The delay in adding seating for Long Island Rail Road riders at the mezzanine of Grand Central Madison could be the latest example of transportation providers deliberately forgoing customer comforts in order to dissuade homeless people from loitering at stations, experts say.
But the head of the MTA said it took 18 months to add the seating because the transit agency did not anticipate that so many LIRR riders would want more opportunities to get off their feet at the new station.
“We saw a need,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Janno Lieber said at a Grand Central news conference Monday. “We put in some seating to deal with it.”
The addition of 28 new seats at Grand Central Madison is the latest development drawing attention to the relative lack of seating at some new, and newly renovated, transit hubs serving Long Island commuters, including Penn Station and the adjacent Moynihan Train Hall…
Michael Smart, associate professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, said he believes the omission of sufficient seating in Grand Central Madison — which was designed and built over nearly two decades — was no oversight.
“It is 100% the case that the lack of seating in new facilities is because of the homeless,” said Smart, who has studied how transit agencies address homelessness in cities throughout the world. “The bosses of the designers of the station … when they look at that issue of balancing their passengers’ comfort and homeless folks using the space, they tilt immediately in the direction of providing no seating.”
The picture at Moynihan, Penn
The lack of seating is even more “egregious” at another new Manhattan transit facility, Smart said. Opened in 2021, the $1.2 billion Moynihan Train Hall, serving both Amtrak and LIRR trains, includes 225,000 square feet of space but very limited seating.
Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams pointed out in a statement that “there is seating available for customers” in Moynihan, included in a ticketed waiting area, the food hall, and the Metropolitan Lounge.
“Any additional opportunities to increase seating would have to go through Empire State Development,” the state agency that developed the facility, Abrams said.
Right next to Moynihan, the LIRR’s Penn Station concourse underwent a $700 million renovation, largely completed last year, that added far more standing room for passengers but not significantly more seating. There are two small waiting areas on the east and west ends of the station with some seating for passengers who show tickets.
“It’s so obvious . . . what it’s about, and it’s such a disservice to existing riders,” said Smart, who noted that ticketed waiting rooms, like those at Moynihan, Grand Central Madison and Penn Station, are often far from where travelers usually congregate, near the gates heading to the tracks. “We all want to have a place to sit while we’re waiting for our train.”