MTA Long Island Rail Road President Patrick A. Nowakowski today announced that the LIRR plans to provide weekend service to Greenport on a year-round basis.

Weekend service to Greenport, the seaside village and popular summer and fall destination on Suffolk County's North Fork, was scheduled to end after the Thanksgiving Weekend.

"This is a noteworthy improvement in our service to the East End of Long Island," Nowakowski said. 

In 2010, the LIRR discontinued weekend service to Greenport during the winter months as part of system-wide cost cutting ordered by the MTA, which was facing a large budget deficit at the time. The belt tightening measures helped the MTA regain its financial footing as the region slowly recovered from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

As the Long Island economy has shown continued improvement, the LIRR has experienced a resurgence in ridership, reaching 87.6 million in 2015, a modern record. Nowakowski also noted today that ridership on the LIRR in June was up for the 17th consecutive month - fueled in part by the growth of travel to the East End of Long Island, including Greenport and to Montauk on the South Fork.

He said the LIRR has heard loud and clear the calls for better train service on the East End from local government officials as well as business and civic groups. He said the Railroad is working with government planers from Suffolk County and from the five East End towns on ideas for both short and long term service improvements.

"One improvement we can make immediately for the North Fork is to extend weekend service from Ronkonkoma to Greenport to year-round," said Nowakowski. "We have in fact included that extra service in the Railroad's July financial plan."

Nowakowski added that the LIRR was "looking forward to continuing the discussion with our East End partners and we are optimistic that we can come up with additional enhancements to improve our service "

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