East Side Access Project Work To Impact Evening LIRR Commute

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Long Island Rail Road riders will need to budget extra time into their evening commute as crews begin work Monday on a month-long project that will cancel and delay trains out of Penn Station.

1010 WINS' Sonia Rincon Reports

The new schedules will be in place while crews perform excavation work to bring the LIRR into Grand Central Terminal as part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's East Side Access project.

WCBS 880's Paul Murnane reports

The work will cancel three evening trains out of Penn Station:

• The 4:52 p.m. train to Babylon
• The 5:20 p.m. train to Long Beach
• The 5:40 p.m. train to Seaford

Four evening peak trains will have adjusted schedules:

• The 5:36 p.m. train to Babylon
• The 5:55 p.m. train to Long Beach
• The 5:59 p.m. train to Babylon
• The 6:44 p.m. from Babylon to Patchogue

Customers on the affected Babylon branch trains should expect 11 minutes more minutes in their commute while those on the Long Beanch lines should expect six more minutes of travel time.

"All of this work that we're doing both on the Manhattan side and the Queens side is all in preparation for opening service to a new East Side Terminal for our customers that is expected to shave up to 40 minutes of travel," MTA spokesman Sam Zambuto said.

Officials said they are planning to deploy extra equipment and workers in case any major delays, like an accident or bad weather, occur during the evening rush.

For more information about service changes on the LIRR, click here.

Straphangers going to and from Manhattan to Brooklyn should also expect service disruptions.

The MTA's FASTRACK maintenance program begins Monday night on the A, C and E lines.

From 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. until July 13, there will be no trains on the A, C and E lines between 59th Street-Columbus Circle and Jay Street-Metrotech.

FASTRACK suspends train service in parts of the subway system to give workers uninterrupted access to the track for maintenance and upgrades. The MTA said the program has already saved at least $5 million this year.

The next FASTRACK work will be on the B, D, F and M lines the week of July 23. The agency is also planning to begin similar shutdowns for maintenance work outside Manhattan next year.

For more information about FASTRACK service changes, click here.

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