Long-Promised LIRR Fare Discounts Due To Start In May 2020

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — Northeast Queens residents who rely on the Long Island Rail Road to get around the city will see some savings this spring, when a long-awaited discount on monthly passes is due to go into effect.

Pending approval by the MTA board next week, LIRR riders will enjoy a 20-percent discount on monthly passes and a 10-percent discount on other trips inside New York City starting May 1, according to state Assembly Member Ed Braunstein, who helped spearhead the initiative.

"Transit, especially the LIRR, is expensive, and it's a necessary part of people's everyday lives," Braunstein said in a phone interview Friday. "I wanted to do something to ease the financial burden on my constituents."

Braunstein and fellow Assembly Member Nily Rozic created the discount last year to offset the cost of congestion pricing for commuters living in the outer boroughs, then clarified that the discount wouldn't roll out until 2020.

That's because there wasn't yet enough funding available for the discount in the state legislature's outer borough transit fund, Braunstein told Patch.

Lawmakers formed the fund in 2018 as one outlet for the $415 million in annual profits expected from a congestion fee on taxis and for-hire vehicles approved that year, the New York Post reported.

The surcharge was supposed to go into effect Jan. 1, 2019, but a lawsuit brought by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance pushed back the start date.

Long Island Rail Road trips come at a much higher cost than a MetroCard swipe. A single LIRR trip can cost as much as $19 and monthly passes go for hundreds of dollars depending on the length and time of the ride.

But the LIRR is a lifeline for Queens residents who live outside the reach of the subway system, which goes no further east than Jamaica and Flushing.

With the discount, LIRR commuters traveling between northeast Queens to Penn Station would save almost $50 a month on their monthly pass, lawmakers say.