This issue of Road Warriors is special. You might notice that the cover is different from past covers. Instead of a singular feature, we present a trio. There is good reason for this: the three men who lead the Long Island Rail Road came up together, each taking a different track (see what I did there?) to get from station cleaners to the top jobs in the organization. It’s a hefty piece that profiles Anthony Simon, Rob Free, and Hector Garcia.
Long Island is home to the busiest commuter railroad on this continent. Scheduling, maintenance, and its historic expansion has required near impossible coordination and precision from a team that is supremely dedicated. They must be. It’s a fascinating story of perseverance, friendship, strategy, and grit that carries the LIRR from the ‘90s through hard-fought generational projects like Third Track, Grand Central Madison East Side Access, the COVID pandemic, a near rail worker strike (to name a few things) while boasting record on-time performance. It’s a truly miraculous operation. The next time you’re considering complaining about your commute, pick up this issue and you just might pause.
It’s a truly miraculous operation.
To continue along this transit theme, we hear from Jack Khzouz, CEO of NICE (Nassau Inter-County Express) Bus about how technology and innovation can help meet changing rider needs; Kevin Law, Executive Vice President and Partner at TRITEC, discusses new transit-oriented development projects across the island; New York State Assemblywoman Jodi Giglio reports from her post on the Assembly Transportation Committee. We also hear from Kevin Conlon of Charter Oak Financial and finally LICA’s own Marc Herbst who gets to the nitty gritty of congestion pricing.
If you’d like to drop a line with any suggestions (or praise!), drop me a line at jfranchi@licanys.org.
As always, we thank you for the work you do to keep Long Island running. We look forward to a productive summer season and urge everyone to stay safe out there.
Thank you,
Jaime