For years there have been various calls for the LIRR to establish some sort of full-time service to and from the Belmont Park spur station. Even before the
Belmont Park Redevelopment project and the new UBS Arena, some sort of permanent service at Belmont Park has long been on various wishlists as a park-and-ride facility, given that the spur station is immediately adjacent to the Cross Island Parkway (equidistant from both the Southern/Laurelton and Grand Central Parkways) and has ample parking facilities that go unused the vast majority of the year.
Local officials from several different levels of government—including the Town of Hempstead and county and state legislators—
have called on MTA and LIRR to establish full-time service at the Belmont Park spur station in the past to provide more rail service options to those who live in the Elmont, Franklin Square, and the unincorporated areas of North Valley Stream. These communities do not have their own rail stations, and parking at most other nearby stations in western Nassau is commonly limited and restricted to local residents only, so those living in these areas are largely shut-out from accessing rail service. By unlocking the large, underused parking lots at Belmont Park and allowing riders from both western Nassau (as well as Eastern Queens where there are also limited rapid transit options) to park and ride on the LIRR, the MTA could expand access to rail service to a much larger potential ridership base in Eastern Queens and Western Nassau County, as well as provide additional opportunities for those who currently drive to Manhattan to hop out of their cars and ride the train, without having to detour far off the highway (like you have to if parking at Mineola).
Now with the Belmont Park Redevelopment effort well underway, there is an even more compelling case for full-time service at the spur station. While the new UBS Arena is up and running (with the LIRR providing
extremely limited shuttle service to the spur station before and after events, for now), there are plans for further expansion and redevelopment at the racetrack site, including a new hotel and a 350,000-square foot "retail and entertainment complex" to the east and south of the arena. During the planning process, Islanders owner Jon Ledecky stated their strong preference for full-time service at the spur station to support the ancillary development on a number of occasions.
For the retail and entertainment complex,
the new Elmont Main Line station is virtually useless. With most of the activity centered on the large south parking lot south of Hempstead Turnpike, the Elmont Main Line station will be nearly a mile-long hike from the retail complex. That is actually a
longer walk than going from Amityville station to Sunrise Mall, which virtually nobody does:
I concur that some sort of full-time service at the Belmont Park spur station would be worthwhile in both the short- and long-terms, as I have written several times in the past
dating back to 2013 and
2014. In addition to providing better access to rapid transit for those in Eastern Queens and Western Nassau, bolstering service at Belmont Park allows the railroad to improve intra-city service at other stations along the Main Line in Queens without putting more strain and slowing down trains travelling to/from points further east on Long Island.
If the railroad ran a reasonably frequent service between Belmont Park and the western terminals, it could offload stops at Queens Village, Hollis, and Hillside (which should become a full-time station accessible to the local community) as well as the Main Line local stops (Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, and Woodside) onto trains to/from the spur station, which would allow the railroad to keep trains bound to Hempstead or places further east on Long Island moving, shaving up to 8 minutes off running times.
Under LIRR's proposed service plan for East Side Access, a ridiculous number of Main Line trains from Huntington and Ronkonkoma are making extra stops in Eastern Queens in an attempt to bolster service at those stations while allowing the LIRR to be cheap and not add additional service. It turns into a very poor outcome, lengthening travel times for riders headed further out into Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
Because Belmont Park is also very close to the city terminals, improving service to the spur station could be accomplished without much in terms of additional crew or equipment resources—trains that come in from out east can bounce back to Belmont Park for a second or third trip when they might not be able to make it all the way back to Babylon or Ronkonkoma with enough time before the end of the rush hour.
A dormant spur
The railroad generally just plainly ignores these requests, but it has offered a handful of excuses over the years. These have ranged from limited western terminal capacity (which it has now increased dramatically
with the impeding completion of East Side Access) as well as risks of congestion at QUEENS Interlocking as trains move slowly onto and off of the spur. The Main Line new station,
and the reconfiguration of QUEENS Interlocking it necessitated, is located nearly three-quarters of a mile from the arena and even further from the retail complex, and will slow down the commutes everyone who passes through the area.
The MTA and LIRR are spending a combined $220 million on
building a new Elmont station and
reconfiguring QUEENS Interlocking—that amount could have paid for most or all of the costs to construct a flyover for both the Hempstead Branch and the Belmont Park spur,
as I discussed towards the end of this piece last week. This would have significantly improved capacity on both the Main Line, and the combination of the Hempstead Branch and Belmont Park spur (effectively allowing the railroad to maximize service to/from both legs without having to worry about crossing moves at QUEENS Interlocking). Incorporating the Belmont Park spur into the flyover would allow the railroad to eliminate the congestion caused by trains exiting the spur and crossing over to the westbound tracks at QUEENS 1 as well as enable the railroad to move trains onto and off of the spur simultaneously.
It is also true that by providing more service to the spur station, you would effectively be forfeiting a slot that could be used to serve more riders coming from stations further east. While
the balance between suburban and intra-city service is and will continue to be a challenging topic, I believe the idea is still meritorious. While full-time service to/from Belmont Park would mean a slight sacrifice to
frequency at stations further east along the Main Line, offloading local stops onto Belmont Park trains would allow for those suburban trips to become
faster, since those suburban trains would be able to dump stops at Queens Village, Hollis, and Hillside, and far fewer trains to/from Eastern LI would need to make local stops on the Main Line between Jamaica and New York.
And even still, I don't think sacrificing slots for Belmont Park spur trains is the end of the world. Even in
a fully built-out through-running scenario, like the one I shared earlier this year, there should be plenty of capacity to provide service to Belmont Park. Additional spur trains would primarily displace slots for Hempstead Branch service, and the Hempstead Branch doesn't need extremely frequent service.
Beyond Belmont
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| There is a large void without rail service in Western Nassau |
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| Extending the Belmont Park spur could fill that void |
Among the reasons establishing full-time service at Belmont Park has been a particularly unmotivating concept over the years has been the fact that the Belmont Park spur serves just the one station, and demand for park-and-ride services can be fickle and difficult to grow. But extending the spur may one day be an idea worth considering—the shoulder of the Cross Island Parkway is quite wide, and it wouldn't be a huge lift to extend the spur (and turn it into a proper branch) south along the Cross Island Parkway towards Cambria Heights and Springfield Gardens. In terms of building a new mainline rail line in New York City (or even on Long Island) this would be one of the easier spots to do it—it would generally require only modifications to some existing overpasses and entrance/exit ramps, now new right-of-way would be required.
This would close the quite gaping hole in Eastern Queens and Western Nassau County between the Montauk Branch and the West Hempstead Branch, where there is a roughly 6-mile by 4-mile void with no rail or rapid transit service. With limited parking at the NYC stations and restricted parking at most stations in western Nassau County, most potential riders in this area are stuck with taking local buses to the subway, which can turn long commutes even longer.
Belmont Park
Converting the existing Belmont Park spur station into a through-running station would not be too complicated. The track and switches at the north end of the spur (just south of the Cross Island Parkway) should be reconfigured to steer trains primarily to tracks 3 and 4, which would be the through-run platform. Tracks 7 and 8 would remain as stub-end tracks for event service, and tracks 1, 2, 5, and 6 would remain as yard tracks. The LIRR is currently installing dual control switches and Yard Switch Indicators on the spur, but these would need to be upgraded to a regular mainline interlocking.
At the south end of the platform, there is room to extend the two existing platforms from 10 cars long to 12 cars, for the sake of consistency and to be able to maximize capacity for major events. The existing ramps and staircases at the south end of the platform would need to be replaced with an overpass—this should really happen regardless, presently the LIRR only uses these southernmost ramps/stairs for events at UBS Arena, and riders have to walk across the bus loops at grade, which puts pedestrians in direct conflict with buses attempting to make U-turns or exit out the south end of the bus loops. It's a very clumsy and chaotic setup. The racetrack overpass at the center of the station works much better, as it brings you right into the grandstand with just one set of stairs (and a set of stairs should be added from the racetrack overpass down to the entrance plaza area, so riders can use that in addition to a south overpass). Ideally there would be an overpass from the south end of the platform directly into UBS Arena so people could easily enter and exit the arena directly from the spur station. Constructing a south overpass could also allow for grade separating the bus loops.
Just south of the spur station, the Cross Island Parkway Exit 26 entrance and exit ramps would need to be reconfigured to allow the extended spur/branch line to pass through the interchange without grade crossings. A new overpass would need to be constructed for the Exit 26A northbound entrance ramp, the Exit 26B exit and entrance ramps, and the Exit 26C entrance ramp. Similar to the south overpass, this is something that should be on the table regardless of whether or not the spur gets extended—when there are events at UBS Arena, normally bad congestion on the Cross Island Parkway gets taken to the next level. There are three sets of entrance and exit merges in a very short stretch, and most of them have short acceleration and deceleration lanes.
Reconfiguring the Cross Island Parkway ramps would reduce the number of merges onto the northbound Cross Island Parkway, collecting traffic from Exit 26A (the new Belmont Park Garage and old south lot), Exit 26B (e/b Hempstead Avenue), and Exit 26C (w/b Hempstead Turnpike) and funneling them towards a single merge point. This would allow UBS Arena staff to better manage traffic flowing out of the arena and cut down on delays caused by merging traffic onto the Cross Island Parkway after events. It would also allow for much better organization of entering and exiting traffic from Hempstead Turnpike. Right now, the Exit 26B entrance ramp (e/b Hempstead Avenue to n/b Cross Island Parkway) and Exit 26C exit ramp (n/b Cross Island Parkway to w/b Hempstead Avenue) have to merge across each other
while trying not to hit the column dividers that split the ramp down the middle underneath Hempstead Avenue. Reconfiguring the ramps would allow for the different directions to be kept completely separate, without the need to mix.
In addition to serving as a park-and-ride station for those in Eastern Queens and Western Nassau County, Belmont Park could also serve as a transfer point between the very busy n6/n6X bus routes and the LIRR. The n6/n6X is the busiest NICE route and serves very populated areas along Hempstead Turnpike between the city line and Hempstead. Presently these buses continue along Hempstead Turnpike and Hillside Avenue all the way into Jamaica and
are primarily used by those who can't afford high LIRR fares. From this location, it is an almost 1 hour, 20 minute schlep into Midtown on the n6 and the subway, but people do this because it's almost $10 cheaper than taking the LIRR from zone 4.
Overhauling the LIRR's fare structure to make tickets much more affordable and having riders transfer from the bus to the LIRR at Belmont Park instead of sitting in traffic on Hillside Avenue all the way to Jamaica would save riders bound for Midtown nearly 50 minutes off their trip
each way, as well as allow NICE to redeploy those buses presently sitting in Queens traffic to better feed LIRR service elsewhere in Nassau County.
Cambria Heights
When it comes to selecting station sites for the new extension of the spur, that has to be done with care. A common issue with rapid transit lines that use highway right-of-ways (either in the median or shoulders) is the large highway kills walkability in the area, effectively cutting down the walkshed for a potential station. Luckily, there are two potential station sites on the extended spur/branch that would be pretty strong contenders, as they intersect two rather strong boulevards that are already well-established commercial and bus corridors.
The first potential station site, illustrated at the right, would be at the intersection of Linden Boulevard in Cambria Heights. Roughly 1.6 miles south/east of Belmont Park, this station would serve riders in the Eastern Queens neighborhood of Cambria Heights as well as the southwest neighborhoods of Alden Manor and Mecham in Elmont. The north end of the station would also be within a short walk of Dutch Broadway/115th Avenue.
There is room within the shoulder of the Cross Island Parkway to build a new station with two side platforms. A new station at Cambria Heights would also help divert riders off the n1, which similar to the n6/n6X, is also a very busy route that effectively duplicates the LIRR between Valley Stream and Jamaica. If the MTA were to also one day undertake an widescale expansion of Subway service further into Eastern Queens, this new station would be a logical terminal point for a future Linden Boulevard Subway.
Springfield Gardens
The second potential station site would be a terminal along the border between the Springfield Gardens and Laurelton neighborhoods in Queens, at the intersection between the Laurelton Parkway and Merrick Boulevard:
At this location, the shoulder between the Laurelton Parkway and the service road is wide enough to comfortably fit a four-track, two-platform terminal station, similar to the layout used at the railroad's other small branch terminals (Hempstead, Long Beach, Port Washington, etc.). Similar to the Cambria Heights station, this station would be built within the existing highway right-of-way and only require slight modifications to the entrance and exit ramps.
A new station at Merrick Boulevard in Springfield Gardens would also have high potential for future intermodal traffic. The n4/n4X bus (which, again, largely duplicates the LIRR between Freeport and Jamaica Center) passes right by here, and Merrick Boulevard would be towards the top of the list for a future Subway expansion from Jamaica. There is room on the west/north side of the highway for a small bus terminal that can provide the n4/n4X as well as the MTA X63 and Q5 buses space to layover between runs off the street.
Springfield Gardens used to have its own LIRR station on the Montauk Branch a short distance to the west at Springfield Boulevard,
but the case for restoring the station there is pretty weak given how it would slow down express trains operating via the Montauk Branch and the site's close proximity to the existing Laurelton and Locust Manor stations. But building a new station along the Laurelton Parkway at Merrick Boulevard can bring rail within walking distance of a larger share of the population in the northeastern portions of Springfield Gardens and Laurelton—while also providing new access for those living in the western portions of Valley Stream.
At this point, the spur/branch would likely just stub—the line here is less than three-quarters of a mile from the Montauk and Atlantic Branches at Rosedale, but I tend to think extending the line all the way down to connect with those branches near Brookville Park is probably not worth it. Not only would such an extension likely require alienating some parkland, but because the Laurelton Parkway tracks in a southwest direction, an extended Belmont Park spur/branch would make a pretty poor alternative route between Jamaica and Valley Stream (when we already have two). The likelihood of both the Montauk and Atlantic Branches but not the Belmont Park Branch being unavailable between Jamaica and Valley Stream is quite slim, and the angle that would form between the Belmont Park Branch and the South Shore branches would be rather sharp.
Overall, extending the Belmont Park spur—while definitely one of the more obscure longshot proposals—would definitely help close up some of the "transit deserts" in Eastern Queens and Western Nassau County, as well as provide significant new park-and-ride opportunities for those who live beyond walking distance of an existing station and are currently largely closed off from rail access due to parking restrictions.
Extending the Belmont Park spur and better utilizing these trains to serve the burgeoning intra-city market can bring lots of benefits to both new and existing LIRR riders. By moving local Queens stops along the Main Line east and west of Jamaica—
and adding a handful of additional infill stops (e.g. restoring Jamaica-Union Hall and potentially building a second station in Hollis at Francis Lewis Boulevard—would allow the LIRR to serve the rapidly growing intra-city ridership market with more frequent service while not loading down longer-running suburban trains with as much intra-city traffic.
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