The three-day Long Island Rail Road strike last month did more than disrupt commutes. It highlighted just how interconnected New York City and Long Island truly are.
For 72 hours, the effects rippled across the entire metropolitan region. Workers struggled to get to their jobs. Businesses lost customers and productivity. Restaurants saw cancellations. Meetings were missed. Supply chains slowed. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli estimated that the work stoppage cost as much as $61 million per day in lost economic activity.
The losses weren’t confined to any one county or borough. They were shared by all of us, because our regional economy functions as one interconnected system.
As president and CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, representing thousands of businesses across Queens, I heard from employers immediately concerned about staffing shortages, delayed deliveries and declining foot traffic. The reason was simple: The workforce connection between Long Island and New York City is enormous.
According to Census data, around 240,000 Long Island residents commute into New York City for work, while roughly 310,000 New York City residents work in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Queens alone sends around 95,000 workers into Nassau County and another 28,000 into Suffolk County every day. Queens residents are among the largest workforce pipelines for Long Island employers, particularly in health care, construction, retail, transportation and professional services.
When that flow stops, even briefly, the economic consequences are immediate.
That reality should also serve as a reminder in a broader political conversation that has become increasingly misguided recently. Too often, some elected officials and commentators have tried to frame Long Island and New York City as competitors, as though economic success on one side of the city line somehow comes at the expense of the other side.
It doesn’t.
We saw this dynamic emerge during the pandemic, when some suburban leaders openly encouraged businesses to leave New York City and relocate to Long Island. More recently, some politicians have continued to take rhetorical swipes at the city’s struggles as a way to score political points.
But the LIRR strike demonstrated exactly why that mindset misses the bigger picture.
Long Island’s economy is deeply dependent on New York City’s economic strength, just as the city depends on Long Island. Roughly 150,000 Suffolk County residents work in New York City’s five boroughs, with many commuting into Manhattan and Queens every day. Nassau County’s economic ties are even deeper. Meanwhile, businesses throughout the city rely heavily on Long Island residents as customers, employees and business partners.
Queens and suburban Long Island, in particular, share extraordinarily close economic ties. Queens is home to Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, major health care institutions, construction projects and entertainment destinations that employ thousands of Long Islanders. Long Islanders help staff schools, hospitals, financial firms and transportation systems throughout the city. At the same time, Queens residents support Long Island’s retail centers, restaurants, beaches and small businesses. The relationship is reciprocal by necessity.
That’s why the true competition facing our region isn’t between Queens and Nassau or between Manhattan and Suffolk. The real competition is coming from states aggressively attracting residents and employers away from New York altogether. Florida. Texas. The Carolinas.
When families leave the metropolitan area because housing costs become unsustainable, Long Island and New York City both lose. When businesses relocate operations out of state, the economic pain is shared throughout the downstate region.
Instead of trying to outcompete one another for headlines or short-term political advantage, regional leaders should be working together to address the challenges we all face: affordability, transportation reliability, housing shortages, public safety and economic competitiveness.
The LIRR strike also reinforced another important truth: Infrastructure matters. Reliable transportation is the backbone of the downstate economy. Millions of people depend on the seamless movement of workers and consumers throughout the region every day. When that system breaks down, even temporarily, it reminds us how fragile — and how interconnected — our economy really is.
In the future Long, Island and New York City will succeed or fail, rise or fall, together. That isn’t political rhetoric. It is an economic reality.
Tom Grech is president and CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce and acting chair of the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency and Local Development Corporation.
