L.I.R.R. Announces Travel Options for ‘Summer of Hell’

More than two dozen rush-hour trains on the Long Island Rail Road will be canceled or rerouted at Pennsylvania Station in New York this summer as commuters brace for a “summer of hell,” officials said Monday.

Starting on July 10, the number of trains leaving Penn Station during the evening commute will be reduced by about 20 percent, according to officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the Long Island Rail Road. A dozen trains will also be canceled or rerouted to Jamaica Station in Queens and Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn during the morning commute.

The agency will offer bus and ferry services to accommodate some of the thousands of riders who will be affected by the disruptions. Extra cars will be added to some trains to increase capacity, and several new trains will be added near the start and the end of rush hour.

All three railroads that use Penn Station — which also include Amtrak and New Jersey Transit — are cutting back service this summer amid construction that will close off tracks for repairs. Amtrak, which owns Penn Station, has issued revised schedules and canceled several trains.

New Jersey Transit released its train schedules for the summer on Friday. The bulk of the pain will be felt by commuters on the Morris and Essex Line — the railroad’s second-busiest line — who will be redirected to Hoboken Terminal in New Jersey. They will then have to transfer to ferries, buses or PATH trains to get to Manhattan. In exchange, riders will receive steep discounts.

At a news conference on Monday, officials said the Long Island Rail Road would not offer discounts for commuters who were affected by the disruptions. Instead, the railroad is providing extra service to help bring commuters into the city.

Two ferry routes will run from Glen Cove on the North Shore of Long Island and Long Island City in Queens, said Veronique Hakim, the authority’s interim executive director. About 200 buses will run from eight park-and-ride locations, she said.

Asked about the decision not to offer discounts, Ms. Hakim said, “We’ve chosen to focus on providing service and creating a multifaceted plan, which we think gives customers as many options as possible.”

Some riders were confused by the new schedules and furious over being inconvenienced without at least receiving a discount. A commuter identifying herself as Gillian Kane posted on Twitter that having her morning train rerouted to Brooklyn would be “extremely inconvenient.”

Without a discount, she wrote, “I’m paying $300 a month to travel out of the way and take an extra 30 minutes on a subway to get to work.”

The train schedules the authority posted online on Monday afternoon showed that the train cancellations would mainly impact the Babylon and Port Washington lines. Nine rush-hour trains will be canceled or combined, including five on the Babylon line, according to the schedule.

The track repair work at Penn Station is expected to last about eight weeks, through the end of August. Amtrak determined that the tracks needed extensive repairs after two derailments at the station.

Ms. Hakim said monthly and weekly Long Island Rail Road ticket holders would not have to pay for buses or ferries. The authority was still examining how it would pay for the alternate travel options, she said.

“I know who is not going to pay for it,” she said, “and that’s the Long Island Rail Road customer.”

The planned ferry routes can accommodate about 2,300 riders, Ms. Hakim said, and the authority was seeking a third location for ferry service from the South Shore of Long Island. Commuters who are diverted to stations in Brooklyn and Queens will also be able to transfer to the subway free of charge in the mornings.

The authority, which runs Grand Central Terminal, reached an agreement with Amtrak to have some Amtrak trains that normally travel to Penn Station instead go to Grand Central this summer, Ms. Hakim said, adding that six trains from Amtrak’s Empire Service between New York City and Albany would move to Grand Central to provide relief at Penn Station.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who controls the authority, also announced on Monday that he had ordered the agency to accelerate construction on several bridges and tunnels before more vehicles hit the road during the Penn Station disruptions. The bridges and tunnels are undergoing work to move to electronic tolling and make other improvements.

But subway riders, who have grown increasingly frustrated with faltering service, were quick to criticize Mr. Cuomo’s car-centric announcement. They replied to a post on his Twitter account with a stream of responses asking him to fix the subways and reminding him that many New Yorkers do not have cars.

Asked whether the overtaxed subways could handle an influx of Long Island commuters, Ms. Hakim said she was confident the system could handle the extra ridership. And she acknowledged the pain Long Island riders would feel in the weeks ahead.

“Obviously, it’s going to be a long, hot summer,” Ms. Hakim said.