June LIRR Ridership Passes Pre-Covid Levels With Boost From Knicks Title Run

NEW YORK, NY — The Long Island Railroad eclipsed pre-pandemic totals for the first time in June, reaching over 100 percent of June 2019 ridership totals thanks to a boost from a New York Knicks championship run, LIRR President Rob Free announced Monday.

Speaking at a committee meeting, Free said the LIRR carried 7.9 million riders in June, 102 percent of the ridership in June of 2019.

“June’s ridership was historic…we achieved, for the first time, not only matching 2019’s ridership for a particular month, but we actually surpassed it,” Free said. “

In addition to the monthly totals, Free said the LIRR has already set and reset weekend ridership records in the past month, with 190,009 riders taking the trains on Saturday, June 19 and 171,137 riders taking trains on Sunday, July 19. That July 19 total surpassed a record that was previously set June 28.

As far as on-time performance, 94 percent of trains arrived on-schedule in June, leaving the LIRR at a 94.7 percent on-time rate for the year.

While the total ridership numbers are encouraging, Free said some of that data was boosted by Long Islanders mobilizing to watch sports.

“It was aided by the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills and the Knicks’ championship run, but there’s some positive numbers within that as well, so, very encouraging ridership numbers,” Free said. “This was also 1.5 million more riders than May, and a 12.8 percent increase over May of last year.”

The record ridership numbers came just weeks after LIRR workers went on strike, stopping service for hundreds of thousands of Long Islanders before the two sides reached a deal.

In addition to updating on June totals, Free said the LIRR had successfully cut over to new signaling systems after weekend work that saw widespread changes to train service. That new signaling system, Free said, would improve service efficiency between Jamaica and Long Island.

“This state of good repair and modernization effort will result in better throughput and more efficient train service through a critical mainline location,” Free said. "These outages, we don't take lightly, but they are a necessity and we do everything we can to accommodate customers."