New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the Long Island Rail Road has surpassed one million paying customers traveling in or out of Grand Central Madison Terminal, which opened with full service on February 27. The milestone was surpassed on Friday, April 7. In addition, the LIRR announced several pandemic-era ridership records achieved since Grand Central Madison opened for full service.  On both Saturday, April 8, and Sunday, April 9, the railroad carried record pandemic-era weekend ridership as New Yorkers used mass transit to get around during the holiday weekend – 108,740 customers traveling on Saturday and 98,030 traveling on Sunday. On Tuesday, March 21, 213,026 customers took the LIRR, surpassing the previous pandemic-era record from November 2022.

The LIRR also announced several milestones achieved since the opening of Grand Central Madison. This March, the LIRR has sold 358,609 City Tickets – which provides off-peak travel within New York City for $5 – a 118.5 percent increase over the previous March. The Combo Ticket, an opportunity for customers to purchase discounted tickets when traveling on both LIRR and Metro-North Railroad in the same journey made possible through the opening of Grand Central Madison, has been utilized by over 4,000 customers since its launch. Through April 18, 2023, 15,503 LIRR trains have arrived at or departed from Grand Central Madison. The MTA’s popular TrainTime app has seen over 370,000 tickets purchased for trips to or from Grand Central Madison.

In recent weeks, schedule adjustments and lengthened trains have been introduced, increasing comfort and reliability, and boosting on-time performance above 93.5 percent. Since February 27, the LIRR has exceeded 200,000 riders on 16 days, a threshold the railroad had only crossed twice during the first 57 days of 2023. During the seven days between April 9 and April 15, the LIRR carried an average of 168,726 daily customers, the best seven-day average since March 2020. The highest daily ridership at Grand Central Madison was achieved on Tuesday, April 11, with approximately 32,060 customers traveling in and out of the new Manhattan terminal.

-via Press Release