With New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade scheduled for Saturday, March 16, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) reminds customers that alcohol will be banned from the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad. The LIRR and Metro-North will offer extra trains to help customers get to the parade and subway and bus service changes will be in place for the day. Details follow.

The MTA Police Department will enforce a ban on alcoholic beverages from 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, March 16, to 5 a.m. on Sunday, March 17. (On the LIRR, alcohol is always banned between 12:01 a.m. 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. Metro-North conductors will be posted at select Hudson Line stations to collect tickets before customers board trains.

New York City Transit

From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 16, the following subway and bus changes will be in effect for the St Patrick’s Day Parade:

To prevent crowding on stairways and platforms, some subway entrances at the 5 Av-59 St  station will be closed. In addition, select exits and entrances at the 77 St  line station may be designated as entry/exit only, on both the uptown and downtown platforms.

Due to ongoing critical maintenance and reliability improvements this weekend,  trains will not run between Brooklyn & Manhattan. As an alternative, special weekend  trains will provide additional service into Manhattan and will operate between Metropolitan Av and 47-50 Sts, then via the  line between 47-50 Sts and Lexington Av/63 St, and via the  line between Lexington Av/63 St and 96 St. As a reminder some subway lines do not run on weekends: there will be no  or  express service.  trains will not run, and customers are reminded to use the  instead of the . Details about these changes are available on the Weekender app and website. Customers are advised to use Subway Time for live wait times, or TripPlanner+ to plan their trips. 

The following NYC Transit and MTA Bus routes operating in and around the parade route will be affected by reroutes, detours, and frozen zones:  M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M31, M50, M55, M57, M66, M72, M79 SBS, M86, SIM1c, SIM3c, SIM4c, SIM33c, X27, X28, BM1, BM2, BM3, BM4, BM5, BxM2, BxM3, BxM4, BxM6, BxM7, BxM8, BxM9, BxM10, BxM11, Q32, QM2, QM4, QM5, QM6, and QM15.  Customers using bus routes in the five boroughs can also use MTA Bus Time to track real-time bus positions and gauge arrival times. 

Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad

The LIRR will operate 38 additional trains to/from Penn Station to help customers seeking to attend the parade. On Saturday morning, this includes six extra trains departing Babylon between 8:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m., seven extra trains departing Ronkonkoma between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m., two extra trains from Huntington between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., and two extra trains from Great Neck between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

Metro-North is prepared to operate 18 additional trains to/from Grand Central to accommodate increased ridership to the parade on Saturday. On Saturday morning, this includes five upper Hudson Line trains focusing on Poughkeepsie, New Hamburg and Beacon, two additional trains on the Harlem Line, one from Southeast, and one from North White Plains, and two additional trains will operate on the New Haven Line, one from New Haven, and one from Stamford. Additional service will also operate for West of Hudson customers, where one extra inbound train and one extra outbound train will run on the Port Jervis Line, and cars will be added to all regularly scheduled Port Jervis Line and Pascack Valley Line trains.

Departure times for all trains are available via the MYmta app for iOS and Android and at new.mta.info. For PDF files of the LIRR’s special timetables, click on Schedules, then scroll down for “All LIRR schedules.” Special timetables for March 16 appear about midway down the page on the left side.

For details on Metro-North’s timetables, click here: http://web.mta.info/mnr/html/stpat19.html Metro-North’s West of Hudson customers should visit: http://web.mta.info/mnr/html/wh_SaintPatrick_sch.htm

The trains will also be listed in the LIRR Train Time and Metro-North Train Time apps.