Eastbound from Long Island City

The City Terminal Zone is the name given to a collection of rail lines of the Long Island Rail Road in New York City. Specifically, it refers to all stations that lie in fare zone 1 (except for Mets – Willets Point on the Port Washington Branch), which is the set of stations west of Jamaica.

City Terminal Zone
NEC (NJ Transit, Amtrak) Penn Station East River Tunnels Long Island City Hunterspoint Avenue Atlantic Terminal NEC (Amtrak) Woodside Nostrand Ave Port Washington Branch East New York Forest Hills Kew Gardens Jamaica Atlantic Branch Main Line Montauk Branch All other LIRR branches diverge from these 3 main routes.

There are three routes that are considered part of the City Terminal Zone:

• Trains to Penn Station (NYP) in Manhattan via the Main Line and East River Tunnels. By far the busiest route.
• Trains that run via the Atlantic Branch to Atlantic Terminal (AT) in Brooklyn.
• Trains the run via the Main Line to Hunterspoint Avenue and Long Island City (LIC) in Queens. This route is served only during weekday rush hours in the peak direction (to Long Island City in the morning, from Long Island City in the afternoon).

By 2019, the City Terminal Zone will include a branch to Grand Central Terminal as a part of the East Side Access project. A new station in Sunnyside, Queens will be built once the remainder of the project is complete.