The LIRR believed moving the Deer Park station to Pineaire and eliminating the Wyandanch and Pinelawn stations would allow the faster electric trains to significantly reduce commuting times to Penn Station. The closing of the Wyandanch station would have meant that all LIRR trains would have sped through Wyandanch at speeds of up to 90 mph. This angered and united disparate groups in Wyandanch, prompting civic groups to mobilize residents to protest any termination of railroad service in Wyandanch. Working on a bipartisan basis, Senator Owen Johnson (R-West Babylon) and Assemblyman Patrick Halpin (D-Lindenhurst) convinced the MTA to maintain rail service in Wyandanch as well as Pinelawn. The LIRR agreed to add a fence along the tracks to prevent residents from crossing the tracks and touching the third rail, and built two steel crossover bridges at South 27th Street and at Deer Street, just east of the new station.