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Arun Venugopal: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Arun Venugopal from the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom filling in for Brian today. The brand spanking new Grand Central Madison is finally open after years and years of construction and delay for LIRR commuters. That means their service to the East Side of Manhattan at long last, or is there?

It's been a tough start. The launch of full LIRR service to Grand Central Madison has been beset by overcrowding on trains and platforms and whole lot of confusion over new schedules. A bit of early chaos for all you suburban and Long Island commuters. So much chaos that some LIRR service has been rerouted back to Penn Station.

The MTA and the LIRR has also conceded that it overestimated demand for service to Grand Central. We'll try to make sense of all the changes and the chaos now with Newsday transit reporter, Alfonso Castillo, who writes on Twitter, "In my 15 years on the beat, I can sincerely say I've never seen LIRR commuters as outraged as they have been this week and that covers a lot of ground." Castillo's bio there says he's usually found writing on, that is, and riding on the LIRR. Hi, Alfonso. Welcome to WNYC.

Alfonso Castillo: Hi, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Arun Venugopal: Alfonso, is it possible to summarize all the things that went wrong in the MTA's rollout of LIRR service to Grand Central Madison? I realize I'm asking a mega question but do your best.

Alfonso Castillo: Yes, there's a lot that went wrong. It's worth pointing out that a lot went right. It's an interesting thing. It is the case, as I said on Twitter, that I never saw riders so outraged. It's worth pointing out that I also heard from many riders who had never been happier, certainly the ones who do commute to the East Side and got this beautiful new station that is not the majority of them. Even by the railroads math, the majority of Manhattan commuters were still going to Penn Station, and certainly, those folks have not been happy. It's got a little better. There were a few things.

I think probably the biggest factor in a lot of the frustrations were these shortened trains. One of the things that happened is Long Island Rail Road has a train shortage. It's been made worse by the fact that their newest fleet of trains, which is already running something like three years late, is not set to arrive until later this year. I think they have another 50 train cars coming, that would have helped. Because of that shortage, they've had to bring back a lot of old trains from the 1980s and they boosted service something like 40% for this new service to Grand Central Madison. That's a lot more trains running each day.

To get there, it meant stretching out the fleet that they had and what that means is taking a twelve-car train and making two six-car trains out of it. There was a lot of that going on. You had some trains that people were used to getting on for many years that some folks said on a good day gets relatively crowded. Then several train cars short, that really made things worse. You heard about some of these crowding conditions where people were standing in the bathrooms because it was so packed, where people couldn't get on trains.

Something that is more akin to what you see on the subway, but folks waiting on a train, it arrives at Jamaica or Penn Station and you physically can't get on there. There's not room. That's probably where you saw most of the anger, but there were other issues, a change in the Brooklyn service. They all but did away with direct routes between Long Island and Brooklyn and replaced it with a shuttle service out of Jamaica that necessitated Brooklyn commuters having to transfer up to the walkway all the way across to these new tracks that were just built over by the AirTrain building and back down.

As much as I've been writing about it and talking about it, and a lot of people have been watching this for many, many years now, the truth is that a lot of commuters did not see this coming. They just know their commute to the East Side access was just a thing that they heard about for many years. Then a couple of weeks ago, Monday morning, they arrive at Jamaica and everything is completely different. I went into Grand Central that first Monday of service and was working out of a ticket ticketing waiting room there, and a woman comes by who was supposed to be in Brooklyn, and she didn't even know where she was. It speaks to kind of the mass confusion that came that day.

Arun Venugopal: Talking about the chaos at Grand Central Madison and how it's affecting all of you who take the LIRR. Listeners, how was your commute on the LIRR this morning? Help us report this story. You can let us know about your recent experience. Have you been swept up in the chaos? Are you happy to have an East Side option now that you have a connection to Grand Central Madison? Our number is 212-433-WNYC. You can also tweet us @BrianLehrer. We're talking about chaos, but let's also talk about what you referred to earlier, Alfonso, which is that some people are really happy. Why are they so happy?

Alfonso Castillo: Well, in Grand Central Madison, they've got a huge, beautiful, modern, pristine terminal, and Penn Station, frankly, has been in such rough shape for so long, certainly the last several years while it's been under construction. Even before that, it's just a place that riders loved to hate. The notion of having this new-- just as a facility, it's really pleasant to be in. I've been down there a number of times, and very often there's just sightseers and tourists, which is certainly not something you'd ever see at Penn Station.

It's really pretty. It is spacious. It's four levels. It's got those gigantic escalators, which I know a lot of people sometimes get freaked out about because you could get vertigo going up them. That's part of it. Obviously, a big part of it is, for folks who work on the East Side, it brings you a lot closer to work. Certainly heard from a lot of folks who work walking distance from Grand Central Terminal, a block or two, and for years, either they were going over and taking the shuttle from 42nd over to Grand Central, a lot of them would walk from Penn Station.

I think there's a thought also that part of the confusion that's been going on over the last couple of weeks is that there's some percentage of folks who still haven't figured it out that this is an option for them. I imagine there's some folks who are better off commuting to Grand Central but are creatures of habit and are still going to Penn and making the walk or taking the subway.

I think that's been evidenced by some of the changing ridership figures over the first couple of weeks. Those first few days, it was only about 30% or so of Manhattan-bound commuters that were going to Grand Central. That got close to 40% in the next several days. Apparently, it's gone up and down, but it does seem like more and more people are discovering Grand Central Madison. Yes, by and large, the reviews have been good.

Arun Venugopal: All right, let's take a call now from Ian, calling in from Glen Cove. Ian, sounds like you've actually been interviewed by Alfonso in the past, so I suppose this is a little reunion here, but what's your question for Alfonso or your comment?

Ian Siegel: I'm a huge fan of Alfonso. Yes, my name is Ian Siegel. I commute to Brooklyn and I also live in Glen Cove on the Oyster Bay line. The new timetable was definitely a big change for me and a double whammy with moving it to a shuttle service and also with the shuffling of the schedule on the Oyster Bay line. I've been talking to Alfonso. The one big issue I have, and I'll get to the point, is that when they put the new timetables in place, they shifted Jamaica into becoming the waiting room for the Long Island Rail Road, and the station was never designed to be that way.

If the plan was to make Jamaica the waiting room where people waited to transfer, the Long Island Rail Road should have made updates to Jamaica because you're basically standing outside in inclement weather waiting for your train. I guess my question would be is, do you think the Long Island Rail Road will come up with a plan to address that and make Jamaica more waiting room friendly, so to speak?

Arun Venugopal: Good question.

Alfonso Castillo: Yes, I have talked to Ian. Ian has been a real help and I've thought of him a lot when I've done some stories about the Oyster Bay line because Oyster Bay did not get the service improvements that some of the other lines did. In the middle of the day, I think trains are two hours apart, so somebody like him, imagine missing your shuttle train at Jamaica if you're coming back from Brooklyn and that potentially having to wait two hours.

Another thing that changed with the service plan which has been another cause of confusion has been the elimination of time transfers, which is your train pulls up at Jamaica and there is a train waiting for you and it's not leaving until you make that connection, that's gone. Sometimes, certainly with those shuttle trains, it doesn't line up and you might have a minute from when your train arrives to catch the next shuttle or vice versa and you do have people making these mad dashes up and over.

A story I've got in today's Newsday, the cover story, talks about how a lot of this was predictable. Even this issue of, is Jamaica equipped to become this new-- It was always a main transfer point, but again, so much of it before was more predictable. It was across the platform. Now I think it's fair. It has leveled out some over the last couple weeks, but certainly those first few days, very chaotic with people not knowing where their track was. A lot of tracks changing.

I heard a lot of stories of people being told, "Your train's on Track 4," they get up and over and go to four, get down there, they're told, "Track change, it's now on Track 7," they get up and over and go again.

Again, certainly, I heard and I'd even thought about some of these issues well in advance when they did talk about doing away with these direct transfers yet Jamaica is going to be busier than ever before with people standing around, moving around, looking for their tracks. It's not the most comfortable place in the world, certainly this time of year it is outdoors, people are in the elements, some of those platforms are fairly narrow.

It's just generally not somewhere that people want to be any longer than they have to, but because of the new shuttle operation and the elimination of direct transfers, people are spending a lot more time in Jamaica over the last couple of weeks.

Arun Venugopal: Oh, thank you for that answer to a self-declared huge fan of your reporting, Alfonso. We see other callers coming in. Some certainly with some issues, but also I think some with some love to share. Let's take Steven calling in from Harlem. Hi, Steven. Do you want to share some of your appreciation?

Steven: Sure. Thanks for taking my call. The new station, I had the option of going either way because I'm originally a Long Island young man originally and now I live in East Harlem. I knew how to go. I was just thinking I knew how to go Penn Station, no problem, and now I'm just reading about how big and complicated, but I went on the little adventure and I just wanted to say it's gorgeous. I had talked to everybody and some of the workers were like, "Yes, we don't know how long it will stay that way." If you can see it while it's in a pristine condition, I recommend it. That's all I wanted to say today.

Arun Venugopal: Thank you, Steven. Ian, anything to add to that?

Alfonso Castillo: I'll add--

Arun Venugopal: I'm getting confused here. Alfonso, [crosstalk]--

Alfonso Castillo: Oh, sure, yes. Again, a really beautiful station, I think it's fair to say that. I'll point out it's already had some kinks along the way in the first couple of days. There's been some issues with the escalators. Again, these are not escalators you want breaking down certainly when you're on them. I think they are something like well over 100 feet. It takes 1 minute and 38 seconds to traverse the escalators through the longest escalators in the MTA system.

There have been stories of them breaking down from time to time and folks having to walk all the way up, so that's been one hiccup. There's been an issue with water falling from the upper track level down onto the mezzanine level. There's four levels inside Grand Central Madison. I was last there on Thursday, and as soon as I got out of the train, I saw the yellow mop bucket in the mezzanine collecting the water that dripped down, so that's a little bit of an issue.

Again, it's brand new. There's not much in the way of a retail or somewhere to get something to eat inside Grand Central Madison. You could go right upstairs and you've got Grand Central Terminal and the dining hall. There's no comparison with Penn Station. There might be one day. There's plans to give Penn a pretty sizable facelift, and it's also looking better since they raised the ceilings and widened the walkway there, but again, almost no comparison between the two right now.

Arun Venugopal: Alfonso, earlier this month the LIRR conceded that it had overestimated demand for ridership to Grand Central Madison. My question is, if it overestimated demand, how do you reconcile that with the fact that there was so much overcrowding on trains and platforms?

Alfonso Castillo: Well, the overcrowding was, again, on trains not specifically to Grand Central Madison. If anything that's been part of the criticism, is that a lot of these riders who were on these trains, certainly to and from Penn Station and Brooklyn, that are just bursting at the seams, they hear and they even see for themselves there's--

Now the LIRR app has a way where you can actually track capacity of a train in real-time and it's color coded. They see these trains leaving Grand Central, I don't want to say empty, certain times of day they're probably nearly empty while they're on a train that is, again, just completely overflowing. I think that's part of the frustration. The crowding has generally not been at Grand Central Madison. It's handling 30% to 40% of LIRR ridership, which is worth pointing out is still well down from before the pandemic, I think.

Certainly, they haven't reached 70% of pre-pandemic levels anymore, so it's already down. 30% to 40% of that reduced ridership at a terminal that is huge, it's 700,000 square feet, I haven't seen Grand Central packed yet. I've seen those escalators fairly packed.

Again, I think that that's part of the frustration. I've heard from folks, and this is, I think, a very fair point, who say they've come out of events at Madison Square Garden at whatever it is, ten o'clock at night, and there's fewer trains out of Madison Square Garden so those trains are absolutely packed. Meanwhile, there's trains leaving essentially empty out of Grand Central around the same time. These are some logistical issues that still need to be figured out.

Arun Venugopal: Let's take another call. This is Robin calling from Hicksville. Hi, Robin. What's your situation been with your commute?

Robin: Hi, how are you? I'm not a commuter, but I am somebody that uses the train to go into the city to see theater. To the point that was being made about trains maybe being less after events at Madison Square Garden, being out of Hicksville, there's always been two trains an hour. Now, if you're leaving a theater, sometimes it's tough to make a 10:30 train, and sometimes I needed to be on the train that was around 10:50. Last week when I did this, there was no 10:50 train. I just missed the 10:30 train, would've had to have waited till 12:11 or something like that for the next train directly, so decided to take a train at 10:44 that let me off in Jamaica.

Had to wait 10 minutes for the train that came from Grand Central alone on a cold platform as a woman. Won't be doing it again ever. Now it's a question of do I drive into the city because making that train isn't always going to be possible or hopefully they change the schedule back and they recognize it.

Arun Venugopal: Thank you for your call, Robin from Hicksville. Anything to add to that Alfonso?

Alfonso Castillo: Yes. Well, a couple things. Not knowing where that theater is exactly, I'd bring up that maybe Grand Central is a good option. There are some locations, and I went to a show with my wife, where was that, in 44th or something, a couple of weeks ago to see The Phantom and went into Grand Central. There are some of these locations that are equidistant more or less between Penn and Grand Central.

Some of it, again, is just habit people, you go see a Broadway show, you go to Penn Station and you take the subway or walk over. It could be essentially the same trip or close to it, or closer, going to Grand Central. That's just something to keep in mind. Again I think, for a lot of folks, especially, there are a lot of Long Islanders like the last caller who maybe don't go into the city that often, but for a play or something like that. Again, what they know is Penn Station and they should at least consider it if they can.

The other thing to point out, she said that because of some of these issues, maybe she'll drive in the future. She shouldn't forget and none of us should forget another thing that's on the horizon is congestion pricing, so that drive into the city in a couple of years might cost you a lot more.

Arun Venugopal: A whole lot more. Talking to Alfonso Castillo about Grand Central Madison and transit issues and let's take another call. This one is from Syosset, and it's from Tanya. Hi, Tanya. Have you been having issues with your commute?

Tanya: Oh, yes. I'm an Atlantic Terminal commuter and I'm a professor at CUNY. The actual train service since CUNY fully went back to in-person this semester was not good to Atlantic Terminal. It already had cutbacks. Let's just say that it was getting worse and this schedule kicked it into a whole 'nother realm. I commute from the Huntington line. The fact that you don't have these regular connections, I just want to give people the idea of just how far when a train comes into Track 2 and you've got to go over to Track 11.

I walk fast and I don't have any physical impairments right now, this semester, but it is challenging. I have to do it on a run to make my train and if I don't make that non-time connection, that shuttle, I am going to be waiting there and I would miss teaching a class. I'm starting to have to back up, so I'm leaving three hours before my class because I can't guarantee it.

Also, the trains are regularly arriving late in the place where I get the train, Syosset. This was even before the new schedule and then there's often sometimes where with a connection in Hicksville, but you're always going to be connecting in Jamaica often when you're riding off peak. That's not so much of a new thing for me.

I was not usually a direct Atlantic Terminal customer because I'm usually teaching afternoons or evenings. I've done it for 20 years, so I really know, I knew the schedules, but it is really different having non-time connections and it's a terrible idea for Brooklyn commuters. Especially how they [unintelligible 00:22:25].

Arun Venugopal: Thank you, Tanya.

Tanya: Yes.

Arun Venugopal: I'll have to leave it there. Alfonso, it sounds like a pretty tough situation for someone who, as Tanya said, she's in good shape, she has no issues running, but it's a bit of a challenge, isn't it, to get to her train on time.

Alfonso Castillo: Yes. I talked about the outrage I've heard from riders, probably the most vehement of that outrage has been from the Brooklyn commuters. They feel like they're the ones really being left out in the cold. The Grand Central commuters have this shiny new thing and they lose direct service.

Now, the MTA has made the point that there are more trains going into and out of Brooklyn now than ever before because of the frequency of the shuttle service. They've since added a few more trains just in the last couple of weeks to increase that frequency. I think they say there's something like there's a train every seven minutes during the rush hours. That's true. There's a lot of opportunity to get between Jamaica and Brooklyn. It is that connection that I think is so problematic.

The first day that I went there, the opening day for Grand Central Madison, when I came into Jamaica, I made a point to go check out how the service was at the the new platform for the shuttle train, and the escalator was out from my track. I saw elderly women with walkers having to navigate somehow getting up the stairs and over and down just to miss your train, waiting several minutes for the next one. It is far from ideal for Brooklyn commuters. Again, they've made some improvements over the last couple of weeks to address that. They're now trying to do it.

There's always a train waiting at the other side of the platform, closer to the model that you see with the Grand Central subway shuttle where there's always a train waiting there, so at least you don't have to wait outside. You can go inside and have your seat. For folks who are used to, you get on a train at your station, on Long Island, and you can ride that all the way into Brooklyn or maybe transfer across the platform at Jamaica, yes, this is-- it's hard to tell them that this is somehow an improvement even if, again, there are more trains going into and out of Atlantic than ever before.

Arun Venugopal: All right. We're going to leave it there for today. My guest has been Alfonso Castillo, a Newsday transit reporter giving us the latest on the LIRR, the drama, and some of the glories of this new space. Alfonso, thanks for your reporting and thanks for joining us today.

Alfonso Castillo: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

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