NEW YORK – The Long Island Rail Road will open its Elmont Station for eastbound service on Nov. 20. It is the first new LIRR station in almost 50 years, according to the railroad’s owner, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The beginning of service will coincide with the New York Islanders’ hockey team’s first home game at UBS Arena. The Elmont Station will initially offer eastbound service to the new home of the New York Islanders, UBS Arena, as well as nearby Belmont Park, which retains its own dedicated station.
Service at the station will increase next summer when the westbound platform opens. At that time, the station will begin full-time, year-round service and will begin to provide westbound service to and from events at UBS Arena and Belmont Park. Long Islanders who live east of Belmont on the Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson and Ronkonkoma Branches will have a one-seat ride straight to events for the first time. This will reduce travel times and is expected to increase the number of event attendees who use public transportation, helping alleviate traffic congestion on Long Island.
When both platforms are complete, the new station will feature two 12-car-long, high-level platforms with canopies, elevators that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a pedestrian overpass, USB charging stations, Help Points, security cameras, digital signs with train arrival information, Wi-Fi, and a state-of-the-art snow melting system embedded in the concrete of the platforms to ensure they remain free of snow and ice during winter storms.
I hope this new station will perform better than the existing station that serves Belmont Park. Being a racing fan from Philadelphia, Pa. I have attended several times the races at Belmont Park and used the train to get there. Service was usually ok getting to the track but the return trip usually was slow loading and getting the train back out on the main line to Penn Station. Hopefully with the added track and Platform capacity things will run better for both the race track and the events held at the new stadium. If they can now add direct service to outlying Long Island stations it should help reduce auto traffic in the area. With the existing service people trying to get to outlying stations had to ride inbound to Jamaica and change trains there, where they would have to wait for the next outbound trains. I look forward to my next trip to Belmont Park and see the new station and hopefully better service.
Central Branch is a lot farther east starting at Hicksville. This is on the mainline, far from the new stadium it is supposed to be supporting. In reality, makes no sense for UBS Arena – the existing Belmont station is much closer. IT MIGHT someday make sense for commuters.
Also, this is HALF of a station. Next to useless, IMHO, until the other half opens. I’ve heard nothing about how LIRR expects this to work. Sure, passengers from Penn can take a train to get here. But coming home, they’ve got to hop a train to Jamaica, then a train west. Hardly seems worth it. And if you are coming from the East, what do you do, travel to Penn, then hop another train east to Elmont?
At this point in time, opening this half of a station seems like a very bad joke. Just a campaign stop for a certain person running to stay Governor. But even when the whole station is open, it’s not clear that it will do any good for people heading to the arena or commuters.
So if one rides to Elmont Station from points west before the westbound platform opens, how do you get back? Are there interlockings bracketing the station whereby trains from the east can cross over to the eastbound main, make a station stop, and then cross back over to the westbound main west of the station? It would have been nice if the article mentioned where the station is without my having to look at an LIRR system map. It’s on the Central Branch between Bellerose and Queens Village.