The Hampton Hopper’s “last mile” shuttle service, which takes commuters from the Long Island Rail Road stations in East Hampton Village and Amagansett to their places of work in the morning and back again in the afternoon, has quietly become a success.
In a presentation to the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday, Derek Kleinow, the Hampton Hopper’s president, and Rob Dunn, its operations director, said that last-mile use of the Hopper, which also operates an app-based transportation service throughout East Hampton and Southampton Towns, has seen a 688-percent increase in ridership since the L.I.R.R. launched the South Fork Commuter Connection in 2019. That service is aimed at alleviating traffic in the weekday “trade parade” by offering trains between Speonk and Montauk.
The last-mile service lost momentum one year after its launch, when the Covid-19 pandemic shut it down from March 2020 to September 2021. In the 20 months since operation resumed, ridership has steadily ticked upward. In November 2021, it had increased on the East Hampton Village route to the point that the service had to use a larger bus, accommodating 32 passengers instead of 25. By last September, a second bus was required. That was “a great benefit,” Mr. Kleinow said, “because we can basically have two routes. It has shortened the ride for lots of passengers” and allowed for additional stops.
Between September 2019 and September 2021, the number of rides grew from 294 to 1,757, or from 14.7 per day to 83.7 per day. In March of this year, there were 2,318 rides, or 100.8 per day. “The program has grown really nicely,” Mr. Kleinow said. “It’s nice to see that there’s a continuing trend of growth.” The program, use of which has also increased over the last three months in Southampton, might still be in its infancy, he said.
Buses meet the arriving 6:47 and 8:54 a.m. trains at the East Hampton L.I.R.R. station, and return there in time for the departing 3:14 and 5:16 p.m. trains. A bus meets the arriving 6:52 and 8:59 a.m. trains in Amagansett, traveling east as far as Gosman’s Dock and Star Island Drive in Montauk. It returns to the Amagansett station in time for the departing 3:09 and 5:11 p.m. trains. The fare is just $3.25 each way, and includes both the L.I.R.R. and the Hampton Hopper’s shuttle service.
Passengers are secure in the knowledge that they will not be stranded, Mr. Kleinow said. Should a train break down, passengers will be taken by Hopper to their station of origin, be it Hampton Bays, Westhampton, or Speonk.
Mr. Dunn assigns a driver for each bus. It’s important that passengers and drivers know one another, he said, so that the latter know where the former get on and off the bus and will wait an extra minute if they are not there when the Hopper arrives. “Everybody works as a team,” he said. “That’s what makes it work.”
