The MTA has come up with a “robust” plan to mitigate LIRR service delays as a result of Penn Station track repairs, which are expected to cause significant and even extreme service delays through the entire summer. This plan does not include discounting or reducing fares for LIRR riders but will include select letters to employers asking for leniency toward their employees dealing with delays, encouraging employers to give “flexible working hours and locations”.

Yesterday, the MTA outlined some of their plans to maintain LIRR passenger capacity by adding new trains to its schedule, adding cars to existing trains as well as creating a bus and ferry network starting in July and free morning rush transfers for LIRR Riders to subways.

Commuters will now be asked to get up earlier so they can transfer to buses and ferries or travel to alternative LIRR stations in New York City. Despite these forced transfers, ferry and bus rides, and reduced service, the MTA will not be cutting LIRR fares for the summer track-repair bonanza. Luckily, the MTA said it plans to reduce tolls for trucks by 50 percent between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. on all MTA-operated bridges and tunnels, including the Henry Hudson Bridge. This may prove problematic for some commuting from the Bronx given that trucks cannot travel over the Henry Hudson Bridge at any time.

In conjunction with the announcement of plans to mitigate delays, the MTA revealed they will be sending letters to certain city employers asking that they allow their employees to work from home or forgive tardiness as a result of the summer delays. It is unclear how the MTA has decided who gets to get a bona fide MTA stamped “get-out-of-work-free” card and those riders who will just have to explain to their employer that they were trapped by delays. What does the MTA say to those hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who won’t get a letter but can nevertheless expect extremely disruptive train delays that will affect their livelihood?

“It is tone deaf and unrealistic to tell people that they should just ask their employers to be understanding and grant them flexible working hours and locations. Not everyone has the sort of job where you can just telecommute or be away from a work setting. Even in an ideal work setting that is compromising and understanding when it comes to a situation like this, what about working parents who need to be home at certain times, or picking up their children at certain times? Are we going to send letters to camps, daycares, and summer schools asking them to be flexible with the hours that kids get out? I find it offensive that the same city pushing for employers to give at least two weeks of advance notice for a work schedule can’t even give commuters 10 minutes’ notice for extended train delays, as we saw with the F train debacle last week,” said Assemblyman Dinowitz. “This is the opposite of a plan, this is shifting the burden on riders and employers. I would hope for more accountability from the largest public transit system in the United States.”