LIRR talks transit in Queens

continued from page 16 the E train or maybe taking the J/Z and taking 45 minutes to an hour.”

He said the increased numbers of trains, including those running on weekends and in reverse-peak hours, also have served borough residents well.

Asked specifically about restoring the old Rockaway Beach line, particularly from the viewpoint of folks from the Rockaway Peninsula, Lieber said it does not appear to be in the cards at this point. But he did say they have improved service and will continue to do so.

“I’m always keeping an eye on the A train,” Lieber said of the route that runs south from uppermost Manhattan, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge and runs to Ozone Park, except for the trains that split off to the south and form an odd, two-pronged fish hook in the Rockaways.

Also on his mind was how the Queens bus network redesign can improve commuting to and from there.

He said the MTA even went to extensive technological ends to provide City Ticket coverage, which he said took some doing as part of the line runs through Nassau County.

He and McCarthy also said the proposed Interborough Express, a light rail line being planned to run along the route of an existing freight route between Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and Jackson Heights, could easily combine with new bus routes to ease the strain on Rockaway travelers.

Lieber said last month’s designation of the Q4 bus in Southeast Queens as a free bus is, like the free routes in other boroughs, still in its early data-gathering stages.

Officials are particularly interested in seeing if it is attracting new bus passengers or luring them from other nearby routes.

While Lieber said there are plans in the foreseeable future to upgrade or replace old diesel locomotives with clean diesel or electric engines, Free said diesels at the New York & Atlantic rail yard in Glendale are a separate issue.

“That’s in a open procurement process,” Free said.

And while the new Elmhurst station by the UBS Arena in Nassau County is the first new LIRR stop in a half-century, Lieber said the agency’s recent 20-year capital study is shying way from any new or reopened stations in Queens.

“Those didn’t do well in the metrics” in terms of cost-benefit analysis, he said.

But officials said with the increased number of trains, particularly in reversepeak times, city residents who have jobs or go to school in Nassau and Suffolk now have added options. They also said it increases the area from which businesses on Long Island can realistically recruit potential employees. Q