New LIRR seating at Grand Central Madison is drawing attention to why there are few of them at transit hubs.

The delay in adding Long Island Rail Road passenger seating on the Grand Central Madison mezzanine could be the latest example of transit companies deliberately forgoing customer comfort to discourage homeless people from loitering at stations, experts say.

But the MTA chief said it took 18 months to add the seating because the transit agency didn’t expect so many LIRR riders to want more options to get off their feet at the new station.

“We saw a need,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Janno Lieber said at a press conference in Grand Central on Monday. “We have allocated some seating to deal with this problem.”

The addition of 28 new seats at Grand Central Madison is the latest development calling attention to the relative lack of space at some of the new and recently renovated transit hubs serving Long Island commuters, including Penn Station and the adjacent Moynihan Railroad Hall.

Merrick passenger Kyle Bullock sits on one of the new aluminum benches at Grand Central Madison. He said Monday afternoon that he was “very glad they are here.” When he used to travel to and from Grand Central Madison, Bullock said, he had to “sit on the floor and just wait” for his train.

“Or you stand and suffer,” said Bullock, who believes the lack of space at the new LIRR terminal in Manhattan is intentional. “I always assumed they were trying to keep the homeless away.”

Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University, believes Bullock is onto something.

“The MTA understands that their goal is to attract riders, not homeless (people),” Moss said in an interview Thursday. “So the lack of benches is an attempt to discourage homeless people, not necessarily to discourage riders. But this may be a secondary effect.”

Asked whether the addition of locations was driven by concerns about homelessness, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said in a statement: “Everything we provide, whether it be the level of service, retail stores or locations, is something we monitor for demand. “

Welcome Add-on

Donovan added that the addition of the seats came after the MTA noticed that riders regularly sat on the floor in the Grand Central mezzanine.

The new rest area, located next to the escalators and stairs leading to the tracks under 47th Street, was a welcome sight for Allison Krieger of Woodmere, who broke her right leg about a month ago and was “very” glad to be able to get off her feet while she I was waiting for the train on Monday.

“It’s a nice addition,” said Krieger, who used to wait for her train in the station’s concourse level waiting room — a long escalator ride from the mezzanine — because it was the only seating area in the station. “Then you need to hurry downstairs.” So it’s better to sit here than upstairs.

In discussing why the MTA waited a year and a half to install the mezzanine benches, Lieber suggested the transit agency was caught off guard by the demand for the seats.

“We saw more people than we expected during the planning process crowding around the entrance, the escalators and right next to the tracks,” Lieber said, adding that the new seats are “primarily designed for people with limited mobility.”
About 80,000 passengers travel through Grand Central Madison daily, about half of the 162,000 passengers the MTA projected back in March 2020.

Asked whether the MTA would add additional space at Grand Central Madison, Lieber said the agency would “look at how it’s used and learn from it.” The new seating section is located on only one of the eight staircase/escalator landings leading to the railway levels.

Michael Smart, an assistant professor at Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bluestein School of Planning and Public Policy, said he believes the lack of adequate seating at Central Madison, which has been designed and built over nearly two decades, was not an oversight.

“It’s 100 percent a case that the lack of space in new facilities is related to homelessness,” said Smart, who has studied how transit agencies address homelessness in cities around the world. “Station design chiefs… when they look at the problem of balancing the comfort of their passengers with the homeless using the space, they immediately lean towards the lack of seating.”

Photography in Moynihan, Pennsylvania.

The seating shortage is even more “egregious” at another new Manhattan transit complex, Smart said. Opened in 2021, the $1.2 billion Moynihan Railroad Hall, which serves Amtrak and LIRR trains, includes 225,000 square feet of space but very limited seating.

Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams said in a statement that “there are available spaces for customers” at Moynihan, including the ticket lounge, food hall and Metropolitan Lounge.

“Any additional opportunities to increase seating capacity must be done through Empire State Development,” Abrams told the state agency that developed the facility.

Just next to Moynihan, Penn Station’s LIRR concourse underwent a $700 million renovation, largely completed last year, that added much more room for standing passengers but did not significantly increase seating capacity. At the east and west ends of the station there are two small waiting areas with a few seats for passengers who present tickets.

“It’s so obvious. . . what this is about, and it does a disservice to existing passengers,” Smart said, noting that ticket lounges such as those at Moynihan, Grand Central Madison and Penn Station are often far from where travelers typically congregate, near gates heading to the tracks. “We all want a place to sit while we wait for the train.”

Refusing to suggest that there is an intention to eliminate large amounts of seating from the design of modern transit hubs, David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said there is no shortage of examples of “hostile architecture” and restrictive regulations in transit hubs. “Aimed at keeping people who have nowhere else to go from being able to sit down and relax.” Among them: a 90-minute limit on the use of new seats at Grand Central Madison.

“It’s inhumane and crazy,” Giffen said. “Vehicles are supposed to be for the public, and your status as a member of society is not dependent on whether you have a home or not.”

Instead of “creating spaces that are inhospitable to everyone,” including commuters looking to offload congestion, government planners should focus on “creating enough affordable housing” for the 350,000 unsheltered New Yorkers, Giffen said.

Moss, the New York University planner, said the city’s transportation system is especially attractive to homeless people, especially in cold weather. Their presence, Moss said, could contribute to the perception of a dangerous climate for passengers.

“You don’t have to be a victim of crime to feel the stations are unsafe,” Moss said. “Homeless people and people with emotional problems. . . increase feelings of insecurity. And that’s why they pose a serious problem.”