eolesen wrote: Montauk doesn't warrant up to seven trips a day using high density equipment. I'd be curious to see ridership stats by station... do those exist somewhere?BY STATION, I think is rarer, but See page 152 of the 207-page PDF I linked above. They publish a factor value for each station.
http://web.mta.info/mta/planning/data/2 ... 232016.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
BY BRANCH is published annually (but I could not find station)
web.mta.info › mta › news › books › docsPDF 2017 LIRR Ridership Book - MTA
http://web.mta.info/mta/news/books/docs ... 20Book.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
But at a high level, all you really need to know is that demand skews "strongly westward" (toward NYC) and slightly "south of central" (toward the Atlantic Ocean)
By Branch AM Inbound % of all boardings
24% Babylon (Nassau's population density skews toward Atlantic coast; some might drive to a Nassau Hub, some ride to Jamaica)
20% Huntington (mostly center-of-island)
15% Port Washington (rail goes right to NYP, but maybe these people would drive in to Jamaica or out to a Nassau Hub)
14% Ronkonkoma
7% Far Rockaway
6% Long Beach
5% Hempstead
4% Port Jefferson
2% Montauk
2% Oyster Bay
1% West Hempstead
*% Greenport
See? It'd take a whole lot of operating miles/hours to chase outer Suffolk county, and anything not on the centerline of the island.
Amtrak does *NOT* need to be as close as your LIRR stop. It just needs to be closer than JFK or LGA, and have better frequencies than ISP. And have a better way off the island than car/bus do. It will. It TOTALLY will.
Beyond Jamaica, one well-located station for Nassau Hub or on the Nassau-Suffok boundary (eg Farmingdale on the inner Ronkonkoma) is basically ideal (and totally sufficient) for Empire/NEC service.
"Trying to solve congestion by making roadways wider is like trying to solve obesity by buying bigger pants."--Charles Marohn