As New York begins to pick up the pieces damaged by the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, mass transit is slowly coming back.
Today, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said that Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad will begin to provide limited service starting at 2 p.m. Metro-North customers with October monthly & weekly tickets can keep them - they will remain valid through Monday, Nov. 5.
Grand Central Terminal will reopen to the public by 2 p.m.
According to the governor, testing of the subway will begin tonight and starting Thursday morning, there will be limited subway service on several routes, supplemented by a bus shuttle between Downtown Brooklyn and Midtown.
There will be no subway service between 34th St in Midtown and Downtown Brooklyn.
The MTA has pumped three of the seven tunnels flooded by Sandy and the R, A, C, L, 7 train tunnels remain flooded.
"While both limited rail and subway service is being restored on a line by line and branch by branch basis, the work to restore full service on the commuter rail and subway network is ongoing," the MTA said in a statement. "Thousands of MTA workers are still out across the entire 5,000 square mile MTA service region inspecting and repairing the damage caused the massively destructive storm of historic proportions."
The MTA said it is still too early to say how long it will take to restore the system to full service.
Local, Limited-Stop and Express Bus are operating on a normal weekday schedule for free.
The governor said 2.3 million people use the city buses and a plan is being established to accommodate 5.5 million subway riders who are trying to ride the buses. A "bus bridge" will be established using 330 buses to take commuters to Manhattan from three major locations in Brooklyn.
All of the bridges operated by MTA Bridges & Tunnels are open to traffic. The Hugh L. Carey and Queens Midtown Tunnels remain closed.
"This is will be an exhaustive, time-consuming process with one goal: to restore safe and efficient service to 8.5 million daily MTA customers," the MTA said. "It must be noted, however, that this process could have taken much longer had we not taken the pre-emptive measure of suspending all service to safeguard our equipment and prepare facilities to the best of our ability."
Amtrak has begun providing Northeast Regional service between Newark, N.J., and points south, including restoring Virginia service to Lynchburg, Richmond and Newport News.
"However, as in the case of other tunnel owners and operators in New York City, Amtrak is removing water and making repairs to track, signal and power systems within its tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers," the rail company said in a statement. "The amount of water intrusion into the tunnels is unprecedented - as was the storm itself - so a date for restoration of Amtrak service directly to/from New York Penn Station from either the north or south is not available at this time."
There is no service between Newark and Boston and at Newark Penn Station, there will be no connecting service to New York City .
Empire Service between New York City and Buffalo/Niagara Falls, the Adirondack to and from Montreal, Québec, Canada, and the Ethan Allen Express to and from Rutland, Vt., has been cancelled.
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