Permitted the initial suburban development that centered around the towns served by the trains. Then, in the post-WWII era this initial development boomed as more auto-oriented suburban development spread throughout.
The growth of the suburbs was a mixed-blessing for the City in that it both enabled the region overall to grow but also “drained” the City of much of its middle class in the mid and late-20th Century.
More benignly now, as the region has matured, the LIRR (despite it’s occasional service woes) is representative of this region’s extensive mass transit system. Over the long run, the existence of such a complex system will serve the region well.
We often lose sight of this fact. But consider the enormous struggle and cost cities like Los Angeles are now dealing with re-introduce an integrated suburban rail, urban subway and bus mass transit systems. Doing so helps one to realize what an enormous advantage NYC already has due to the foresight of people 100 years ago.
