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Arabidopsis thaliana

Arabidopsis thaliana, the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small plant from the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to Eurasia and Africa. Commonly found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed land, it is generally considered a weed.

A winter annual with a relatively short lifecycle, A. thaliana is a popular model organism in plant biology and genetics. For a complex multicellular eukaryote, A. thaliana has a relatively small genome of around 135 megabase pairs. It was the first plant to have its genome sequenced, and is an important tool for understanding the molecular biology of many plant traits, including flower development and light sensing.

Description

Arabidopsis thaliana is an annual (rarely biennial) plant, usually growing to 20–25 cm tall. The leaves form a rosette at the base of the plant, with a few leaves also on the flowering stem. The basal leaves are green to slightly purplish in color, 1.5–5 cm long, and 2–10 mm broad, with an entire to coarsely serrated margin; the stem leaves are smaller and unstalked, usually with an entire margin. Leaves are covered with small, unicellular hairs called trichomes. The flowers are 3 mm in diameter, arranged in a corymb; their structure is that of the typical Brassicaceae. The fruit is a siliqua 5–20 mm long, containing 20–30 seeds. Roots are simple in structure, with a single primary root that grows vertically downward, later producing smaller lateral roots. These roots form interactions with rhizosphere bacteria such as Bacillus megaterium.

A. thaliana can complete its entire lifecycle in six weeks. The central stem that produces flowers grows after about 3 weeks, and the flowers naturally self-pollinate. In the lab, A. thaliana may be grown in Petri plates, pots, or hydroponics, under fluorescent lights or in a greenhouse.

Taxonomy
The plant was first described in 1577 in the Harz Mountains by (1542–1583), a physician from Nordhausen, Thüringen, Germany, who called it Pilosella siliquosa. In 1753, Carl Linnaeus renamed the plant Arabis thaliana in honor of Thal. In 1842, German botanist Gustav Heynhold erected the new genus Arabidopsis and placed the plant in that genus. The generic name, Arabidopsis, comes from Greek, meaning "resembling Arabis" (the genus in which Linnaeus had initially placed it).

Thousands of natural inbred accessions of A. thaliana have been collected from throughout its natural and introduced range. These accessions exhibit considerable genetic and phenotypic variation, which can be used to study the adaptation of this species to different environments.

Distribution and habitat
A. thaliana is native to Europe, Asia, and Africa, and its geographic distribution is rather continuous from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia and Spain to Greece. It also appears to be native in tropical alpine ecosystems in Africa and perhaps South Africa. It has been introduced and naturalized worldwide, including in North America around the 17th century.

A. thaliana readily grows and often pioneers rocky, sandy, and calcareous soils. It is generally considered a weed, due to its widespread distribution in agricultural fields, roadsides, railway lines, waste ground, and other disturbed habitats, but due to its limited competitive ability and small size, it is not categorized as a noxious weed. Like most Brassicaceae species, A. thaliana is edible by humans in a salad or cooked, but it does not enjoy widespread use as a spring vegetable.

Use as a model organism
Botanists and biologists began to research A. thaliana in the early 1900s, and the first systematic description of mutants was done around 1945. A. thaliana is now widely used for studying plant sciences, including genetics, evolution, population genetics, and plant development. Although A. thaliana the plant has little direct significance for agriculture, A. thaliana the model organism has revolutionized our understanding of the genetic, cellular, and molecular biology of flowering plants.

The first mutant in A. thaliana was documented in 1873 by Alexander Braun, describing a double flower phenotype (the mutated gene was likely Agamous, cloned and characterized in 1990). Friedrich Laibach (who had published the chromosome number in 1907) did not propose A. thaliana as a model organism, though, until 1943. His student, Erna Reinholz, published her thesis on A. thaliana in 1945, describing the first collection of A. thaliana mutants that they generated using X-ray mutagenesis. Laibach continued his important contributions to A. thaliana research by collecting a large number of accessions (often questionably referred to as "ecotypes"). With the help of Albert Kranz, these were organised into a large collection of 750 natural accessions of A. thaliana from around the world.

In the 1950s and 1960s, John Langridge and George Rédei played an important role in establishing A. thaliana as a useful organism for biological laboratory experiments. Rédei wrote several scholarly reviews instrumental in introducing the model to the scientific community. The start of the A. thaliana research community dates to a newsletter called Arabidopsis Information Service, established in 1964. The first International Arabidopsis Conference was held in 1965, in Göttingen, Germany.

In the 1980s, A. thaliana started to become widely used in plant research laboratories around the world. It was one of several candidates that included maize, petunia, and tobacco. The latter two were attractive, since they were easily transformable with the then-current technologies, while maize was a well-established genetic model for plant biology. The breakthrough year for A. thaliana as a model plant was 1986, in which T-DNA-mediated transformation and the first cloned A. thaliana gene were described.

Nuclear genome
Due to the small size of its genome, and because it is diploid, Arabidopsis thaliana is useful for genetic mapping and sequencing — with about 157 megabase pairs and five chromosomes, A. thaliana has one of the smallest genomes among plants. It was long thought to have the smallest genome of all flowering plants, but that title is now considered to belong to plants in the genus Genlisea, order Lamiales, with Genlisea tuberosa, a carnivorous plant, showing a genome size of approximately 61 Mbp. It was the first plant genome to be sequenced, completed in 2000 by the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative. The most up-to-date version of the A. thaliana genome is maintained by the Arabidopsis Information Resource.

The genome encodes ~27,600 protein-coding genes and about 6,500 non-coding genes. However, the Uniprot database lists 39,342 proteins in their Arabidopsis reference proteome. Among the 27,600 protein-coding genes 25,402 (91.8%) are now annotated with "meaningful" product names, although a large fraction of these proteins is likely only poorly understood and only known in general terms (e.g. as "DNA-binding protein without known specificity"). Uniprot lists more than 3,000 proteins as "uncharacterized" as part of the reference proteome.

Chloroplast genome
The plastome of A. thaliana is a 154,478 base-pair-long DNA molecule, a size typically encountered in most flowering plants (see the list of sequenced plastomes). It comprises 136 genes coding for small subunit ribosomal proteins (rps, in yellow: see figure), large subunit ribosomal proteins (rpl, orange), hypothetical chloroplast open reading frame proteins (ycf, lemon), proteins involved in photosynthetic reactions (green) or in other functions (red), ribosomal RNAs (rrn, blue), and transfer RNAs (trn, black).

Mitochondrial genome
The mitochondrial genome of A. thaliana is 367,808 base pairs long and contains 57 genes. There are many repeated regions in the Arabidopsis mitochondrial genome. The largest repeats recombine regularly and isomerize the genome. Like most plant mitochondrial genomes, the Arabidopsis mitochondrial genome exists as a complex arrangement of overlapping branched and linear molecules in vivo.

Genetics
Genetic transformation of A. thaliana is routine, using Agrobacterium tumefaciens to transfer DNA into the plant genome. The current protocol, termed "floral dip", involves simply dipping flowers into a solution containing Agrobacterium carrying a plasmid of interest and a detergent. This method avoids the need for tissue culture or plant regeneration.

The A. thaliana gene knockout collections are a unique resource for plant biology made possible by the availability of high-throughput transformation and funding for genomics resources. The site of T-DNA insertions has been determined for over 300,000 independent transgenic lines, with the information and seeds accessible through online T-DNA databases. Through these collections, insertional mutants are available for most genes in A. thaliana.

Characterized accessions and mutant lines of A. thaliana serve as experimental material in laboratory studies. The most commonly used background lines are Ler (Landsberg erecta), and Col, or Columbia. Other background lines less-often cited in the scientific literature are Ws, or Wassilewskija, C24, Cvi, or Cape Verde Islands, Nossen, etc. (see for ex. ) Sets of closely related accessions named Col-0, Col-1, etc., have been obtained and characterized; in general, mutant lines are available through stock centers, of which best-known are the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Center-NASC and the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center-ABRC in Ohio, USA. The Col-0 accession was selected by Rédei from within a (nonirradiated) population of seeds designated 'Landsberg' which he received from Laibach. Columbia (named for the location of Rédei's former institution, University of Missouri-Columbia) was the reference accession sequenced in the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative. The Later (Landsberg erecta) line was selected by Rédei (because of its short stature) from a Landsberg population he had mutagenized with X-rays. As the Ler collection of mutants is derived from this initial line, Ler-0 does not correspond to the Landsberg accessions, which designated La-0, La-1, etc.

Trichome formation is initiated by the GLABROUS1 protein. Knockouts of the corresponding gene lead to glabrous plants. This phenotype has already been used in gene editing experiments and might be of interest as visual marker for plant research to improve gene editing methods such as CRISPR/Cas9.

Non-Mendelian inheritance controversy
In 2005, scientists at Purdue University proposed that A. thaliana possessed an alternative to previously known mechanisms of DNA repair, producing an unusual pattern of inheritance, but the phenomenon observed (reversion of mutant copies of the HOTHEAD gene to a wild-type state) was later suggested to be an artifact because the mutants show increased outcrossing due to organ fusion.

Lifecycle
The plant's small size and rapid lifecycle are also advantageous for research. Having specialized as a spring ephemeral, it has been used to found several laboratory strains that take about 6 weeks from germination to mature seed. The small size of the plant is convenient for cultivation in a small space, and it produces many seeds. Further, the selfing nature of this plant assists genetic experiments. Also, as an individual plant can produce several thousand seeds, each of the above criteria leads to A. thaliana being valued as a genetic model organism.

Cellular biology
Arabidopsis is often the model for study of SNAREs in plants. This has shown SNAREs to be heavily involved in vesicle trafficking. Zheng et al. 1999 found an Arabidopsis SNARE called is probably essential to Golgi-vacuole trafficking. This is still a wide open field and plant SNAREs' role in trafficking remains understudied.

DNA repair
The DNA of plants is vulnerable to ultraviolet light, and DNA repair mechanisms have evolved to avoid or repair genome damage caused by UV. Kaiser et al. showed that in A. thaliana cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) induced by UV light can be repaired by expression of CPD photolyase.

Germination in lunar regolith
On May 12, 2022, NASA announced that specimens of Arabidopsis thaliana had been successfully germinated and grown in samples of lunar regolith. While the plants successfully germinated and grew into seedlings, they were not as robust as specimens that had been grown in volcanic ash as a control group, although the experiments also found some variation in the plants grown in regolith based on the location the samples were taken from, as A. thaliana grown in regolith gathered during Apollo 12 & Apollo 17 were more robust than those grown in samples taken during Apollo 11.

Flower development
A. thaliana has been extensively studied as a model for flower development. The developing flower has four basic organs - sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels (which go on to form pistils). These organs are arranged in a series of whorls, four sepals on the outer whorl, followed by four petals inside this, six stamens, and a central carpel region. Homeotic mutations in A. thaliana result in the change of one organ to another—in the case of the agamous mutation, for example, stamens become petals and carpels are replaced with a new flower, resulting in a recursively repeated sepal-petal-petal pattern.

Observations of homeotic mutations led to the formulation of the ABC model of flower development by E. Coen and E. Meyerowitz. According to this model, floral organ identity genes are divided into three classes - class A genes (which affect sepals and petals), class B genes (which affect petals and stamens), and class C genes (which affect stamens and carpels). These genes code for transcription factors that combine to cause tissue specification in their respective regions during development. Although developed through study of A. thaliana flowers, this model is generally applicable to other flowering plants.

Leaf development
Studies of A. thaliana have provided considerable insights with regards to the genetics of leaf morphogenesis, particularly in dicotyledon-type plants. Much of the understanding has come from analyzing mutants in leaf development, some of which were identified in the 1960s, but were not analysed with genetic and molecular techniques until the mid-1990s. A. thaliana leaves are well suited to studies of leaf development because they are relatively simple and stable.

Using A. thaliana, the genetics behind leaf shape development have become more clear and have been broken down into three stages: The initiation of the leaf primordium, the establishment of dorsiventrality, and the development of a marginal meristem. Leaf primordia are initiated by the suppression of the genes and proteins of class I KNOX family (such as SHOOT APICAL MERISTEMLESS). These class I KNOX proteins directly suppress gibberellin biosynthesis in the leaf primordium. Many genetic factors were found to be involved in the suppression of these class I KNOX genes in leaf primordia (such as ASYMMETRIC LEAVES1, BLADE-ON-PETIOLE1, SAWTOOTH1, etc.). Thus, with this suppression, the levels of gibberellin increase and leaf primordium initiate growth.

The establishment of leaf dorsiventrality is important since the dorsal (adaxial) surface of the leaf is different from the ventral (abaxial) surface.

Microscopy
A. thaliana is well suited for light microscopy analysis. Young seedlings on the whole, and their roots in particular, are relatively translucent. This, together with their small size, facilitates live cell imaging using both fluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscopy. By wet-mounting seedlings in water or in culture media, plants may be imaged uninvasively, obviating the need for fixation and sectioning and allowing time-lapse measurements. Fluorescent protein constructs can be introduced through transformation. The developmental stage of each cell can be inferred from its location in the plant or by using fluorescent protein markers, allowing detailed developmental analysis.

Light sensing, light emission, and circadian biology
The photoreceptors phytochromes A, B, C, D, and E mediate red light-based phototropic response. Understanding the function of these receptors has helped plant biologists understand the signaling cascades that regulate photoperiodism, germination, de-etiolation, and shade avoidance in plants. The genes FCA, fy, fpa, LUMINIDEPENDENS (ld), fly, fve and FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) are involved in photoperiod triggering of flowering and vernalization. Specifically Lee et al 1994 find ld produces a homeodomain and Blazquez et al 2001 that fve produces a WD40 repeat.

The UVR8 protein detects UV-B light and mediates the response to this DNA-damaging wavelength.

A. thaliana was used extensively in the study of the genetic basis of phototropism, chloroplast alignment, and stomal aperture and other blue light-influenced processes. These traits respond to blue light, which is perceived by the phototropin light receptors. Arabidopsis has also been important in understanding the functions of another blue light receptor, cryptochrome, which is especially important for light entrainment to control the plants' circadian rhythms. When the onset of darkness is unusually early, A. thaliana reduces its metabolism of starch by an amount that effectively requires division.

Light responses were even found in roots, previously thought to be largely insensitive to light. While the gravitropic response of A. thaliana root organs is their predominant tropic response, specimens treated with mutagens and selected for the absence of gravitropic action showed negative phototropic response to blue or white light, and positive response to red light, indicating that the roots also show positive phototropism.

In 2000, Dr. Janet Braam of Rice University genetically engineered A. thaliana to glow in the dark when touched. The effect was visible to ultrasensitive cameras.

Multiple efforts, including the Glowing Plant project, have sought to use A. thaliana to increase plant luminescence intensity towards commercially viable levels.

Thigmomorphogenesis (Touch response)
In 1990, Janet Braam and Ronald W. Davis determined that A. thaliana exhibits thigmomorphogenesis in response to wind, rain and touch. Four or more touch induced genes in A. thaliana were found to be regulated by such stimuli. In 2002, Massimo Pigliucci found that A. thaliana developed different patterns of branching in response to sustained exposure to wind, a display of phenotypic plasticity.

On the Moon
On January 2, 2019, China's Chang'e-4 lander brought A. thaliana to the moon. A small microcosm 'tin' in the lander contained A. thaliana, seeds of potatoes, and silkworm eggs. As plants would support the silkworms with oxygen, and the silkworms would in turn provide the plants with necessary carbon dioxide and nutrients through their waste, researchers will evaluate whether plants successfully perform photosynthesis, and grow and bloom in the lunar environment.

Secondary metabolites
is an Arabidopsis root triterpene. Potter et al., 2018 finds synthesis is induced by a combination of at least 2 facts, cell-specific transcription factors (TFs) and the accessibility of the chromatin.

Plant–pathogen interactions
Understanding how plants achieve resistance is important to protect the world's food production, and the agriculture industry. Many model systems have been developed to better understand interactions between plants and bacterial, fungal, oomycete, viral, and nematode pathogens. A. thaliana has been a powerful tool for the study of the subdiscipline of plant pathology, that is, the interaction between plants and disease-causing pathogens.

The use of A. thaliana has led to many breakthroughs in the advancement of knowledge of how plants manifest plant disease resistance. The reason most plants are resistant to most pathogens is through nonhost resistance - not all pathogens will infect all plants. An example where A. thaliana was used to determine the genes responsible for nonhost resistance is Blumeria graminis, the causal agent of powdery mildew of grasses. A. thaliana mutants were developed using the mutagen ethyl methanesulfonate and screened to identify mutants with increased infection by B. graminis. The mutants with higher infection rates are referred to as PEN mutants due to the ability of B. graminis to penetrate A. thaliana to begin the disease process. The PEN genes were later mapped to identify the genes responsible for nonhost resistance to B. graminis.

In general, when a plant is exposed to a pathogen, or nonpathogenic microbe, an initial response, known as PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI), occurs because the plant detects conserved motifs known as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). These PAMPs are detected by specialized receptors in the host known as pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) on the plant cell surface.

The best-characterized PRR in A. thaliana is FLS2 (Flagellin-Sensing2), which recognizes bacterial flagellin, a specialized organelle used by microorganisms for the purpose of motility, as well as the ligand flg22, which comprises the 22 amino acids recognized by FLS2. Discovery of FLS2 was facilitated by the identification of an A. thaliana ecotype, Ws-0, that was unable to detect flg22, leading to the identification of the gene encoding FLS2. FLS2 shows striking similarity to rice XA21, the first PRR isolated in 1995. Both flagellin and UV-C act similarly to increase homologous recombination in A. thaliana, as demonstrated by Molinier et al. 2006. Beyond this somatic effect, they found this to extend to subsequent generations of the plant.

A second PRR, EF-Tu receptor (EFR), identified in A. thaliana, recognizes the bacterial EF-Tu protein, the prokaryotic elongation factor used in protein synthesis, as well as the laboratory-used ligand elf18. Using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, a technique that takes advantage of the natural process by which Agrobacterium transfers genes into host plants, the EFR gene was transformed into Nicotiana benthamiana, tobacco plant that does not recognize EF-Tu, thereby permitting recognition of bacterial EF-Tu thereby confirming EFR as the receptor of EF-Tu.

Both FLS2 and EFR use similar signal transduction pathways to initiate PTI. A. thaliana has been instrumental in dissecting these pathways to better understand the regulation of immune responses, the most notable one being the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAP kinase) cascade. Downstream responses of PTI include callose deposition, the oxidative burst, and transcription of defense-related genes.

PTI is able to combat pathogens in a nonspecific manner. A stronger and more specific response in plants is that of effector-triggered immunity (ETI), which is dependent upon the recognition of pathogen effectors, proteins secreted by the pathogen that alter functions in the host, by plant resistance genes (R-genes), often described as a gene-for-gene relationship. This recognition may occur directly or indirectly via a guardee protein in a hypothesis known as the guard hypothesis. The first R-gene cloned in A. thaliana was RPS2 (resistance to Pseudomonas syringae 2), which is responsible for recognition of the effector avrRpt2. The bacterial effector avrRpt2 is delivered into A. thaliana via the Type III secretion system of P. syringae pv. tomato strain DC3000. Recognition of avrRpt2 by RPS2 occurs via the guardee protein RIN4, which is cleaved. Recognition of a pathogen effector leads to a dramatic immune response known as the hypersensitive response, in which the infected plant cells undergo cell death to prevent the spread of the pathogen.

Systemic acquired resistance (SAR) is another example of resistance that is better understood in plants because of research done in A. thaliana. Benzothiadiazol (BTH), a salicylic acid (SA) analog, has been used historically as an antifungal compound in crop plants. BTH, as well as SA, has been shown to induce SAR in plants. The initiation of the SAR pathway was first demonstrated in A. thaliana in which increased SA levels are recognized by nonexpresser of PR genes 1 (NPR1) due to redox change in the cytosol, resulting in the reduction of ''NPR1. NPR1'', which usually exists in a multiplex (oligomeric) state, becomes monomeric (a single unit) upon reduction. When NPR1 becomes monomeric, it translocates to the nucleus, where it interacts with many TGA transcription factors, and is able to induce pathogen-related genes such as PR1. Another example of SAR would be the research done with transgenic tobacco plants, which express bacterial salicylate hydroxylase, nahG gene, requires the accumulation of SA for its expression

Although not directly immunological, intracellular transport affects susceptibility by incorporating - or being tricked into incorporating - pathogen particles. For example, the Dynamin-related protein 2b/drp2b gene helps to move invaginated material into cells, with some mutants increasing PstDC3000 virulence even further.

Evolutionary aspect of plant-pathogen resistance
Plants are affected by multiple pathogens throughout their lifetimes. In response to the presence of pathogens, plants have evolved receptors on their cell surfaces to detect and respond to pathogens. Arabidopsis thaliana is a model organism used to determine specific defense mechanisms of plant-pathogen resistance. These plants have special receptors on their cell surfaces that allow for detection of pathogens and initiate mechanisms to inhibit pathogen growth. They contain two receptors, FLS2 (bacterial flagellin receptor) and EF-Tu (bacterial EF-Tu protein), which use signal transduction pathways to initiate the disease response pathway. The pathway leads to the recognition of the pathogen causing the infected cells to undergo cell death to stop the spread of the pathogen. Plants with FLS2 and EF-Tu receptors have shown to have increased fitness in the population. This has led to the belief that plant-pathogen resistance is an evolutionary mechanism that has built up over generations to respond to dynamic environments, such as increased predation and extreme temperatures.

A. thaliana has also been used to study SAR. This pathway uses benzothiadiazol, a chemical inducer, to induce transcription factors, mRNA, of SAR genes. This accumulation of transcription factors leads to inhibition of pathogen-related genes.

Plant-pathogen interactions are important for an understanding of how plants have evolved to combat different types of pathogens that may affect them. Variation in resistance of plants across populations is due to variation in environmental factors. Plants that have evolved resistance, whether it be the general variation or the SAR variation, have been able to live longer and hold off necrosis of their tissue (premature death of cells), which leads to better adaptation and fitness for populations that are in rapidly changing environments. In the future, comparisons of the pathosystems of wild populations + their coevolved pathogens with wild-wild hybrids of known parentage may reveal new mechanisms of balancing selection. In life history theory we may find that A. thaliana maintains certain alleles due to pleitropy between plant-pathogen effects and other traits, as in livestock.

Research in A. thaliana suggests that the immunity regulator protein family EDS1 in general co-evolved with the CC$HELO$ family of nucleotide-binding–leucine-rich-repeat-receptors (NLRs). Xiao et al. 2005 have shown that the powdery mildew immunity mediated by A. thaliana's RPW8 (which has a CC$HELO$ domain) is dependent on two members of this family: EDS1 itself and PAD4.

RESISTANCE TO PSEUDOMONAS SYRINGAE 5/RPS5 is a disease resistance protein which guards AvrPphB SUSCEPTIBLE 1/PBS1. PBS1, as the name would suggest, is the target of AvrPphB, an effector produced by Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola.

Other research
Ongoing research on A. thaliana is being performed on the International Space Station by the European Space Agency. The goals are to study the growth and reproduction of plants from seed to seed in microgravity.

Plant-on-a-chip devices in which A. thaliana tissues can be cultured in semi-in vitro conditions have been described. Use of these devices may aid understanding of pollen-tube guidance and the mechanism of sexual reproduction in A. thaliana.

Researchers at the University of Florida were able to grow the plant in lunar soil originating from the Sea of Tranquillity.

Self-pollination
A. thaliana is a predominantly self-pollinating plant with an outcrossing rate estimated at less than 0.3%. An analysis of the genome-wide pattern of linkage disequilibrium suggested that self-pollination evolved roughly a million years ago or more. Meioses that lead to self-pollination are unlikely to produce significant beneficial genetic variability. However, these meioses can provide the adaptive benefit of recombinational repair of DNA damages during formation of germ cells at each generation. Such a benefit may have been sufficient to allow the long-term persistence of meioses even when followed by self-fertilization. A physical mechanism for self-pollination in A. thaliana is through pre-anthesis autogamy, such that fertilisation takes place largely before flower opening.

Databases and other resources

 * TAIR and NASC: curated sources for diverse genetic and molecular biology information, links to gene expression databases etc.
 * Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (seed and DNA stocks)
 * Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre (seed and DNA stocks)
 * Artade database

title: Arabidopsis thaliana


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Long Island Rail Road

The Long Island Rail Road, often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a railroad in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County on Long Island. The railroad currently operates a public commuter rail service, with its freight operations contracted to the New York and Atlantic Railway. With an average weekday ridership of 354,800 passengers in 2016, it is the busiest commuter railroad in North America. It is also one of the world's few commuter systems that runs 24/7 year-round. It is publicly owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which refers to it as MTA Long Island Rail Road. In, the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of.

The LIRR logo combines the circular MTA logo with the text Long Island Rail Road, and appears on the sides of trains. The LIRR is one of two commuter rail systems owned by the MTA, the other being the Metro-North Railroad in the northern suburbs of the New York area. Established in 1834 (the first section between the Brooklyn waterfront and Jamaica opened on April 18, 1836) and having operated continuously since then, it is the oldest railroad in the United States still operating under its original name and charter.

There are 126 stations and more than 700 mi of track on its two lines running the full length of the island and eight major branches, with the passenger railroad system totaling 319 mi of route. , the LIRR's budget for expenditures was $1.6 billion plus $450 million for debt service, which it supports through the collection of fares (which cover 43% of total expenses) along with dedicated taxes and other MTA revenue.

History
The Long Island Rail Road Company was chartered in 1834 to provide a daily service between New York City and Boston via a ferry connection between its Greenport, New York, terminal on Long Island's North Fork and Stonington, Connecticut. This service was superseded in 1849 by the land route through Connecticut that became part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The LIRR refocused its attentions towards serving Long Island, in competition with other railroads on the island. In the 1870s, railroad president Conrad Poppenhusen and his successor, Austin Corbin acquired all the railroads and consolidated them into the LIRR.

The LIRR was unprofitable for much of its history. In 1900, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) bought a controlling interest as part of its plan for direct access to Manhattan which began on September 8, 1910. The wealthy PRR subsidized the LIRR during the first half of the new century, allowing expansion and modernization. Electric operation began in 1905.

After World War II, the railroad industry's downturn and dwindling profits caused the PRR to stop subsidizing the LIRR, and the LIRR went into receivership in 1949. The State of New York, realizing how important the railroad was to Long Island's future, began to subsidize the railroad in the 1950s and 1960s. In June 1965, the state finalized an agreement to buy the LIRR from the PRR for $65 million. The LIRR was placed under the control of a new Metropolitan Commuter Transit Authority. The MCTA was rebranded the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1968 when it incorporated several other New York City-area transit agencies. With MTA subsidies the LIRR modernized further, continuing to be the busiest commuter railroad in the United States.

The LIRR is one of the few railroads that has survived as an intact company from its original charter to the present.

Major stations
The LIRR operates out of four western terminals in New York City. These terminals are:
 * Pennsylvania Station, in Midtown Manhattan, is the busiest of the western terminals, serving almost 500 daily trains. It is reached via the Amtrak-owned East River Tunnels (the only LIRR-used trackage not owned by the LIRR) from the Main Line at Harold Interlocking in Long Island City. The New York City Subway's 34th Street–Penn Station (IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line) and 34th Street–Penn Station (IND Eighth Avenue Line)  stations are adjacent to the terminal. It also connects LIRR with Amtrak and NJ Transit trains.
 * Grand Central Madison is located under Grand Central Terminal and was built as part of the East Side Access project. Service to the new terminal began on January 25, 2023. Provision was made for this route on the lower level of the 63rd Street Tunnel under the East River, which carries the New York City Subway's IND 63rd Street Line on its upper level. The East Side Access project is expected to reduce congestion while increasing the number of trains during peak hours.  It serves as the primary terminal for the Hempstead Branch and serves all other electrified branches (as the LIRR's diesel fleet has a loading gauge too large for the 63rd Street Tunnel).
 * Atlantic Terminal, formerly known as Flatbush Avenue, in Downtown Brooklyn serves the West Hempstead Branch, with limited service on other branches during the weekday peak. Other trains run as shuttles to Jamaica. It is next to the New York City Subway's Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center station complex, providing easy access to Lower Manhattan. With the opening of East Side Access, service between Atlantic Terminal and Jamaica is served mostly by shuttles.
 * - certain rush-hour trains run to one of two stations in Long Island City, Queens: the Long Island City station on the East River, which is the oldest western terminal of the LIRR, or the station, which is 0.6 miles to the east. From Hunterspoint Avenue, the Hunters Point Avenue subway station  can be reached. The Long Island City station is near the Vernon Boulevard–Jackson Avenue subway station, also served by the, and the Long Island City station also connects to the NYC Ferry's East River Ferry to Midtown or Lower Manhattan.

In addition, the Jamaica station is a major hub station and transfer point in Jamaica, Queens. It has ten tracks and six platforms, plus yard and bypass tracks. Passengers can transfer between trains on all LIRR lines except the Port Washington Branch. The sixth platform opened in February 2020, and exclusively serves Atlantic Branch shuttle trains to Brooklyn. Transfer is also made to separate facilities for three subway services at the Sutphin Boulevard–Archer Avenue–JFK Airport station, a number of bus routes, and the AirTrain automated people mover to JFK Airport. The railroad's headquarters are next to the station.

Passenger lines and services

The Long Island Rail Road system has eleven passenger branches, three of which are main trunk lines:
 * Main Line, running along the middle of the island, between Long Island City and Greenport, via Jamaica.
 * Montauk Branch, running along the southern edge of the island, between Long Island City and Montauk, via Jamaica.
 * Atlantic Branch, running mostly in New York City to the south of both the Main Line and Montauk Branch, between Atlantic Terminal and Valley Stream, via Jamaica.

There are eight minor branches. For scheduling and advertising purposes some of these branches are divided into sections; this is the case with the Montauk Branch, which is known as the Babylon Branch service in the electrified portion of the line between Jamaica and Babylon, while the diesel service beyond Babylon to Montauk is referred to as Montauk Branch service. All branches except the Port Washington Branch pass through Jamaica; the trackage west of Jamaica (except the Port Washington Branch) is known as the City Terminal Zone. The City Terminal Zone includes portions of the Main Line, Atlantic, and Montauk Branches, as well as the Amtrak-owned East River Tunnels to Penn Station.

Current branches

 * The Main Line runs from Long Island City east to Greenport. It is electrified west of the Ronkonkoma station; limited diesel train service runs from this point to the Yaphank, Riverhead, or Greenport stations. Trains using the East River Tunnels from Penn Station join the line at Sunnyside Yard. The services that run along this line are named after the branches they use; trains beyond Hicksville, where the Port Jefferson Branch diverges, are known as Ronkonkoma Branch and Greenport Branch trains.
 * The Montauk Branch runs from Long Island City east to the Montauk station, with junctions with the Main Line at Long Island City and Jamaica. It is electrified from Jamaica east to Babylon. Trains operating east of Babylon are listed as Montauk Branch service and are hauled by diesel locomotives, while trains using the line from Jamaica to Babylon are labeled as Babylon Branch trains. The portion of the line between Long Island City and Jamaica, known as the Lower Montauk Branch, no longer carries passenger trains and is used only for freight service.
 * The electrified Atlantic Branch runs from Atlantic Terminal in Downtown Brooklyn east to Jamaica, where it meets the Main Line and the Montauk Branch, and then heads southeast to become the Long Beach Branch east of Valley Stream. East of Valley Stream, the Far Rockaway Branch turns south, while the West Hempstead Branch turns northward.
 * The electrified Port Washington Branch, the only one that does not serve Jamaica, branches from the Main Line west of Woodside (running parallel to the Main Line until Winfield Junction, which is east of that station) and runs east to Port Washington. It only serves four stations in Nassau County. It includes the Manhasset Viaduct, which is the highest bridge on the LIRR network.
 * The Port Jefferson Branch splits from the Main Line east of Hicksville, with electric service to Huntington. The section from Huntington to Port Jefferson is served only by diesel trains. Until 1938, it continued east to Wading River.
 * The electrified Hempstead Branch splits from the Main Line east of Elmont (running parallel to the Main Line until just after Floral Park) and runs east to Hempstead. At Garden City, the Garden City-Mitchel Field Secondary curves off and goes to Mitchel Field.
 * The electrified West Hempstead Branch splits from the Montauk Branch east of the Valley Stream station and runs northeast to West Hempstead, originally continuing to junctions with the Hempstead Branch and the Oyster Bay Branch at the Main Line.
 * The Oyster Bay Branch splits from the Main Line east of Mineola and heads north and east to Oyster Bay. The first section to East Williston is electrified; only diesel trains run along the majority of the line to Oyster Bay.
 * The diesel-only Central Branch runs southeast from the Main Line east of Bethpage to the Montauk Branch west of the Babylon station, giving an alternate route to the Montauk Branch east of Babylon. The Central Branch used to continue west from Bethpage to include what is now the Garden City–Mitchel Field Secondary. It was proposed to be electrified as part of the 2020–2024 MTA Capital Program.
 * The electrified Far Rockaway Branch splits from the Atlantic Branch east of the Valley Stream station and runs south and southwest to Far Rockaway. It used to connect westward to what is now the New York City Subway's IND Rockaway Line to the Hammels and Rockaway Park neighborhoods of Queens.
 * The electrified Long Beach Branch begins where the Atlantic Branch ends east of the Valley Stream station (running parallel to the Montauk Branch until just after Lynbrook) where it turns south to end at Long Beach.

Former branches
The railroad has dropped a number of branches due to lack of ridership over the years. Part of the Rockaway Beach Branch became part of the IND Rockaway Line of the New York City Subway, while others were downgraded to freight branches, and the rest abandoned entirely. Additionally, the Long Island Rail Road operated trains over portions of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (BRT) elevated and subway lines until 1917.
 * The Bethpage Branch ran north from the Main Line and Central Branch at Bethpage.
 * The Bushwick Branch, also called the Bushwick Lead Track, is a freight railroad branch that runs from Bushwick, Brooklyn, to Fresh Pond Junction in Queens, where it connects with the Montauk Branch.
 * The Camp Upton Branch was a short branch north from the Main Line to Camp Upton.
 * The Cedarhurst Cut-off, officially known as the New York and Rockaway Railroad, was an extension of the Montauk Branch from its merger with the Atlantic Branch at Springfield Junction to Cedarhurst, where it would turn west and run parallel to the Far Rockaway Branch until reaching Mott Avenue in Far Rockaway.
 * The Central Extension ran from Garden City eastward to Central Park (¾ mile south of current Bethpage station) and as far east as Bethpage Junction. The line was cut back to the point where it stopped at Island Trees. Today the western part of track still in use for freight and storage, and is officially known today as the Garden City Secondary.
 * The Chestnut Street Incline (Brooklyn) between Atlantic Avenue and Fulton Street was opened in 1898 to allow for thru-operation over the Jamaica/Broadway Elevated Line to the East River ferry terminal. In 1909 thru passenger service to Manhattan via the Williamsburg Bridge was established in coordination with the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT). LIRR Passenger service operated to Chambers Street between May 1909 and September 1917.
 * The Creedmoor Branch, a remnant of the Central Railroad of Long Island (CRRLI) of Alexander Turney Stewart, was a short branch from the Main Line at Floral Park northwest through Creedmoor. It once went as far northwest as Flushing.
 * The Evergreen Branch connected the Bushwick Branch east of Bushwick Terminal with the Bay Ridge Branch north of East New York.
 * The Flushing Bay Freight Spur extended north from the Whitestone Branch, then across the Woodside Branch and then the connecting line between both branches before terminating along the south coast of Flushing Bay.
 * The Glendale Cut-off ran south from the Main Line at Rego Park to the Montauk Branch at Glendale. There it became the Rockaway Beach Branch, running south across Jamaica Bay to Hammels and west to Rockaway Park. The Rockaway Beach Branch south of Ozone Park is now the IND Rockaway Line of the New York City Subway.
 * The Manhattan Beach Branch ran south from the Bay Ridge Branch at Flatbush to Manhattan Beach.
 * The Manorville Branch or Manor Branch ran from the Main Line at Manorville southeast to the Montauk Branch at Eastport. It was originally part of the Sag Harbor Branch (See below).
 * The Mineola-West Hempstead Branch ran north of the terminus of the West Hempstead Branch across NY 24 to Country Life Press Station where it briefly joined the Hempstead Branch then ran north of the Garden City Secondary towards a wye at Mineola Station with one branch that terminated at the station and another that crossed the main line and ended near the southern terminus of the Oyster Bay Branch.
 * The Montauk Cut-off was a short connecting track between the Lower Montauk Branch and the Main Line in Long Island City that allowed trains to change direction without entering the Long Island City station.
 * The Northport Branch ran northeast of the current Port Jefferson Branch between Greenlawn and Northport Village.
 * The North Shore Freight Branch ran from the Main Line at Sunnyside Yard west to the East River where Gantry Plaza State Park is now. Originally built by the Flushing and North Side Railroad, some of the surviving right-of-way can be found at the Arch Street Shops within the Sunnyside Yard.
 * The Roosevelt Field Spur branched off northward from the current Garden City Secondary just north of Commercial Avenue. From there, it crossed Stewart Avenue just west of present-day South Street before turning slightly northeast, crossing over the Meadowbrook Parkway. The overpass, as well as sections along the sidewalk on South Street, can still be seen today. From there, it continued north before curving east and coming to an end near Zeckendorf Boulevard. The line was used for freight only.
 * The Sag Harbor Branch ran north from the Montauk Branch at Bridgehampton to Sag Harbor.
 * The Wading River Branch ran east from Port Jefferson to Wading River, serving the towns of Mount Sinai, Miller Place, Rocky Point, and Shoreham.
 * The White Line, which was built by the LIRR subsidiary Newtown and Flushing Railroad ran south of the Port Washington Branch between Winfield Junction and Flushing between 1873 and 1876.
 * The Whitestone Branch, which was originally built by the Flushing and North Side Railroad (F&NS), split from the Port Washington Branch near Mets–Willets Point station and ran north and east to Whitestone.
 * The Woodside Branch ran north of the current Port Washington Branch between Woodside and east of the present Corona Yard west of the Flushing River. It also had a connecting spur to the Whitestone Branch.

Additional services
In addition to its daily commuter patronage, the LIRR also offers the following services:
 * The railroad operates extra trains during the summer season that cater to the Long Island beach trade. Special package ticket deals are offered to places like Long Beach, Jones Beach, the Hamptons, Montauk, and Greenport. Some of these packages require bus and ferry connections.
 * The railroad operates extra trains to and from Atlantic Terminal for Brooklyn Nets home games at Barclays Center.
 * From May through October, the railroad runs four daily trains to Belmont Park (two in each direction) during the racetrack's summer meets. Additionally, on the day of the Belmont Stakes horse race the railroad runs extra trains to accommodate the large number of spectators attending the event.
 * One special non-passenger service offered by the railroad was the yearly operation of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus train between Long Island City and Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale. Highly publicized by the LIRR, this event drew large crowds of spectators. With Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey's closure, this was discontinued in May 2017.

Intermodal connections
Penn Station offers connections with Amtrak intercity trains and NJ Transit commuter trains, as well as the PATH, New York City Subway, and New York City Bus systems. Grand Central offers connections with Metro-North Railroad, as well as the subway and bus systems. Additionally, almost all stations in Brooklyn and Queens offer connections with the New York City Bus system, and several stations also have transfers to New York City Subway stations. Transfers to Nassau Inter-County Express and Suffolk County Transit buses are available at many stations in Nassau and Suffolk counties, respectively.

Fare structure
Like Metro-North Railroad and NJ Transit, the Long Island Rail Road fare system is based on the distance a passenger travels, as opposed to the New York City Subway and the area's bus systems, which charge a flat rate. The railroad is broken up into eight non-consecutively numbered fare zones. Zone 1, the City Terminal Zone, includes Penn Station, Grand Central, all stations in Brooklyn, all stations in Queens west of Jamaica on the Main Line, and Mets–Willets Point.

Zone 3 includes Jamaica as well as all other stations in eastern Queens except Far Rockaway. Zones 4 and 7 include all stations in Nassau County, plus Far Rockaway and Belmont Park in Queens. Zones 9, 10, 12 and 14 include all stations in Suffolk County. Each zone contains many stations, and the same fare applies for travel between any station in the origin zone and any station in the destination zone.

Peak and off-peak fares
Peak fares are charged during the week on trains that arrive at western terminals between 6 AM and 10 AM, and for trains that depart from western terminals between 4 PM and 8 PM. Any passenger holding an off-peak ticket on a peak train is required to pay a step up fee. Passengers can buy tickets from ticket agents or ticket vending machines (TVMs) or on the train from conductors, but will incur an on-board penalty fee for doing so. This fee is waived for customers boarding at a station without a ticket office or ticket machine, senior citizens, people with disabilities or Medicare customers.

There are several types of tickets: one way, round trip, peak, off-peak, AM peak or off-peak senior/disabled, peak child, and off-peak child. On off-peak trains, passengers can buy a family ticket for children who are accompanied by an 18-year-old for $0.75 if bought from the station agent or TVM, $1.00 on the train. Senior citizen/disabled passengers traveling during the morning peak hours are required to pay the AM peak senior citizen/disabled rate. This rate is not charged during PM peak hours.

Commuters can also buy a peak or off-peak ten trip ride, a weekly unlimited or an unlimited monthly pass. Monthly passes are good on any train regardless of the time of day, within the fare zones specified on the pass.

The LIRR charged off-peak fares at all times during the COVID-19 pandemic. Peak fares were reinstated on March 1, 2022, and several new discounts and ticket options were introduced at the same time.

Special fares
During the summer the railroad offers special summer package ticket deals to places such as Long Beach, Jones Beach, the Hamptons, Montauk, and Greenport. Passengers traveling to the Hamptons and Montauk on the Cannonball can reserve a seat in the all-reserved Parlor Cars.

Prior to November 2021, passengers going to Belmont Park had to buy a special ticket to go from Jamaica to Belmont Park (or vice versa). Weekly and monthly passes were not accepted at Belmont Park. With the opening of Elmont station in November 2021, Belmont Park and Elmont were placed into fare zone 4.

CityTicket
In 2003, the LIRR and Metro-North started a pilot program in which passengers traveling within New York City were allowed to buy one-way tickets for $2.50. The special reduced-fare CityTicket, proposed by the New York City Transit Riders Council, was formally introduced in 2004. The discounted fares were initially only available for travel on Saturdays and Sundays. In March 2022, it was expanded to include all off-peak trains throughout the week for $5. The MTA announced plans in December 2022 to allow CityTickets to be used on peak trains as well; governor Kathy Hochul confirmed these plans the next month. The peak CityTickets, as announced in July 2023, would cost $7 each. As part of a one-year pilot program starting in July 2024, monthly tickets for LIRR trips entirely within New York City would also receive a 10% discount.

CityTicket is valid for travel within zones 1 and 3 on the Long Island Railroad. CityTickets can only be bought before boarding, except at Willets Point where they can be purchased on board, and they must be used on the day of purchase. CityTicket was originally not valid for travel to Far Rockaway because the station is in Zone 4 (despite being within the city limits) and the Far Rockaway Branch passes through Nassau County. In May 2023, MTA officials announced that they would expand CityTicket to Far Rockaway. CityTicket is also not valid for travel to the Elmont station or the special event only Belmont Park station, which are just barely east of the Queens-Nassau border and thus are within Zone 4.

Freedom Ticket
In late 2017, the MTA was slated to launch a pilot that will allow LIRR, bus and subway service to use one ticket. The proposal for the ticket, called the "Freedom Ticket," was initially put forth by the New York City Transit Riders Council (NYCTRC) in 2007. The NYCTRC wrote a proof of concept report in 2015. At the time of the report, express bus riders from Southeast Queens had some of the longest commutes in the city, with their commutes being 96 minutes long, yet they paid a premium fare of $6.50.

Riders who take the dollar van to the subway paid $4.75 to get to Manhattan in 65 minutes; riders who only took the bus and subway paid $2.75 to get to Manhattan in 86 minutes; and riders who took the LIRR paid $10 to get to Manhattan in 35 minutes. Unlike the CityTicket, the Freedom Ticket would be valid for off-peak and multidirectional travel; have free transfers to the subway and bus system; and be capped at $215 per month. At the time, monthly CityTickets cost $330 per month.

The Freedom Ticket will initially be available for sale at the Atlantic Terminal, Nostrand Avenue, and East New York stations in Brooklyn and at the Laurelton, Locust Manor, Rosedale, and St. Albans stations in Queens. Riders, under the pilot, would be able to purchase one-way, weekly, or monthly passes that will be valid on the LIRR, on buses, and the subway. The fare will be higher than the price of a ride on the MetroCard, but it will be lower than the combined price of an LIRR ticket and a MetroCard, and it will allow unlimited free transfers between the LIRR, buses, and subway.

The former head of the MTA, Thomas Prendergast, announced at the January 2017 board meeting that the plan would be explored in a field study to determine fares and the impact on existing service. The plan is intended to fill approximately 20,000 unused seats of existing trains to Atlantic Terminal and Penn Station (or about 50% to 60% of peak trains in each direction), while at the same time providing affordable service to people with long commutes. The details were to be announced in spring 2017, and the pilot would last six months.

The MTA Board voted to approve a six-month pilot for a similar concept, the Atlantic Ticket, in May 2018. The Atlantic Ticket is similar in that it would allow LIRR riders in southeast Queens to purchase a one-way ticket to or from Atlantic Terminal for $5. The Atlantic Ticket would start in June 2018. The success of the pilot program has led the MTA to extend the program up to the summer of 2020 and renewed calls for the program to be implemented within New York City, where the fare for the Freedom Ticket—if approved—would cost US$2.75 and include free transfers between the LIRR & Metro-North, bus, and subway.

OMNY
In 2017, it was announced that the MetroCard fare payment system, used on New York City-area rapid transit and bus systems, would be phased out and replaced by OMNY, a contactless fare payment system. Fare payment would be made using Apple Pay, Google Pay, debit/credit cards with near-field communication enabled, or radio-frequency identification cards. As part of the implementation of OMNY, the MTA also plans to use the system in the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad.

Combo Ticket
In December 2022, the MTA announced the launch of an additional fare for use on journeys that utilize both of its railroad systems via Grand Central. The fare is priced as $8 more than an adult off-peak ticket from an origin station on one system to Grand Central. It is valid on both peak and off-peak trains.

Accidents and incidents

 * On August 26, 1893, two trains collided in Maspeth, Queens, killing 16 people and injuring over 40.
 * On August 13, 1926, the Shelter Island Express derailed on a switch in Calverton, Long Island and crashed into Golden Pickle Works factory, claiming the lives of 6, and injuring 15.
 * On February 17, 1950, two trains collided head-on after an engineer on train 192 ignored an approach signal and the following red signals at Rockville Centre station, leaving 32 dead and more than 100 injured. At the time, it was the worst rail disaster in LIRR history.
 * On November 22, 1950, two trains collided after one of the trains passed a red signal in Kew Gardens, killing 78 and injuring 363 in the worst rail disaster in LIRR history.
 * On March 14, 1982, a train hit a van at a level crossing on Herricks Road in Mineola after the driver of the van went around the gate. Nine people were killed and one was injured.
 * On December 7, 1993, a mass shooting occurred onboard a train at Merillon Avenue station in Garden City Park, New York. Six people were killed and nineteen others were wounded.
 * On October 23, 2000, the lead locomotive (DM30AC #503) of a dual-mode commuter train caught fire west of Huntington station. The fire was blamed on a defective shoe beam that caused a 750-volt short circuit with the locomotive's third rail contact shoe.  The train was evacuated and nobody was injured, though locomotive #503 was irreparably damaged. This incident was the most severe out of several electrical fires involving the then-new DM30AC locomotives, which prompted a full-scale investigation into their reliability and safety.  The entire fleet—two locomotives at a time—would be sent to General Motors for repairs beginning in fall 2001.
 * On May 17, 2011, a commuter train in Deer Park obliterated a baked goods truck that attempted to drive around the crossing gate. The truck driver was killed and two train passengers were injured.
 * On October 8, 2016, a commuter LIRR train side-swiped a maintenance train east of New Hyde Park station. The commuter train cars suffered damage and 33 passengers were injured, four of them seriously injured.
 * On January 4, 2017, a Long Island Rail Road commuter train derailed at Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn. At least 103 people were injured.
 * On February 26, 2019, two separate Long Island Rail Road trains hit a pickup truck at the School Street railroad crossing in Westbury on the LIRR Main Line, causing the driver and two passengers to be ejected from the vehicle resulting in their deaths, numerous injuries, and damage to the nearby LIRR station platform.
 * On May 25, 2019, a commuter train sideswiped a non-revenue train at the siding east of Speonk station and derailed. The non-revenue train was 14 cars long, whereas the siding could only fit 13 cars. Nobody was injured, though it took two days to restore normal service, and the derailed train's front locomotive (DM30AC #511) was damaged beyond repair. The incident was blamed on a track circuit failure; an MTA worker, who resigned following the accident, was later charged and indicted for falsifying an inspection report of the would-be point of failure.
 * On August 3, 2023, a Long Island Rail Road commuter train derailed east of Jamaica station; 13 people were injured.

Train operations
The LIRR is relatively isolated from the rest of the national rail system despite operating out of Penn Station, the nation's busiest rail terminal. It connects with other railroads in just two locations:
 * West of Harold Interlocking in Sunnyside, Queens, LIRR trains enter the Amtrak-operated Northeast Corridor leading to the East River Tunnels. When this track was owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, trains of the PRR connected to the LIRR at Penn Station. During the 1920s and 1930s a through sleeper was carried by PRR and LIRR trains from Pittsburgh to Montauk, called the 'Sunrise Special'.
 * In Glendale, Queens, the LIRR connects with CSX's Fremont Secondary, which leads to the Hell Gate Bridge and New England; however, once trains leave the secondary, they enter LIRR trackage.

All LIRR trains have an engineer (driver in non-US English) who operates the train, and a conductor who is responsible for the safe movement of the train, fare collection and on-board customer service. In addition, trains may have one or more assistant conductors to assist with fare collection and other duties. The LIRR is one of the last railroads in the United States to use mechanical interlocking control towers to regulate rail traffic.

, the LIRR has 8 active control towers. All movements on the LIRR are under the control of the Movement Bureau in Jamaica, which gives orders to the towers that control a specific portion of the railroad. Movements in Amtrak territory are controlled by Penn Station Control Center or PSCC, run jointly by the LIRR and Amtrak. The PSCC controls as far east as Harold Interlocking, in Sunnyside, Queens. The PSCC replaced several towers.

The Jamaica Control Center, operational since the third quarter of 2010, controls the area around Jamaica terminal by direct control of interlockings. This replaced several towers in Jamaica including Jay and Hall towers at the west and east ends of Jamaica station respectively. At additional locations, line side towers control the various switches and signals in accordance with the timetable and under the direction of the Movement Bureau in Jamaica.

Signal and safety systems
Today's LIRR signal system has evolved from its legacy Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR)-based system, and the railroad utilizes a variety of wayside railroad signals including position light, color light and dwarf signals. In addition, much of the LIRR is equipped with a bi-directional Pulse code cab signaling called automatic speed control (ASC), though portions of the railway still retain single direction, wayside-only signaling. Unlike other railroads, which began using color-light signals in the 20th century, the LIRR did not begin using signals with color lights on its above ground sections until 2006.

Some portions of the railway lack automatic signals and cab signals completely, instead train and track car movements are governed only by timetable and verbal/written train orders, although these areas are gradually receiving modern signals. Many other signals and switching systems on the LIRR are being modernized and upgraded as part of the Main Line's Third Track Project, most notably at Mineola, where the system is being completely redone and modernized.

On portions of the railroad equipped with ASC, engineers consult the speed display unit, which is capable of displaying seven speed indications. As a result of a December 1, 2013, train derailment in the Bronx on the Metro-North Railroad, railroads with similar cab signal systems to Metro-North, such as the LIRR, were ordered to modify the systems to enforce certain speed limit changes, which has resulted in lower average speeds and actual speed limits across the LIRR.

Power transmission
The LIRR's electrified lines are powered via a third rail at 750 volts DC.

Electric fleet
The LIRR's electric fleet consists of 836 M7 and 170 M3 electric multiple unit cars in married pairs, meaning each car needs the other one to operate, with each car containing its own engineer's cab. The trainsets typically range from 6 to 12 cars long.

In September 2013, MTA announced that the LIRR would procure new M9 railcars from Kawasaki. A 2014 MTA forecast indicated that the LIRR would need 416 M9 railcars; 180 to replace the outdated M3 railcars and an additional 236 railcars for the additional passengers expected once the East Side Access project is complete. The first M9s entered revenue service on September 11, 2019.

Diesel and dual-mode fleets
The LIRR also uses 134 C3 bilevel coaches powered by 24 DE30AC diesel-electric locomotives and 20 DM30AC dual-mode locomotives. They are used mostly on non-electrified branches, including the Port Jefferson, Oyster Bay, Montauk, Central, and Greenport Branches. There are also 23 MP15AC locomotives in use as work trains and yard switchers.

Named trains
For most of its history LIRR has served commuters, but it had many named trains, some with all-first class seating, parlor cars, and full bar service. Few of them lasted past World War II, but some names were revived during the 1950s and 1960s as the railroad expanded its east end parlor car service with luxury coaches and Pullman cars from railroads that were discontinuing their passenger trains.

Current

 * Cannonball, a Friday-only 12-car train to Montauk running May through October, with two all-reserved parlor cars with full bar service. Since May 24, 2013, it has originated at Penn Station with a Sunday evening return from Montauk; only the westward train stops at Jamaica. The two rear cars ("Hamptons Reserve Service") have reserved seating and exclusive bar service. The name is a nod to the Cannon Ball, the all-year train to Montauk from the 1890s until the 1970s. It carried parlor cars and standard-fare coaches and ran weekday afternoons from Long Island City, then from Penn Station until 1951, when DD1 operation, and changing engines at Jamaica, ceased.

Former

 * Fisherman's Special (1932–1950s) from Long Island City to Canoe Place Station and Montauk via Jamaica, April through October, terminating at Canoe Place in April, extended to Montauk in May. Served Long Island fishing trade.
 * Peconic Bay Express / Shinnecock Bay Express (1926–1950) from Long Island City to Greenport and Montauk, Saturday only, express to Greenport and Montauk. Discontinued during World War II though revived for a few seasons afterwards.
 * Shelter Island Express (1901–1903, 1923–1942) from Long Island City to Greenport, Friday-only summer express that connected to Shelter Island ferries.
 * Sunrise Special (1922–1942) ran during the summer, NY Penn to Montauk on Fridays and westbound Mondays. In summer 1926 it ran daily. All parlor car (no coaches) from 1932 to 1937.

Freight service
The LIRR and other railroads that became part of the system have always had freight service, though this has diminished. The process of shedding freight service accelerated with the acquisition of the railroad by New York State. In the 21st century, there has been some appreciation of the need for better railroad freight service in New York City and on Long Island. Both areas are primarily served by trucking for freight haulage, an irony in a region with the most extensive rail transit service in the Americas, as well as the worst traffic conditions.

Proposals for a Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel for freight have existed for years to alleviate these issues, and, in recent years, there have been many new pushes for its construction by officials. Financial issues, as well as bureaucracy, remain major hurdles in constructing it. In May 1997, freight service was franchised on a 20-year term to the New York and Atlantic Railway (NYAR), a short line railroad owned by the Anacostia and Pacific Company.

It has its own equipment and crews, but uses the rail facilities of the LIRR. To the east, freight service operates to the end of the West Hempstead Branch, to Huntington on the Port Jefferson Branch, to Bridgehampton on the Montauk Branch, and to Riverhead on the Main Line. On the western end it provides service on the surviving freight-only tracks of the LIRR: the Bay Ridge and Bushwick branches; the "Lower Montauk" between Jamaica and Long Island City; and to an interchange connection at Fresh Pond Junction in Queens with the CSX, Canadian Pacific, and Providence and Worcester railroads.

Freight branches
Some non-electrified lines are used only for freight:

 * The Garden City-Mitchel Field Secondary is a short remnant of the Central Branch that splits from the Hempstead Branch at Garden City, running to Uniondale near Hofstra University and Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. This branch does not host any NYAR service. This branch was used by the Ringling Bros. Circus to transport animals, staff and equipment to the Nassau Coliseum until their final shows there in May 2017.
 * The Bushwick Branch runs west from the Montauk Branch at Maspeth to Bushwick Terminal. This was a passenger branch until 1924.
 * The Bay Ridge Branch runs south and west from the Montauk Branch at Fresh Pond to Bay Ridge. At Fresh Pond, it meets CSX's Fremont Secondary, which goes over the Hell Gate Bridge towards Upstate New York and New England. At its southern end it interchanges with the New York New Jersey Rail, LLC cross harbor rail barge service to New Jersey. This branch had a passenger service until 1924. The entire line was electrified with overhead wire in 1927, and the overhead wires were dismantled in 1969.

East Side Access
The East Side Access project built a LIRR spur to Grand Central Terminal that will run in part via the lower level of the existing 63rd Street Tunnel. The East Side Access project added  a new eight-track terminal called Grand Central Madison underneath the existing Grand Central Terminal. The project was first proposed in the 1968 Program for Action, but due to various funding shortfalls, construction did not start until 2007. , the project was expected to cost $11.1 billion and was tentatively scheduled to start service in December 2022. It opened on January 25, 2023, with limited shuttle service between Jamaica and Grand Central. Full service to Grand Central began on February 27, 2023.

Several "readiness projects" were also completed to increase peak-hour capacity across the LIRR system in preparation for expanded peak-hour service after the completion of East Side Access. The LIRR constructed a new platform for Atlantic Terminal-bound trains at Jamaica station, converting most Atlantic Branch service between these two stations into a high-frequency shuttle. The LIRR also installed a new storage track east of Massapequa and extended one east of Great Neck station, in addition to expanding the train yard at Ronkonkoma. An expansion of the yard at Port Washington was also proposed, but, the MTA has not come to an agreement with the Town of North Hempstead, resulting in the project being postponed indefinitely.

There are also plans to build a new station in the Queens neighborhood of Sunnyside, in between the New York terminals and the Woodside station, serving as a rail hub for all LIRR branches and potentially some Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains, as well. The Sunnyside station is to be built after the completion of East Side Access, due to current capacity constraints.

Main Line projects
In 2012, the LIRR started adding a second track along the formerly single-tracked section of the Main Line between Farmingdale and Ronkonkoma stations to increase track capacity and allow for enhanced service options. The project was completed in September 2018.

As part of the preparations for East Side Access's opening, the LIRR also widened the two-track sections of the Main Line between Floral Park and Hicksville stations to three tracks, in addition to eliminating each of the grade crossings and rebuilding all of the stations along this stretch of the Main Line. Work on the third-track project started in September 2018. The project was completed in 2022, in time for the opening of East Side Access.

The larger Belmont Park Redevelopment Project called for a new Elmont station between the Queens Village and Bellerose stations on the Main Line, to better serve the new UBS Arena in the Nassau County neighborhood of Elmont. It is the first new station built by the LIRR in nearly 50 years; the last new station added was the former Southampton College station on the Montauk Branch, which opened in 1976 and closed in 1998, due to low ridership and the high cost of installing high-level platforms for the then-new C3 railcars. The eastbound platform of the Elmont station officially opened in November 2021, while the westbound platform opened in October 2022.

Electrification projects

As part of the 2020–2024 MTA Capital Program, the Central Branch of the LIRR will be electrified, to allow for enhanced service options and capacity, and to mitigate service disruptions, should one arise.

There have also been many pushes by residents and politicians over the past several decades – most recently by New York Senator Jim Gaughran – to electrify the remainder of the Port Jefferson Branch between the Huntington and Port Jefferson stations, in addition to the remainder of the Oyster Bay Branch between the East Williston and Oyster Bay stations to enhance service in the served areas and to upgrade service capacities along the lines; electrifying these lines could lead to more frequent direct service to and from Manhattan, as diesel trains are not allowed in Penn Station and dual-mode trains exceed the clearance for the 63rd Street Tunnel into Grand Central Madison.

Law enforcement
The Long Island Rail Road Police Department, founded in 1868, was absorbed along with the Metro-North Railroad Police Department to form the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department (MTA Police) in 1998.

Passenger issues
The LIRR has a long history of tense relations with its passengers. Daily commuters have long had complaints about the LIRR's service. According to a 1999 article in The New York Times, the LIRR's service woes were long considered part of the "unholy trinity of life on Long Island," along with the Long Island Lighting Company's high rates and the Long Island Expressway's traffic snarls. Various commuter advocacy groups have been formed to try to represent those interests, in addition to the state mandated LIRR Commuters Council.

The LIRR has been criticized for not providing additional service to the East End of Long Island as the twin forks continue to grow in popularity as a year-round tourist and residential destination. Demand is evidenced by flourishing for-profit bus services such as the Hampton Jitney and the Hampton Luxury Liner and the early formative stages of a new East End Transportation Authority. Local politicians have joined the public outcry for the LIRR to either improve the frequency of east end services, or turn the operation over to a local transportation authority.

Critics claim that the on-time performance (OTP) calculated by the LIRR is manipulated to be artificially high. Because the LIRR does not release any raw timing data nor does it have independent (non-MTA) audits it is impossible to verify this claim, or the accuracy of the current On Time Performance measurement. The percentage measure is used by many other US passenger railroads but the criticism over accuracy is specific to the LIRR. As defined by the LIRR, a train is "on time" if it arrives at a station within 5 minutes and 59 seconds of the scheduled time. The criterion was 4 minutes and 59 seconds until the LIRR changed it because of a bug in their computer systems.

Critics believe the OTP measure does not reflect what commuters experience on a daily basis. The LIRR publishes the current OTP in a monthly booklet called TrainTalk. TrainTalk was previously known as "Keeping Track." A more accurate way to measure delays and OTP has been proposed. Called the "Passenger Hours Delayed" index it can measure total person-hours of a specific delay. This would be useful in comparing performance of specific days or incidents, day-to-day (or week-to-week) periods, but has not been adopted.

Ridership has increased from 81 million passengers in 2011 to 89.3 million passengers in 2016, which is the railroad's highest ridership since 1949. The all-time highest ridership was in 1929, when 119 million passengers rode 1.89 billion passenger miles. This increase in ridership has been attributed to the increased usage of the LIRR by millennials, and the increase of reverse-peak travel.

Pension and disability fraud scandal
A New York Times investigation in 2008 showed that 25% of LIRR employees who had retired since 2000 filed for disability payments from the federal Railroad Retirement Board and 97% of them were approved to receive disability pension. The total collected was more than $250,000,000 over eight years. As a result, Railroad Retirement agents from Chicago inspected the Long Island office of the Railroad Retirement Board on September 23, 2008. New York Governor David Paterson issued a statement calling for Congress to conduct a full review of the board's mission and daily activities. Officials at the board's headquarters responded to the investigation stating that all occupational disability annuities were issued in accordance with applicable laws.

On November 17, 2008, a former LIRR pension manager was arrested and charged with official misconduct for performing outside work without permission. However, these charges were all dismissed for "no merit" by Supreme Court Judge Kase on December 11, 2009, on the grounds that the prosecution had misled the grand jury in the indictment.

A report produced in September 2009 by the Government Accountability Office stated that the rate at which retirees were rewarded disability claims was above the norm for the industry in general and indicated "troubling" practices that may indicate fraud, such as the use of a very small group of physicians in making diagnoses.

Another series of arrests on October 27, 2011, included two doctors and a former union official.

According to court documents, from 1998 through 2011, 79% of LIRR retirees obtained federal disability when they retired. On August 6, 2013, a doctor and two consultants were found guilty in connection with the accusations and sentenced to prison.

Overtime fraud scandals
In 2018, LIRR foreman Raymond Murphy was discovered at or near his home on 10 separate occasions whilst claiming overtime pay. Murphy earned $405,021 in 2017, of which $295,490 was overtime. According to reports, he was allowed to retire with a full public pension before being reprimanded or punished.

In 2021, LIRR employee and track inspector Thomas Caputo and co-conspirators John Nugent and Joseph Balestra were federally convicted for large-scale overtime fraud. Caputo was paid approximately $461,000 in 2018, of which $344,000 was supposed overtime. He claimed to have worked 3,864 overtime hours, an average of more than 10 hours of overtime for all 365 days the year. Phone, bank, email, and other records revealed many of these hours were fraudulent: Caputo was clocked in during vacation and while attending outside social events such as a bowling league.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Long Island Rail Road


text:
Talk:Brooklyn

MOS:BOLDTITLE
I have reverted the un-bolding of "Kings County" in the title, again. Per MOS:BOLDTITLE: If an article's title is a formal or widely accepted name for the subject, display it in bold. The county name does indeed need to be moved to the first sentence, but "Kings County" is a formal name and so should not be unbolded. Same for the other boroughs. epicgenius (talk) 14:55, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Russian and Ukrainian American
Ukrainians are not russians (muscovites), both are totally different nations, besides jews from eastern Europe is the third nation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.140.159.110 (talk) 18:34, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

 * I was under the impression that whoever made that chart was trying to group people who have similar culture and or languages. The chart never said that Ukrainians were Russians. It says "Russian and Eastern European". I would assume that Ukrainians would fall under the "Eastern European" label rather than the Russian label. Regarding, Jewish people of any origin, I'm not sure how they would be factored into this ethnic chart. 50.202.217.173 (talk) 16:33, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

The mystery of Brooklyn's pageviews
I'm wondering if anybody can think of an explanation for the strange behavior of the pageviews of Brooklyn. In January Brooklyn was the 35th most viewed page on the English Wikipedia. Starting about September the pageviews went from a few thousand each day to a high over 100,000 then fell to about 20,000 for about a month, and then back up to about 50,000 per day since Christmas. You can play with the chart |Staten_Island|Queens|New_York_City|The_Bronx here.

. That exhausts the set of folks I know of who might have some expertise in this area. Smallbones( smalltalk ) 22:17, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

 * I suspect it's bot-inflated traffic. While desktop and mobile web show the same pattern, mobile app shows more normal fluctuations. I can only assume mobile app would mirror this the patterns of other platform types if it were genuine traffic. I live just across the river from Brooklyn and I personally can't come up with any explanation for this anomaly. — MusikAnimal  talk  23:41, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

 * Thanks . My question is why would anybody set up a bot to do this? If not "on purpose", doesn't it cost them some money to load the page 60,000 times a day for months at a time?  I guess my question comes down to what is "bot-inflated traffic" and why do people do it, and if not on purpose, why don't they catch it.  Thanks. Smallbones( smalltalk ) 01:14, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

 * Who knows :) Bot-inflated traffic is actually common. Sometimes the reasoning is clear, such as T236121 where automation was used to put articles on obscure artists into the "trending" section of the mobile app, apparently as a means of promotion. I don't know why one would do this for Brooklyn. At any rate, the Analytics team is working to improve bot filtering, see T123442. Until then, we'll just have to use tactics like comparing the platforms to identify false traffic. Hope this helps, — MusikAnimal  talk  05:13, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

 * Agree with MusikAnimal; no blip in Google Trends at the same time. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:41, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Introduction, 2nd Paragraph - Data table and reference link both provide Brooklyn as the largest, not second-largest borough.
Changed as such to:
 * With a land area of 70.82 square miles (183.4 km2) and water area of 26 square miles (67 km2), Kings County is New York state's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area, though it is the largest among the city's five boroughs.[4]

Was odd to see this with the 2018 table right below it showing Brooklyn with the highest population. Note that the source [4] points to 2010 census data which, friendly to read as it is, also confirms Brooklyn as largest above Queens, Manhattan et al. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.38.5.33 (talk) 09:38, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

"Hiphopabad" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Hiphopabad. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 15 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. TheAwesome Hwyh  18:29, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Why are there two "coord" templates?
Greetings and felicitations. Why are there two "Coord" templates—one near the top of the article and one in the infobox? Would anyone object to having just one in the infobox with it displaying both inline and in the title? —DocWatson42 (talk) 09:04, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

 * Hadn't noticed it, no objections from me. The first coordinate goes to Brooklyn Borough Hall. The second one, in the infobox, is centered to a random house? You might want to adjust the coordinate. --HugoHelp (talk) 04:59, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

 * , I also don't object. I did notice that the infobox coordinates pointed closer to the middle of the borough, but like HugoHelp said, the title coords are Borough Hall. I don't have a real preference either way. Epicgenius (talk) 14:40, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

 * Thank you. I didn't have the patience to play with the coordinates until they were the geographic center of the borough, so I used the title coordinates. —DocWatson42 (talk) 18:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Missing TOC entries for 10 [sub-] sub-sections
This comment is based upon the "Latest revision as of 15:43, 2 April 2021" version of this article.

At first glance, the "Brooklyn" section of [the above mentioned version or "revision" of] this article seemed [to me] to have 11 sub-sections (but with only the first one of them being mentioned [listed] in the TOC ['Table of Contents'] of the article, and not the next ten of them).

 * (But that was just my initial impression ["!"]; when I had been looking at the displayed version of the text in that section, but probably not paying close enough attention to the exact "font-size" differences, between the title of the first sub-section ["Brooklyn"] and the titles of the next 10 ... um, entities^H^H^H pieces of content that have titles and appear somewhere "under" or as "part of" that section.)

Upon further inspection, however (and this time, looking at the wikitext, not just the displayed version of the text), it now appears that only the first one -- "Brooklyn" -- is actually a sub-section (with triple equal signs ["==="] surrounding its title). The next ten are -- apparently -- actually sub-sub-sections, (with quadruple equal signs ["===="] surrounding their titles).

Even after figuring out that part, I was still puzzled by ... what the reason was (if it was intentional) for displaying (in the TOC) the name of the first sub-section ["Brooklyn"] but not the names of the ten sub-sub-sections "within" [or "under"] that.

 * (Is that something that is just a rule of Wikipedia -- or even of Wikimedia?) -- that everyone else already knows about?) (Except maybe for some [like me] who are clueless in that regard) -- ? --

Maybe it's OK. Personally I would have been fine if all 11 of the subdivisions there, had been [coded as] sub-sections, and did appear in the TOC. Maybe either (a) someone decided that it would be better if the ten sub-sub-sections that come after that [or, more like, that are part of that] did NOT appear in the TOC; or else maybe (b) someone made those next ten entities [pieces of content that have titles] into sub-sub-sections without realizing that it would cause those ten titles to be excluded from the TOC of the article.

If it's (a) then I guess it was intentional, and the reason for making that decision that way, was probably a solid one. But if it's (b) then ... well, someone might want to "consider" doing something about it.

Just a comment. Thanks for listening. --Mike Schwartz (talk) 04:58, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

 * I'm pretty sure this just has to do with making the Table of Contents a bit more concise. If you put "TOC limit=3" (double curly bracketed) or in this case just "TOC limit" it will limit to showing the sections and subsections. I think that's a good idea to keep it from looking too cluttered, so I myself added it to a different article. However I do agree that having Community diversity as the subsection with the ethnicities as subsubsections under it doesn't make 100% logical sense. But if we made them regular subsections then the Table of Contents would get way too long. So I think it's fine this way. BTW: I have never edited this article so there might be something I'm missing, take what I'm saying with a grain of salt because it's just based on my prior knowledge. The Spirit of Oohoowahoo (talk) 14:11, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

"2nd borough" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect 2nd borough. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 27 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. feminist (+) 13:26, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

"Second borough" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Second borough. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 27 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. feminist (+) 13:26, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

"Kings, New York" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Kings, New York. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 28 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. feminist (+) 02:32, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): R.Blecher.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:19, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 September 2020 and 12 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zes26. Peer reviewers: Isabellala727.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:21, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Lack of map showing neighborhoods of Brooklyn
It is utterly ridiculous that this article lacks a map that shows all the neighborhoods of Brooklyn. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 03:34, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Need to edit the population claim?
I think Chicago might be bigger than Brooklyn. Mapnmuzikman (talk) 02:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

 * Yeah, contrary to the claim made in the footnote, Brooklyn's population has gone down since the 2020 census. Could not find census data but other public data put the 2022 population of Brooklyn at 2.59 million which would be less than Chicago. 96.89.41.137 (talk) 22:58, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Brooklyn