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[EllisSimon]

I work at The City College of New York, which is at Convent Ave. & 138th St. in Harlem and travel in from Long Island. Given the formidable distance from Penn Station and the cold weather, walking to work would be out of the question. Fortunately, I was able to use Metro-North to the Harlem/125th St. station and continue my journey on foot from there. I caught the 6:47 from Oceanside which was running around five minutes late. We had a huge boarding at Valley Stream and ran SRO from there. Along the way I spotted long lines of people waiting to buy tickets and enter the stations at Laurelton and Jamaica. My walk from Penn Station to Grand Central, which consumed around 20 minutes, was delayed by a pit stop to answer nature's call. Nevertheless, I arrived in time to buy a round-trip ticket to Harlem for $8.50 and get on the 8:24 to North White Plains, which had a light crowd. We pulled out around 8:30 and I was in Harlem 15 minutes later. Unfortunately, the CCNY campus is quite a distance from the train station. The walk took over 30 minutes, with the last 13 blocks all uphill. Thus, my entire trip consumed 2:30. I could have used a shuttle bus the college was running, but since it ran only every 30 minutes I was better off walking. The return trip took longer. The walking and Metro-North portion worked smoothly; I had a brief wait at the 125th St. station for a train., and was at GCT by 4:30 pm, leaving plenty of time to walk to NYP and catch the 5:00 to Long Beach. Or so I thought. The trouble began when I got to 34th St. In the name of avoiding fare beaters, the Long Island RR implemented some byzantine crowd control procedures. Passengers needing to purchase tickets were directed to use the 34th St. entrance while those holding tickets were steered to the 33rd or 32nd St. entrances. I chose the former, a set of doors from the now-closed taxi passage in the middle of the station complex, and was penned in with hundreds of other passengers trying to squeeze into a narrow staircase leading to the main concourse level. This consumed over 10 minutes, causing me to miss the 5:00. At the entrance to the escalators, conductors were inspecting tickets before we could enter the Long Island concourse level. Once there, things seemed normal, and I figured it would be just a few minutes before I could board the next train, the 5:20, which normally runs express to Lynbrook. Just one minute after an usher "confirmed" that the train would run, a voice came on the loudspeaker to announce that the 5:20 was cancelled and that passengers would be accomodated on the following train, a local departing at 5:23. Even though it was carrying the combined passengers of two trains, there were still plenty of seats available in the rear of the train, where I rode. We departed a few minutes late, but things were running smoothly until we reached Rego Park. Then we crawled to Jamaica. I believe the problems stemmed from procedures implemented in the station to control access to trains. An announcement told passengers making connections they would have to leave the platforms, enter the station building (main waiting room and ticket office) and go back up stairs when their connecting train was announced. Undoubtedly this process consumed significant extra time and, no doubt, further irritated thousands of already-irate passengers. The bottom line is I didn't get back to Oceanside until after 6:30, putting my trip time around 3:00. Needless to say, I am not a happy camper. I am angry with the MTA, the TWU and LIRR. Metro-North, OTOH came through for me, and they get bonus points for not checking my ticket, meaning I can ride again. Anyway, tomorrow I try carpooling.