MTA doubles LIRR passenger seating at Grand Central Madison but passengers say there ‘should definitely be more'
The MTA unveiled 70 new seats at Grand Central Madison's Long Island Rail Road mezzanine on Tuesday, effectively doubling the number of seats at the station.
The scores of two-seat benches near 45th and 46th streets — available only to ticketed LIRR customers within a 90-minute window — bring the number of available seats in the station to 106, MTA reps said — and riders were quick to notice the new addition.
'They're not optimal, but they're pretty comfortable,' said Long Island-based chiropractor Randi Jaffe on Tuesday afternoon, pointing to the 'odd' curvature of the seats.
4 LIRR President Rob Free and Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara announce new seating areas Tuesday on the mezzanine level of Grand Central Madison.
LIRR
'It beats standing.'
Jaffe, 53, who called the new benches 'fantastic,' added: 'It would be good if they had a back, just for support, but I imagine people aren't sitting on these benches for too long.'
4 Commuters sit on the new metal benches — without backs — at the newly-built Grand Central LIRR hub, designed for brief seating.
Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post
The station — which didn't have any seating when it opened in 2023 — began the rollout with 28 seats near 47th Street last October, with 14 seats at 45th Street and 28 seats at 46th Street installed this month, the MTA said.
The expansion comes after a surge in LIRR ridership — with a record 1.72 million riders during the week of July 23 and an 89% return to pre-pandemic ridership numbers — and a resulting slew of customer feedback, LIRR President Rob Free said at a Tuesday press conference at the station.
'Improving the customer experience is one of our top priorities,' Free said.
4 Passengers waiting on benches at Grand Central Madison.
Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post
The seats are evidently already so much of a hit with some riders that there was already a resounding call for more.
'I think they're a good addition – I think there could be more of them. Otherwise there's no complaints,' said student Liam Hosey, 20, from Rockville Centre, who was sitting on the floor due to a lack of open seats.
'I was kind of dreading coming down here, not having anything to sit on,' said straphanger Megan Riley, 34. 'I think they're great.'
'There should definitely be more,' said CUNY worker Jean Ryan, 56. 'Especially for people who have mobility issues, and people who are in pain, who have arthritis.'
Others, like 30-year-old health care worker Ashley, worried the seats could be taken over by homeless individuals without proper enforcement — but noted the armrest or divider used between seats 'kind of eliminates the possibility.'
Another straphanger, Chris Conway of Vermont, refused to sit because of food scraps already soiling the brand-new seat.
4 New seating areas at Grand Central Madison, located on the mezzanine level at 45th and 46th Street.
LIRR
Despite obvious waste left behind on some of the new seats, the MTA argues customer satisfaction with the 'cleanliness' of the station is up one point from its Fall 2024 survey to 96%.
'Making sure the station is clean and well lit, clear signage as well as improved wayfinding and announcements that can certainly move the needle,' said MTA Senior Advisor for Communications and Policy Shanifah Rieara.
Aside from more seats, MTA officials are working to usher in more retail to the terminal – a TRAX restaurant is poised to open at the end of the month, and the MTA is 'in the process of negotiating other leases,' Rieara said.
'We want Grand Central Madison to be a bustling terminal,' she added, 'just like our neighbors upstairs at Grand Central Terminal.'
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Cannonball Arts Opening Keeps Momentum For Revitalized Downtown Seattle Rolling
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'There's a 66,000-square-foot concrete building in the heart of downtown Seattle and we want to turn Bumbershoot into a year round brand that isn't just celebrating our community for a weekend, but all year round, and we are going to help revitalize downtown Seattle, and we are going to help retain our creative community,' Lundgren told about his pitch pivot. 'They looked at me, 'That's what we want.'' Lundgren was pitching Cannonball Arts, more idea than reality at that point. The idea, converting an enormous former Bed, Bath & Beyond store that had sat vacant for nearly a decade into a playful, eccentric, contemporary art center. Exhibits, concerts, fashion shows, art markets, pop-up events. Smack dab downtown–1930 3rd Ave–two blocks west of Seattle's iconic Pike Place Market and its 10 million annual visitors. 'Going into their office, I was like, 'We want a couple hundred thousand dollars to put your name on a banner at a music festival,' and it ended up turning into a much bigger gesture and a much larger, longer-term commitment,' Lundgren said. 'I was caught off guard that they were receptive to hearing other opportunities to collaborate, and shocked that they rose their hand to doing the largest art center that Seattle has ever seen in a part of downtown which some people think is full of drug addicts and crazy people.' Lundgren went to the Tribe looking for a sponsorship and ended up with the Muckleshoot as part owner of the company. The partnership allowed Cannonball Arts to move from idea to reality with a full grand opening to the public coming August 20, 2025. 'We've got a five-ton cedar log in our lobby which (members of the Muckleshoot Tribe) will be carving out as a dugout canoe. 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That's the hope for Cannonball Arts. For Seattle. 'The story that the world doesn't hear that often is that we have an incredibly rich pool of creativity, some of it is well employed and some of it unemployed, but our greatest resource are the people that live here,' he said. 'I don't think the artists and the creatives that are here are getting the attention or the opportunity or the resources to fully see their ideas realized.' Cannonball Art's mission is serving local artists as well as the public. The same artists whose talents it will rely on for success. 'It'd be an idiotic thing to do if there wasn't a tremendous amount of creative talent here,' Lundgren said of opening a gigantic, multi-media, public, contemporary arts center. 'Between the tech sector–everyone gives people that work at Microsoft or Amazon or Meta this hard time for destroying the city or stealing jobs or making it more expensive–that talent pool, just by itself, is enormous.' While the Muckleshoot are Cannonball Arts primary funder, financial support has also come from Amazon and the big philanthropic foundations set up by the area's tech billionaires, like Ballmer Group (Microsoft). And Starbucks. Global Seattle-based companies New Rising Sun had existing relationships with through Bumbershoot. 'How many artists work in tech, and when it comes to new media, when it comes to virtual reality, when it comes to artificial intelligence, when it comes to just about any kind of cutting-edge technology that's happening in the world, Seattle and the East Side is a world leader,' Lundgren continued. 'We have thousands and thousands of technologists in our backyard doing brilliant work.' Perhaps not artists in the traditional painting, sculpting, drawing, photography, sense, but creatives to be sure. And Makers. The exodus of Boeing from Seattle over the last decade left more skilled residents. 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