The MTA makes a stop at Melville

Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Janno Lieber and Long Island Rail Road president Rob Free visited the editorial board Wednesday. Here is a transcript, edited for length and clarity, of some of the topics we discussed. The editorial board meets regularly with the region’s policymakers, elected officials and advocates, and we want to bring readers into our information-gathering process by sharing these conversations.

Go to instagram.com/newsdayopinion for video of some questions and answers.

Fare Evasion

Lieber: It is a huge problem in the subway and the bus system in the city; I would say a moderate but growing problem on the railroads . . . Among the recommendations was specifically to address a very antiquated system of acting like everybody just forgot their wallet and here’s an IOU and you’ll send us a check and we’ll see you at the club, right? It’s not the real world that we’re living in. So we identified the problem . . . We need to have the ability to issue summonses on the spot, which was not given to the railroads under the law and we need to increase the penalties for recidivists. And we need to have cops who are on the trains who will support the conductors . . . It’s not a secret that . . . the top violators just basically flipped the bird to the conductor. So we will get more summonses, more enforcement, and I think hopefully protect our conductors more because we’re not going to put up with the attacks.

The MTA PD has started to kick people off trains . . . That is probably the most effective deterrent, that somebody is not going to complete their journey in the time frame that they’re hoping . . . We know that the most effective deterrent is to make people inconvenienced and we’re going to up the [cost of a] summons.

The railroads are not nearly as bad as what’s going on in the city, but the demoralization of our passengers is a huge issue because at some point the people who play by the rules in every aspect of their lives start to get demoralized and say, “Why should I pay? Why should I be a sucker?” So we’re not going to put up with that . . .

We’ve struggled sometimes in the city to get the DAs to take fare evasion seriously . . . The DAs have been resistant to prosecute just for fare evasion. They will do it when you find a gun, and that’s one of the reasons we love fare evasion enforcement. We catch people with guns, we catch people with warrants. It’s a way of stopping the bad guys before they get into our system.

Mental Health

Lieber: A lot of this is what’s going on in the society at large finds its way into the system. But just for perspective, you know we can’t make people feel better when they see something terrible happen on TV or on their line . . . In the subway system, we have six [felony] crimes a day with a ridership population of four million. So the subway is statistically a very safe place. But that does not offset that when you’re riding and you feel disordered, you’re exposed to somebody who’s struggling with psychosis or schizophrenia and they’re acting out in an aggressive way. We have to focus on how riders feel as well as the stats. And that’s why we’re doing so much on mental health . . . It used to be you have some disorder in the train, take them off first, you put them on the platform . . . Guess what happens. The train goes, they get right back on. No more. Now the protocol is get them out of the system. So if you’ve got somebody violating the rules, creating disturbance, they get taken off the train and ejected from the system.

Congestion Pricing

Lieber: The real nightmare is that we don’t run good transit service . . . on Day One. We’ve got to make sure that we’re running the best possible transit service early . . . But in fairness, you know we’re talking about 20,000 people [who drive into New York City]. Eighty percent of Long Islanders who commute to the CBD [Central Business District] take transit . . . In terms of real impact, the number of people who are Long Islanders who are projected to switch from driving to transit is three or four thousand people . . . By the end of the year, from Labor Day to Christmas . . . word will be out by then . . . and we’ll have the big picture.

Electrifying tracks

Lieber: We’re definitely focusing on moving forward with the evaluation of opportunities for electrification . . . First of all, you’ve got to decide how much you have to invest . . . You’ve got to deal with the real estate first. You’ve got to deal with what’s it going to cost . . . [and] the ability to design it and to execute it . . . I’m just not ready to say exactly when we’re going to get a full electrification of any particular line.

But we are focused on it and ready to start. [The] capital program is a dialogue with the governor and the legislature. It’s not just us.

Rob Free: When you look at the Main Line Third Track [Floral Park to Hicksville], that was 10 miles. Port Jefferson to Huntington is about 23 miles with an extremely complex geography, right? . . . There‘s many bridges. There’s a lot of infrastructure work that needs to take place in order to accomplish this, but as the chairman mentioned, there are things that we’re looking at such as the signal system. What can we do with predecessor work to be able to accommodate an expansion, right? Because if we electrified it tomorrow, there would be no benefit in service on the Port Jefferson branch because of the single track . . . You have to look at also the feasibility of a double track as well.

Amenities at Grand Central

Lieber: During the middle of COVID, the entire retail world is completely frozen, no one is going to invest in retail at any level until we 1) see how the world comes back together again and . . . 2) the additional challenge that you have that makes it impossible for people to make commitments, is there’s no track record of the foot traffic . . . We did what we could by taking a few of the operators who are upstairs at Grand Central and saying, “Come on, we’ll do a kiosk for you.” So at least there’s a cup of coffee and a doughnut down there . . . You want to have a thought-out retail plan that has the basics, of food and everyday stuff and maybe some convenience stuff . . . We’re excited about it. We had . . . 30 different applicants [respond to] the RFP . . . We’ve handled that one reasonably responsibly.

LIRR labor unions

Free: I wouldn’t want to step in between what you would deem as maybe differences between their perspectives and what they negotiated. I think there’s a long history with all of them . . . Our responsibility is to make sure we negotiate in good faith and that we continue to deliver reliable service.

Lieber: We’re interested in having mediation where we can talk about some of the trade-offs. We’re always interested in improving work rules.