Elmhurst neighbors and local power brokers are turning up the heat on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, pressing the agency to resurrect the Long Island Rail Road station that once sat on Broadway and has been out of service since the 1980s. Backers say bringing the stop back could shave precious minutes off commutes, ease crush-loaded subways and buses, and funnel more customers to storefronts along the corridor.
The campaign got fresh visibility this week in a CBS News New York segment that showed residents and community leaders rallying near the old site, calling for a full rebuild. According to that report, the Elmhurst station was shut down in the 1980s after officials cited low ridership and shifting travel patterns.
Who’s pushing
U.S. Rep. Grace Meng has become the face of the effort, joined by City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, the Queens Chamber of Commerce and a lineup of local small-business owners who argue that Elmhurst today looks nothing like the quieter neighborhood that lost its stop four decades ago. As reported by QNS, supporters say a restored station would finally return a direct rail option that many residents now lack and could give surrounding shops and restaurants a steady flow of new foot traffic.
MTA's assessment and the price tag
The MTA’s 20‑Year Needs Assessment does list Elmhurst as a possible station to reopen, but the agency’s own scoring system rates the idea low, concluding it “provides marginal benefits in an area already well served by transit.” The comparative evaluation projects roughly 3,100 daily riders by 2045 and pegs construction costs at about $210 million in 2027 dollars. The document also notes that adding a stop on the line would lengthen travel times for some through riders, which the agency says wipes out any net time savings. The analysis is laid out in a report from the MTA.
History and earlier studies
Elmhurst’s old LIRR station sat on Broadway between Cornish and Whitney Avenues. The elevated depot opened in 1927, then was closed and demolished in 1985 after years of dwindling use. As the Queens Chronicle has chronicled, the MTA revisited the idea in the 2010s, surveying neighbors and even setting aside money for design work before scaling the project back in later capital plans.
Pros and trade-offs
Backers argue that a rebuilt station would hand Elmhurst commuters a valuable, direct path into Manhattan and give some relief to jam-packed subway lines and bus routes that do the heavy lifting now. But the MTA’s analysis, along with some transit planners, warns that dropping another stop onto the Port Washington Branch could slow existing LIRR trains and that the steep construction cost makes the overall benefit harder to justify, as CBS News New York reported.
What comes next
Advocates say they are not backing off. They want updated ridership surveys and serious funding talks, even as the MTA has not put any immediate Elmhurst station plans on the table, QNS noted. For now, the push remains a grassroots campaign that needs a fresh feasibility case and a slot in a future capital plan before anything concrete can happen.
Whether Elmhurst’s long-dormant platform ever comes back to life will hinge on politics, budgets and how the MTA weighs neighborhood access against systemwide travel times. For residents who say their commutes keep getting longer, the fight is as much about equity as it is about speed.
