better use someplace else.
Lower value for higher costs
The overall direction the Belmont Park transportation issue is now lumbering in highlights the general trend in LIRR and MTA project planning in recent years. Common sense dictates a relatively straightforward solution to a problem (adopting best practices and fully utilizing existing infrastructure to provide additional service), but because the MTA and LIRR can't be bothered to properly use the resources they have (or properly scope and execute projects where expansions are necessary), we get conned into financing bloated and/or unnecessary projects that have a negative overall impact on service. The Main Line Grade Crossing Elimination project is a great example of this...once a relatively straightforward $800 million project to eliminate crossings and add a Third Track, it has now ballooned into a $2.4+ billion project that's triple the cost with a number of new major design flaws that will encumber better intra-Island service, severely impact Oyster Bay Branch service, and limit the potential for future expansion, among other issues. The AirTrain to LaGuardia airport is the same way...the current plan calls for the AirTrain to go in the wrong direction, the cost has ballooned from $405 million to now over $2 billion, and that figure seems to go up another $500 million or so every six months (so much so, PANYNJ is proposing major fare hikes for later this year).The Belmont Park Main Line station is another page out of the same playbook that gets us projects that delivery lower value for significantly higher costs. And it doesn't matter that the money being wasted is the arena developers (though the New York taxpayer is effectively serving as a bank, financing most of the project and then getting reimbursed by NYAP at some undisclosed later date under undisclosed payment terms)...a dollar wasted is a dollar wasted. If NYAP had $97 million burning a hole in their pocket, the state could have recovered it as part of the PILOT agreement and put the funds to better use someplace else.
Overall, the advancement of a new home for the Islanders is good for Long Island (though perhaps not as good as it would be if they just use the recently overhauled 14,500 seat arena just down the road). The best news for most fans is probably the fact the arena has easy highway access and plenty of on-site parking. The majority of fans will likely seek to cut the LIRR and all of the headaches that go along with taking the train out of their plans altogether and just drive. To win those people back, and attract new riders to the shopping mall and hotel, the LIRR must out it's best foot forward (not its usual half-hearted attempt at whatever requires the least effort), and that's something that will not be easy to do at a new Main Line station.
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