This goes along with a piece about transit-adjacent land use in Suffolk County I published last June, though this focuses much more on the commercial and employment side of transit access Island-wide.
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| The yellow circles represent a 0.5 mile distance from stations |
The following were Long Island's largest job centers in 2017, according to the US Census:
- Melville-East Farmingdale: 80,636 jobs
- Hempstead-Uniondale: 62,292 jobs
- Mineola-Garden City: 61,479 jobs
- Hicksville-Plainview: 58,670 jobs
- Manhasset-Lake Success: 55,586 jobs
- Happague-Islandia: 45,948 jobs
- Ronkonkoma-Bohemia: 39,136 jobs
- Syosset-Woodbury: 32,391 jobs
- Bay Shore-Brightwaters: 31,327 jobs
- Commack-Dix Hills-Ellwood: 30,171 jobs
You can look at the full set of data (either at the CDP-level, or rolled up into the consolidated job centers) at this link.
The images at the right depict the problem...the yellow circles represent a 0.5 mile buffer around train stations, generally considered the upper limit of what most riders would consider walking distance. As you can see, there are significant clusters of commercial activity not located anywhere near rail...
Looking across all of Nassau and Suffolk Counties, only about 100,000 jobs—or 8% of total employment—are located within 0.25 miles of a LIRR station, which is considered the ideal walking distance to suit most riders. Walking distances of up to as much as 0.50 miles can be tolerated assuming there is good pedestrian infrastructure and friendly terrain, but 0.50 mile is generally considered the very upper limit. That would only put less than 1 in 5 LI jobs within walking distance of a train station. The figure at the left shows the proximity of LI employment to LIRR stations.
Looking at this at the town level, proximity to rail varies fairly widely across Long Island. The figure below shows what percentage of total employment is located within walking distance (0.5 miles) of a LIRR station. Proximity to a LIRR station is highest in western Nassau County, where there are many more stations and they are spaced closer together, and on the East End where commercial activity tends to be much better clustered in downtown areas. In most of western and central Suffolk County, where jobs are either much more scattered or concentrated away from rail (like in the Town of Huntington), far fewer places of employment are accessible by train.
Proximity to employment by station
Looking at it from the other side of the coin, where exactly are those roughly 250,000 LIRR-proximate jobs located on Long Island? That varies widely from place to place, ranging from 0 within walking distance of Pinelawn station to nearly 30,000 within walking distance of Mineola. To illustrate this distribution, I tallied the number of jobs located within walking distance of each station. The list below shows the top 10 LI stations by the number of jobs within 0.5 miles. More of this table is reproduced below, and you can view the full dataset by station (including demographic, age, income, and industry breakdowns) in this Excel workbook (look for the sheet called "By LIRR station (2017) along the bottom).
- Mineola: 29,820 jobs
- Valley Stream: 12,215 jobs
- Rockville Centre: 9,198 jobs
- Great Neck: 7,353 jobs
- Hicksville: 6,142 jobs
- Lynbrook: 6,037 jobs
- Hempstead: 5,983 jobs
- Freeport: 5,402 jobs
- Calre Place: 5,014 jobs
- Smithtown: 4,876 jobs
But despite the LIRR being within walking distance of nearly a quarter of a million jobs, the LIRR's reverse-peak and intra-Island ridership is very poor. That's because proximity is only one part of the equation...there could be a LIRR station literally right across the street from your office, but if there are no trains coming or going from that station at the time you are commuting, it doesn't do you much use. The Manhattan and Ronkonkoma Railroad's reverse-peak and intra-Island service leaves a lot to be desired, with there often being significant gaps in reverse-peak service and inconsistent stopping patterns making intra-Island travel difficult, if not impossible, all because the LIRR prioritizes service for Manhattan-bound commuters.
While the railroad is currently undertaking projects that would theoretically allow for improvements in reverse-peak service, the LIRR's commitment to reverse-peak service is lackluster at best. While one can almost look the other way on the Main Line where there is a significant volume of peak-direction travel, there's no excuse for how bad reverse-peak service is on many other smaller branches where infrastructure constraints are clearly not a problem. Take the City of Long Beach, for example...52% of all employment is within walking distance of the LIRR and nearly 100% of jobs are transit-accessible thanks to a strong feeder bus system in Long Beach...yet despite this small city being home to more than 3,000 jobs, there is a gaping 1 hour, 24 minute hole in evening reverse-peak service from Long Beach during the middle of rush hour, making taking the train impractical for most people. As a result, less than 5% of workers commute to Long Beach jobs using the LIRR.
The figure below shows the total number of jobs located within walking distance of a LIRR station, totaled by branch. The outline bar represents the total number of jobs in 2017, and the colored fill bar represents how many LIRR riders used those stations during the morning rush hour (either getting off an eastbound reverse-peak train or a westbound peak train). The station ridership figures are taken from the LIRR's 2012-14 Origin & Destination Survey (the latest available published counts), normalized to 2017 to account for ridership growth.
As you can see, the LIRR does really bad at cornering market for rail-accessible employment... The best the LIRR does is 6%-12% market share on the major branches...but on the smaller branches, where there are few to no physical obstacles to better reverse-peak service, LIRR's reverse-peak/intra-Island ridership is near zero, accounting for 0%-3% of all employment.
Realigning these figures by area instead of branch, the picture is similarly bleak. First, recall that fewer than 1 in 5 jobs are even within walking distance of the LIRR in the first place, then when you look at the jobs that actually are within walking distance, only a tiny amount of those workers take the train. The figure below shows where LIRR-accessible jobs can be found on LI...the wide majority are located in western Nassau County. The LIRR's market share for rail-accessible employment only tops out at 12% in the Towns of Oyster Bay, Huntington, and Babylon, then gets worse from there:
The stations where the LIRR has the largest market share for rail-accessible employment are:
The figure below shows the total number of jobs located within walking distance of a LIRR station, totaled by branch. The outline bar represents the total number of jobs in 2017, and the colored fill bar represents how many LIRR riders used those stations during the morning rush hour (either getting off an eastbound reverse-peak train or a westbound peak train). The station ridership figures are taken from the LIRR's 2012-14 Origin & Destination Survey (the latest available published counts), normalized to 2017 to account for ridership growth.
As you can see, the LIRR does really bad at cornering market for rail-accessible employment... The best the LIRR does is 6%-12% market share on the major branches...but on the smaller branches, where there are few to no physical obstacles to better reverse-peak service, LIRR's reverse-peak/intra-Island ridership is near zero, accounting for 0%-3% of all employment.
Realigning these figures by area instead of branch, the picture is similarly bleak. First, recall that fewer than 1 in 5 jobs are even within walking distance of the LIRR in the first place, then when you look at the jobs that actually are within walking distance, only a tiny amount of those workers take the train. The figure below shows where LIRR-accessible jobs can be found on LI...the wide majority are located in western Nassau County. The LIRR's market share for rail-accessible employment only tops out at 12% in the Towns of Oyster Bay, Huntington, and Babylon, then gets worse from there:
The stations where the LIRR has the largest market share for rail-accessible employment are:
- Cold Spring Harbor: 100% (64 riders...though I don't know where they are all going, there are only 64 rail-accessible jobs within walking distance)
- Stony Brook: 88% (337 riders, 384 jobs...though this is inflated by student travel. A lot of students take the train to SUNY at Stony Brook, but they don't count as employees so it throws off the denominator). The centroid of SBU's census block falls just outside the 0.5 mile radius from Stony Brook station, so most of those jobs don't count despite them being very transit accessible...when you add in the more than 15,000 people employed directly by the university, this number falls considerably)
- Ronkonkoma: 34%
- Babylon: 27%
- GC-Nassau Boulevard: 27% (again a lot of student traffic to Adelphi University skewing the figures)
- Hicksville: 24%
- Syosset: 23%
- Central Islip: 20% (ridership at the Main Line stations is likely even higher than what the figures show, since these counts were taken before the Ronkonkoma Branch Double Track project was completed)
- Huntington Station: 18%
- Plandome: 16% (very small denominator...26 reverse-peak/intermediate riders, 156 jobs)
Expanding use of LIRR to Long Island employment
While it's abundantly clear the LIRR has a significant amount of ground to make up with regards to better serving and courting riders travelling to the 250,000 jobs already within walking distance of rail stations, having only 19% of Long Island's total employment within walking distance of a LIRR station will mean the many billions of dollars the railroad is spending on improving capacity for reverse-peak services will have its limitations on who it can serve...In order to make the most of these investments, the LIRR must work towards increasing accessibility to existing jobs on Long Island, otherwise mass transit access and usage to workplaces on Long Island will continue to disappoint. While it's true that making the improvements now will help us in the long run (ideally better reverse-peak service will encourage new employers to set up shop within walking distance of an existing station), this is the equivalent of trying to turn an aircraft carrier around in a puddle. Why did all of those employers settle in one area and build all of their office buildings around Melville? Because the LIRR for the longest time hasn't given a rat's behind about reverse-peak service, so they built everything right off the Long Island Expressway, with very easy access from highways in all directions. They are all not going to pick up and move across the street from a rail station all at once (where would there even be any room?)...these types of shifts will take decades. For that reason, we have to encourage smarter growth in existing downtown but also better connect existing, established job hubs to mass transit.
There are a couple of ways to do this:
Infill stations: as discussed yesterday, infill stations are an easy way to expand access to mass transit by allowing for the better utilization of existing trains and infrastructure. Adding a new station puts another whole crop of buildings within walking distance of the railroad. The LIRR should carefully investigate the feasibility of adding stations not where they could get developers to do the heavy lifting for them, but rather where they could expand access to nearby job centers. I will have more on this topic later this week...
Better, frequent feeder bus service: the sad fact of the matter is that many of the largest job centers have been built up away from the LIRR and closer to highways, because of longstanding neglect of decent transit commuting options. To expand access to job centers clustered away from mass transit, the MTA and the county bus operators need to work together to establish frequent feeder bus service (e.g. buses that have timed connections with trains and bring people the last mile or two to their workplace). In some cases, a more robust option like Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or even light rail, along the lines of what is proposed for three corridors in Suffolk County as part of the ConnectLI effort, should also be on the table.
The South Fork Commuter Connection shuttle services are a good example of what is needed...the trains aren't much use if there's no place to go once you get off. SFRTA Tri-Rail in South Florida also has a robust network of "commuter connectors" that are operated by SFRTA itself and are timed to meet trains and bring people to nearby areas.
In the case of improved feeder bus service, the MTA and LIRR should be a main driver—and one of the primary financiers—of these efforts, to make up for decades of neglecting the commuting needs of Long Island employers. Otherwise, many of these infrastructure investments will be a waste. This was one of the points I brought up in my public comments on the Third Track project EIS. The study completely glanced over station access issues and how all of the new riders they projected would actually get to their jobs. On the topic of changes in demand on NICE Buses, the study summarily brushes past the topic, saying that there likely wouldn’t be any and that “increased demand [for bus service] would be accommodated with adjustments to NICE bus service to complement the changes in LIRR ridership” without any further comment on how those "adjustments" would actually be financed as NICE has been struggling with almost constant financial constraints and irregular subsidies for the last decade (I've lost track of how many times routes like the n80 have been cut and restored, cut and restored). The project team pretty much completely abdicated any consideration of how new riders would actually get to their jobs, saying that improvements to bus service are beyond the scope of the project...
Direct development: the MTA can catalyze this transition themselves by making better use of the significant amounts of underdeveloped land near stations, by using their ability to build free of local zoning restrictions to create new rail-adjacent office space for companies to establish in or move to.
Improving the service itself so there are more trains available for reverse-peak and intra-Island commuters is extremely important, but location is everything. The MTA needs to work with the LIRR and the suburban bus operators to dramatically increase the number of jobs accessible by mass transit. If they are only going to cater to a tiny portion of Long Island's total employment near existing stations, that's not all that much better than not trying at all...
Employment and market share by station - summary table
You can view the full table (with further demographic breakdowns) in this Excel workbook (look for the sheet called "By LIRR station (2017) along the bottom).| Station | Jobs w/in 0.5 mi (2017) | AM off (west) (2014) | AR off (east) (2014) | TOTAL RIDERS (2014-2017) | LIRR's market share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mineola | 29,820 | 674 | 744 | 1,458 | 5% |
| Valley Stream | 12,215 | 85 | 170 | 262 | 2% |
| Rockville Centre | 9,198 | 74 | 161 | 242 | 3% |
| Great Neck | 7,353 | 78 | 534 | 629 | 9% |
| Hicksville | 6,142 | 716 | 745 | 1,502 | 24% |
| Lynbrook | 6,037 | 58 | 168 | 232 | 4% |
| Hempstead | 5,983 | 0 | 190 | 195 | 3% |
| Freeport | 5,402 | 73 | 207 | 288 | 5% |
| Carle Place | 5,014 | 5 | 31 | 37 | 1% |
| Smithtown | 4,876 | 9 | 36 | 46 | 1% |
| Westbury | 4,684 | 54 | 248 | 311 | 7% |
| Patchogue | 4,436 | 15 | 66 | 83 | 2% |
| Floral Park | 4,421 | 8 | 62 | 72 | 2% |
| Bellmore | 4,417 | 22 | 149 | 176 | 4% |
| Merrick | 4,230 | 38 | 149 | 192 | 5% |
| Port Washington | 4,098 | 0 | 343 | 353 | 9% |
| New Hyde Park | 3,920 | 52 | 95 | 151 | 4% |
| Hewlett | 3,676 | 18 | 75 | 96 | 3% |
| Bay Shore | 3,336 | 11 | 62 | 75 | 2% |
| East Williston | 3,221 | 11 | 14 | 26 | 1% |
| Long Beach | 3,072 | 0 | 150 | 154 | 5% |
| Oakdale | 3,059 | 2 | 35 | 38 | 1% |
| Cedarhurst | 3,054 | 4 | 104 | 111 | 4% |
| Babylon | 3,050 | 371 | 423 | 817 | 27% |
| GC-Elm Street (CLP) | 3,017 | 1 | 28 | 30 | 1% |
| Deer Park | 3,007 | 57 | 175 | 239 | 8% |
| Riverhead | 2,905 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0% |
| Oyster Bay | 2,901 | 0 | 22 | 23 | 1% |
| Amityville | 2,869 | 34 | 156 | 195 | 7% |
| Manhasset | 2,863 | 24 | 194 | 224 | 8% |
| West Hempstead | 2,662 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 0% |
| Farmingdale | 2,572 | 76 | 333 | 421 | 16% |
| Island Park | 2,454 | 3 | 33 | 37 | 2% |
| Baldwin | 2,431 | 20 | 97 | 120 | 5% |
| GC-Merillon Avenue | 2,416 | 13 | 33 | 47 | 2% |
| Islip | 2,367 | 16 | 26 | 43 | 2% |
| Wantagh | 2,291 | 14 | 101 | 118 | 5% |
| Greenvale | 2,249 | 3 | 23 | 27 | 1% |
| Lawrence | 2,248 | 0 | 34 | 35 | 2% |
| Roslyn | 2,208 | 6 | 65 | 73 | 3% |
| GC-Cathedral Avenue | 2,166 | 2 | 60 | 64 | 3% |
| Port Jefferson | 2,075 | 0 | 33 | 34 | 2% |
| Huntington | 2,067 | 196 | 164 | 370 | 18% |
| Lindenhurst | 2,033 | 8 | 88 | 99 | 5% |
| Bethpage | 1,946 | 39 | 72 | 114 | 6% |
| Massapequa | 1,870 | 14 | 85 | 102 | 5% |
| Massapequa Park | 1,870 | 12 | 69 | 83 | 4% |
| Oceanside | 1,865 | 20 | 54 | 76 | 4% |
| Sayville | 1,834 | 6 | 37 | 44 | 2% |
| Brentwood | 1,673 | 20 | 87 | 110 | 7% |
| Albertson | 1,671 | 5 | 19 | 25 | 1% |
| Woodmere | 1,656 | 19 | 87 | 109 | 7% |
| Sea Cliff | 1,597 | 3 | 13 | 16 | 1% |
| Bellerose | 1,427 | 2 | 10 | 12 | 1% |
| Copiague | 1,399 | 15 | 76 | 94 | 7% |
| Mastic-Shirley | 1,377 | 0 | 11 | 11 | 1% |
| East Hampton | 1,317 | 1 | 10 | 11 | 1% |
| Hempstead Gardens | 1,296 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0% |
| Stewart Manor | 1,295 | 4 | 37 | 42 | 3% |
| Glen Cove | 1,274 | 4 | 11 | 15 | 1% |
| Northport | 1,252 | 15 | 49 | 66 | 5% |
| Seaford | 1,212 | 3 | 67 | 72 | 6% |
| Syosset | 1,187 | 36 | 229 | 273 | 23% |
| Southampton | 1,146 | 1 | 9 | 10 | 1% |
| Wyandanch | 1,061 | 47 | 53 | 103 | 10% |
| Greenlawn | 1,042 | 19 | 12 | 32 | 3% |
| Bridgehampton | 983 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 1% |
| East Rockaway | 978 | 15 | 25 | 41 | 4% |
| Ronkonkoma | 956 | 40 | 277 | 326 | 34% |
| Malverne | 945 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0% |
| Kings Park | 923 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 1% |
| Glen Street | 920 | 0 | 29 | 30 | 3% |
| St. James | 901 | 5 | 6 | 11 | 1% |
| Westwood | 879 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0% |
| Glen Head | 831 | 7 | 17 | 25 | 3% |
| Hampton Bays | 810 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 1% |
| Inwood | 796 | 0 | 21 | 22 | 3% |
| Locust Valley | 759 | 3 | 22 | 26 | 3% |
| Mattituck | 729 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Greenport | 724 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Central Islip | 720 | 8 | 135 | 147 | 20% |
| Southold | 677 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Centre Avenue | 669 | 1 | 14 | 15 | 2% |
| GC-Nassau Boulevard | 610 | 6 | 152 | 162 | 27% |
| Westhampton | 573 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 1% |
| Gibson | 507 | 10 | 15 | 26 | 5% |
| Medford | 484 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0% |
| Great River | 437 | 0 | 21 | 22 | 5% |
| Bellport | 409 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1% |
| Stony Brook | 384 | 17 | 311 | 337 | 88% |
| Lakeview | 348 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1% |
| Speonk | 246 | 0 | 11 | 11 | 5% |
| Plandome | 156 | 5 | 20 | 26 | 16% |
| Amagansett | 131 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 4% |
| Montauk | 95 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 11% |
| Cold Spring Harbor | 64 | 39 | 23 | 64 | 100% |
| Yaphank | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Pinelawn | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0% |
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