Commuters are hoping for a smooth Friday morning commute after some had another hellish one on Thursday.
Friday promises to be an extremely busy day at New York Penn Station with regular commuters and those traveling for the holiday weekend.
Headaches for Long Island Rail Road riders continued Thursday evening after already enduring a nightmare morning rush that stranded hundreds of riders for hours.
LIRR said Thursday evening that westbound service was suspended between the Jamaica and Woodside stations in Queens and Penn Station, because 12 of 21 tracks at Penn were having power problems. Some eastbound trains were also canceled as a result.
Power was restored to most of the tracks at Penn Station by Thursday night.
Before that, a track condition outside Amtrak's East River Tunnels stranded hundreds of riders on a stalled LIRR train for hours, forcing authorities to take one of the tunnels out of service and causing crippling delays and cancellations into Penn throughout the morning. Westbound service was restored around 6 p.m. and most service was back to normal by 8 p.m.
Meanwhile, an overhead wire was damaged and a train broke down near Cos Cob just before noon, causing more than hourlong delays on the New Haven line through the day.
The latest commute nightmare comes less than two weeks before Amtrak is set to begin overhauling the infrastructure at Penn Station following a series of derailments and breakdowns.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday declared a state of emergency for the MTA, ordering MTA Chairman Joe Lhota to come up with a reorganization plan in 30 days and a capital assessment in 60 days. He likened the recent transit problems to a "heart attack" that happened after years of cholesterol buildup.
Both the LIRR and the Metro-North are run by the MTA.
from NBC New York - Top Stories http://ift.tt/2snXb2U
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