LIRR meets performance goal on all branches for first time

Long Island Morning Edition

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul today plans to propose expanding free school meal programs to cover the cost of breakfast and lunch for all of the state’s 2.7 million students. The Democratic governor is expected to announce the proposal, known as Universal Free School Meals, at Westbury Middle School in Nassau County, Long Island. Keshia Clukey reports in NEWSDAY that current federal and state funding for school meals is only provided to school buildings and districts with students who meet certain poverty requirements. The new state program would expand eligibility to nearly 300,000 additional students who don't currently qualify under the federal program. On Long Island, a universal meals program would help an estimated 260 schools and 135,000 students, according to Hunger Solutions New York, a statewide nonprofit focused on alleviating hunger. "The research is clear: good food in the lunchroom creates good grades in the classroom," Hochul said in the release. "I'm proposing free school meals for every student in New York — giving kids the sustenance they need and putting more money back in parents' pockets."

Free school meals are estimated to save families $165 per child in grocery spending each month, and have been shown to support learning, boost test scores and improve attendance and classroom behavior, according to the governor’s office.

Today’s proposal is one of several released by the governor in the last few weeks ahead of her State of the State address, set for next Tuesday. Many of Hochul’s proposals are aimed at affordability, an issue that was key in the congressional and presidential elections last November.

The Universal Free School Meals program is estimated to cost $340 million and would take effect for the 2025-26 school year, according to the governor's office.

Additional details are expected to be released either in Hochul's State of the State address next week or when her budget proposal is issued on Jan. 21.

Health, education and food insecurity advocates applauded the proposal including Melinda Person, president of New York State United Teachers, the state’s largest teachers union, representing nearly 700,000 members.

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The Long Island Rail Road met its 94% on-time performance goal on all its branches for the first time in recorded history last year, as its ridership continued to rebound to near pre-pandemic levels, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said yesterday.

The 75.5 million passengers carried by the LIRR in 2024 was about 16% more than in 2023, and about 82% of the railroad’s ridership in 2019, when it carried 91.1 million passengers, a modern record. Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that despite having most of its pre-COVID riders back and adding many trains to its schedule with the launch of Grand Central Madison, 95.65% of LIRR trains operated on-time in 2024, the highest ever for a non-pandemic year. Carrying far fewer passengers and operating on a reduced schedule, the LIRR reported higher on-time performance numbers in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

But even in those years, the LIRR did not reach its goal for all 11 of its branches, according to the MTA. The railroad accomplished that in 2024 for the first time since it adopted its modern on-time performance standards in 1979.

The LIRR considers a train on-time if it arrives at its final destination within five minutes and 59 seconds of its scheduled time.

But Peter Haynes, founder of the LIRR Commuters Campaign advocacy group and a former LIRR systems project specialist, said he believes the on-time numbers may have been boosted by the fact that since the opening of Grand Central Madison, trains no longer wait on connections.

"They don’t measure passenger experience. They measure equipment," Haynes said. "If a commuter misses their connection and they’re 20 or 30 minutes late, but all three trains end up on-time, is that a good thing? It gives the railroad a better number, but the commuter is still late."

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The Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton announces that starting this coming Monday, January 13th, the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton will be closed for 2-3 weeks, while “we do some messy, noisy, behind-the-scenes work as our revitalization begins! We will re-open as soon as work is complete and the building is safe to enter. So, check our website {myrml.org} frequently during the closure for updates.” Come February, the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton is expected to return to business as usual, and then in mid-March, the next phase of the revitalization begins. So, stay tuned!

Meanwhile, all online services will still be available: Libby, Overdrive, Online Reference Resources, our Chat service, and more. We thank you in advance for your patience to accomplish this project in a timely and cost-effective manner.

For more info click here.

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Two separate offshore dredging crews began arriving on the South Fork this week to commence massive multimillion-dollar beach rebuilding projects in Westhampton and eastern Southampton Town over the next several months. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that the 350-foot suction hopper dredge Magdalen arrived in the ocean off Quogue on Tuesday afternoon and began pumping sand sucked up from the ocean floor off Quogue onto the bay side of Cupsogue Beach County Park. The dredge will pump more than 400,000 tons of sand onto the bay side over the next month, rebuilding the north-facing shoreline in an area that breached during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The area is the location of the original breach into Moriches Bay in the 1950s, before Moriches Inlet was stabilized farther to the west. When the work on the bay side is completed, the dredge will begin pumping sand onto the oceanfront in two regions of Westhampton and West Hampton Dunes that have regularly been nourished over the last 30 years The project is being funded and managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Project, or FIMP — a $1.7 billion plan to regularly bolster beaches along 80 miles of Long Island’s southern coastline over the next 30 years with funding from the Superstorm Sandy federal aid package.

Dredging crews also began staging machinery and dozens of large iron pipes on the oceanfront in Sagaponack ahead of the start of work to rebuild some six miles of beaches between Southampton Village and the East Hampton Town line. That project will also use a 350-foot offshore dredge that will scour sand from “borrow areas” less than one mile off the beaches in Sagaponack and Bridgehampton, gradually widening the dry beach along the entire reach to about 150 feet wide. The $22.5 million Sagaponack-Bridgehampton project is being paid for entirely by the approximately 130 homeowners who own property along the oceanfront in the project’s reach. In 2012, the homeowners created dedicated taxing districts that allow Southampton Town to bond for the total cost of the project and then levy annual taxes on the property owners to pay down the bond over 10 years.

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The Los Angeles wildfires are projected to be the costliest in U.S. history, and local insurance brokers said Long Island homeowners will eventually feel the impact in their insurance premiums. In The Wall Street Journal, a JPMorgan analyst said yesterday the estimated insured losses from the L.A. fires would exceed $20 billion. Jonathan LaMantia reports in NEWSDAY that catastrophes of that magnitude increase insurers’ costs and lead them to charge more in the future. That’s because the cost of reinsurance — the coverage insurers buy to protect themselves from high claims — has been rising in the past decade following a series of natural disasters in the U.S., said James Sutton, broker and owner of the James F. Sutton Agency in East Islip. In the global market for reinsurance, massive losses in one area can affect the cost of insurance elsewhere.

Sutton said premium increases of 10% to 30% have been typical for homeowners renewing their policies recently.

Long Islanders are already facing a tight home insurance market, which one broker described as the “worst in years” in September after several insurers announced they would no longer offer policies in New York because of financial challenges or strategic moves away from home insurance.

While the region faces different climate risks from California, the losses incurred from the fires will also likely affect the ability to find a willing insurer here, said David Levine, president of Newbrook Insurance Agency in Port Jefferson Station. Brokers said it could take six months to more than a year before the effects of the Los Angeles wildfires are priced into home insurance, as companies seek premium increases from state regulators that reflect potentially higher reinsurance costs and policy renewals.

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“A Women’s Rally” will be held in Greenport’s Mitchell Park tomorrow at 1pm. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that speakers will give short talks on the many issues of concern that need government action: education, health care, immigration and its benefit to the economy, bodily autonomy, housing and participatory democracy. As organizer Carolyn Peabody said, “We invite you to stand up for what we believe in and for each other. Join us to sing, to share inspiration and concerns. Make your voice be heard and grounded in community strength against the tide of misinformation, disrespect for women and undemocratic chaos that wells up to defeat us.” Organizer Randy Wade added, “Remember that we are many, we are determined, we show up and we won’t give up.”

That’s “A Women’s Rally” tomorrow at 1pm in Mitchell Park, 115 Front Street, Greenport, NY 11944

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Parenting will always have its challenges. Access to prenatal care, according to Governor Kathy Hochul, shouldn’t be one of them. As of January 1, New York is the only state in the nation to offer paid time off — up to 20 hours — for prenatal appointments, or any medical care related to pregnancy. “This will help over 136,000 pregnant women who now don’t have to worry about losing money,” Hochul said in a statement.

Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that on average, a pregnant woman will have between 12 and 14 prenatal appointments, which typically last a half hour each, according to Dr. Vito Alamia, vice chairman of OB/GYN at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. Twenty hours of paid prenatal leave hours may not be enough for some patients, but it certainly is a start, he said. During a roundtable with a group of mothers, and some of their children, Hochul heard stories of how the women sometimes skipped their prenatal appointments, fearful to take time off from work. This new policy will help keep mothers in the workforce, according to Liza Tremblay, a founding board member of the East End Birth Network, as well as a working mother in the hospitality industry. “Women who are going to prenatal appointments aren’t sick, so they shouldn’t be having to use their sick time,” she said. When looking at factors that contribute to maternal mortality, decreased prenatal care is at the top of the list, Dr. Alamia said. Additionally, research shows that women who do not seek prenatal care are three times as likely to deliver an infant with low birth weight — and five times more likely to have a baby die at birth. During a prenatal visit, the mother is screened for routine problems that can arise during the pregnancy, such as high blood pressure and preterm labor, he explained. “Access to care has been proven over and over and over to be a determinant of outcome,” he said. “And so the more access to care people have, the better patients and babies do. Because of that, I think in this particular group, this law can make a difference.”