People don’t want to live in the suburbs where a train comes every half hour during peak hours if you’re lucky, and there’s little to no overnight/off peak service.

This is such a one sided article.

> By the end of this year, Long Island Rail Road trains will roar into Grand Central Terminal for the first time in its history.

The proposed time tables leave much to be desired. In some cases, after the grand central madison trips start, my commute gets worse.

> The only problem? Few people can actually live near the suburban train stations.

Long Island has seen lots of revitalization near the train stations. Wyandanch [which the article referenced], Babylon, Patchogue, hicksville to name a few. But the trains don't run often or fast enough to make it useful outside peak hours. If you live in Patchogue and work a 9-5:30, you have a 5:54 that takes almost 2 hours. And if you miss that, the next train isn't until 7:12.

The subheading says

> Will Long Island and Westchester hold up their end of the bargain?

This implies it's something the island agreed too in a collective. But considering the pushback to albany when Hochul proposed automatic accessory apartments, that's not necessarily the case for current residents.

> Instead of parking lots, we'd get five- to six-story apartment buildings, with reduced space for cars, next to busy LIRR or Metro-North stations. It's a win-win—not only would it help address the state's yawning housing gaps, but also, our climate problem.

This whole plan fails to take into account people do things outside of commuting to work. If people are going to take the train to work and that's it, that's fine. But if someone then wants to go shopping, you're going to need a car for groceries and packages or even just to go see a movie because the area lacks any light rail network. Even the revitalized stations don't necessarily have a food store in their community.

> Instead of parking lots, we'd get five- to six-story apartment buildings, with reduced space for cars, next to busy LIRR or Metro-North stations. It's a win-win—not only would it help address the state's yawning housing gaps, but also, our climate problem. Suburban sprawl's link to car dependency—a key contributor of carbon emissions—is well known. Want to drive your car less? Live closer to reliable transit.

This is pretty short sighted. Reduced parking at LIRR will just disincentive people who live outside of walking distance from taking the train. And the people who do move close to express stops (nobody is gonna bump development on local stops) will still need cars to access the rest of long island for food, entertainment, schools, etc; because the whole system is designed to exclusively bring workers to jobs then back.

Better transit? I used to work on Long Island and take the LIRR to Hicksville. The LI Bus system is awful.

Would you describe it as.......not......NICE?

Nassau County has 1.4 million, Westchester 1 million, Hudson County .75.

Together they’d be the third largest city in the country, ahead of Chicago. We aren’t exactly talking about vast empty spaces.

This.

Increase the frequency of the trains and increase the speed to Japanese bullet train level and then branch out to adding more bus lines that will transport you to the station in less then an hour.

Could then do mixed use zoning commercial and residential together and make it a walkable community. Right now, building is heavily restricted around some stations. The bigger issue, What people are saying is the trains aren't frequent enough to make it attractive

Transit in LI is nice if you're looking to get between towns and the city. For day-to-day stuff, a lot of those activities will still need a car.

If you want to get between towns without a car, have fucking fun. Great Neck to Roosevelt Field Mall? That's three buses and 1 hr 44 minutes by transit and 24 minutes by car. My partner's parents live a 10 minute drive from the grocery store and a 40 minute walk. This article pretends as if LI is equivalent to the more densly populated parts of Queens and Brooklyn.

Exactly. With mixed use it's easy to imagine a couple (or even small family) that would normally have two cars in LI, could walk to LIRR for commute, walk to nearby restaurants, walk for groceries, and maybe keep one car + parking spot for other uses. That's a win for traffic/environment/affordability. And even car free is totally possible with that type of development. Not a new concept: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development

Never understood the point of living in an apartment in the suburbs. Defeats the entire purpose of living out there.

Where is this better transit you speak of? Did the Interborough Express open over the weekend without us knowing?

Even Nassau and Suffolk counties; I can't imagine using any of those buses.

Some people don't want to deal with house upkeeps, snow removal, etc (same reason many prefer co-op/condo/rental over private house). Owning a car while living in a L.I. apartments is no big deal, unlike much of NYC. Much cheaper than buying a house too.

Houses in OK areas of Long Island aren't cheap. I was surprised when a friend paid $400K+ for a 3BR 1000sf (compact by LI standard, with NYC-esque smallish rooms but big enough for the extended family) house in faraway Babylon (Suffolk) because they couldn't afford Nassau let alone Queens. Fortunately, the work commute to Queen Village is surprisingly short (under 40 minutes) and no toll (they used to live in the Bronx) or stress (congestion).