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Nearly every major type of transportation servesLong Island, including three major airports, railroads and subways, and several major highways. TheNew York City Subway only serves theNew York City boroughs ofBrooklyn andQueens. There are historic and modern bridges,recreational and commuter trails, and ferries, that connect the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn to Manhattan, the south shore withFire Island and Long Island's north shore and east end with the state ofConnecticut.
Long Island is the location of three large airports with regularly scheduled commercial jet airline service. These are theJohn F. Kennedy International Airport andLaGuardia Airport, both in Queens County (inNew York City), and theLong Island MacArthur Airport, (sometimes referred to as the "Islip Airport"), a smaller airport inSuffolk County. MacArthur is the only airport in Nassau or Suffolk counties with regularly scheduled commercial flights, handling about 2 million passengers a year. There are also general aviation airports on Long Island, such asBrookhaven Airport,East Hampton Airport,Francis S. Gabreski Airport,Montauk Airport, andRepublic Airport as well as the grass strip equippedBayport Aerodrome.
Travelers heading to or from Kennedy Airport may useAirTrain to connect with theLong Island Rail Road inJamaica or theNew York City Subway inJamaica orHoward Beach.
TheLong Island Expressway,Northern State Parkway, andSouthern State Parkway, all products of the automobile-centered planning of Robert Moses, make east–west travel on the island straightforward, if not always quick. Indeed, locals refer to Long Island Expressway as "The World's Longest Parking Lot".
| Major roads of Long Island | |
| West–East Roads
| North–South Roads
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| Roads inboldface are limited access roads. • *Sunrise Highway is only limited-access from western Suffolk county eastwards. | |
Until the completion of theBrooklyn Bridge in 1883, all travel to Long Island was by boat. The first trains to connect Long Island to Manhattan were elevated rail lines that travelled over that same bridge. The 7 train was the first and is the most notable of these elevated subway lines. There are currently ten road crossings out of Long Island: theVerrazzano-Narrows Bridge toStaten Island; theBrooklyn Battery Tunnel,Brooklyn Bridge,Manhattan Bridge,Williamsburg Bridge,Queens Midtown Tunnel, andQueensboro Bridge toManhattan; theTriborough Bridge to eitherManhattan orthe Bronx viaWards Island; and theWhitestone Bridge andThrogs Neck Bridge tothe Bronx.
All ten crossings are withinNew York City limits at the extreme western end of the island, making trips from Long Island toNew England especially circuitous. Plans for aLong Island Sound crossing at various locations in Nassau and Suffolk Counties have been discussed for decades, but there are currently no firm plans to construct such a crossing.
In addition to the vehicular tunnels, there are eleven subway and railroad tunnels inBrooklyn andQueens crossing theEast River. The most notable of these are theNortheast Corridor'sEast River Tunnels used byAmtrak and theLong Island Rail Road to connect toPennsylvania Station inManhattan. In addition, the proposedCross-Harbor Rail Tunnel would greatly expand Long Island's access to the national freight rail system.
TheNassau Inter-County Express providesbus transportation throughout Nassau County and the western portions of Suffolk County. This service was until the end of 2011 provided by theMTA as MTA Long Island Bus.Long Beach Bus also provides service in Long Beach, Nassau County.Suffolk County Transit providesbus transportation throughout Suffolk County, except within theTown of Huntington, which is served byHuntington Area Rapid Transit.
All bus stops are in effect at all times unless otherwise indicated by signage.[clarification needed]
| Sign color | Type of service |
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| Blue |
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| Orange |
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| White |
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The Long Island Rail Road is the second busiest commuter railroad system in North America, carrying in 2012 an average of 282,400 customers each weekday on 728 daily trains.[1] It was once the largest commuter rail in the U.S. but following three successive years of declines was replaced at the close of 2012 by the Metro-North railroad that services areas north of New York City.[2] Chartered on April 24, 1834, it is also the oldest railroad still operating under its original name.[3] By the close of 2014, the LIRR commutation statistics had recovered to an average weekday ridership of 298,448 and an annual ridership of 85,868,246 achieved by December 31, 2014.[4]
It is a publicly owned system, operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, under the name MTA Long Island Rail Road.
Ferries provide service between Long Island and Connecticut, notably theBridgeport & Port Jefferson Ferry betweenPort Jefferson, New York andBridgeport, Connecticut, and theCross Sound Ferry betweenOrient Point,New York andNew London, Connecticut. Some of the ferries that cross Long Island Sound carry automobiles, trucks and buses, as well as passengers.
There are also the two ferries which serveShelter Island (seeNew York State Route 114), a summer-only ferry betweenBlock Island andMontauk, and a number of ferries servingFire Island.
In February 2015, MayorBill de Blasio announced that the city government would beginNYC Ferry to extend ferry transportation to traditionally underserved communities in the city.[5][6] The ferry opened in May 2017,[7][8] with the Queens neighborhoods ofRockaway andAstoria served by their eponymous routes. A third route, theEast River Ferry, serves various points in western Brooklyn as well asHunter's Point South, Queens.[9] A fourth route, the South Brooklyn route, servesSouth Brooklyn,Sunset Park, andBay Ridge in Brooklyn.[10] (For a more detailed list of ferries that connect the west end of Long Island, in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, to Manhattan see theList of ferries across the East River.)
Additionally, there are several water taxi services.
