With New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade scheduled for Friday, March 17, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) reminds customers that alcohol will be banned from the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad, and several other service changes will be in place for the day. Details follow.

 

 

The MTA Police Department will enforce a ban alcoholic beverages on Friday, March 17, extending through 5 a.m. on Saturday, March 18. (On the LIRR, alcohol is always banned between midnight and 5 a.m. on Saturday mornings.)

 

Any alcoholic beverages found by the MTA Police will be confiscated.

 

With large crowds expected for the parade, the MTA urges customers to buy round trip tickets in advance at their home stations or via MTA eTix®, the mobile ticketing app that lets you purchase and display train tickets directly on your smartphone or mobile device. On Metro-North Railroad’s Hudson Line, conductors will be posted at Poughkeepsie, New Hamburg and Beacon to collect tickets before customers board trains.

 

The LIRR will operate six extra westbound trains on Friday morning, arriving at Penn Station between 9:27 a.m. and 11:19 a.m. Train departure times are listed in special timetables at these links for the Babylon Branch, Port Jefferson Branch and Ronkonkoma Branch. The train information will also be available through the LIRR Train Time app and on the LIRR’s point-to-point scheduling tool at MTA.info. 

 

The LIRR will operate 10 extra eastbound trains departing Penn Station between 1:50 p.m. and 3:49 p.m. Train departure times listed in current timetables as specials marked in black as “Holiday Eve” trains on the Babylon Branch (four extra trains), Port Jefferson Branch (three extra trains), Port Washington Branch (one extra train), Far Rockaway Branch (one extra train), and Ronkonkoma Branch (one extra train). The train information will also be available through the LIRR Train Time app and on the LIRR’s point-to-point scheduling tool at MTA.info. 

 

Metro-North will operate an extra train will depart from Poughkeepsie at 7:52 a.m. and stop at New Hamburg at 8:02 a.m. and Beacon at 8:10 a.m. before running express to Harlem-125th Street and arriving at Grand Central Terminal at 9:32 a.m.

 

 

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, some staircases at the 77 St 6 line station may be designated as entry/exit only on both the uptown and downtown platforms due to crowd control.

 

 

The following NYC Transit and MTA Bus routes will be detoured in the area along the parade route between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Friday:  M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M31, M42, M50, M55, M57, M66, M72, M79, BxM2, BxM3, BxM4, BxM6, BxM7, BxM8, BxM9, BxM10, BxM11, Q32 and most Staten Island Express buses.

 

 

MTA Bridges and Tunnels urges parade-goers to take mass transit. As always, motorists should never get behind the wheel of a car if they’ve been drinking. Throughout the day, there will be increased vigilance at all MTA crossings to combat drunk driving.