By Karenlyn Barone
After the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Transport Workers Union failed to agree on a contract, the TWU's executive board voted to call a strike. Lynbrook and East Rockaway commuters immediately began making plans to get to work without city subways and buses. Some took earlier Long Island Rail Road trains, which are not affected by the strike, leaving extra time for uncertain travel conditions. Most were resigned to wearing comfortable shoes for the inevitable walk from Penn Station to their offices.
Some residents returning home from Manhattan on Tuesday night had seasonal rosy cheeks but nagging runny noses, after spending more time than usual on city streets. "I am frozen," said a woman at the Lynbrook train station who declined to give her name. "I had no way to get from Penn Station to the financial district. I thought I would have to walk the whole way in the cold."
Mercifully, she got a ride in a taxi, squeezing in between two other stranded commuters. According to the city's contingency plan, vehicles had to have at least four passengers in order to enter Manhattan south of 96th Street between 5 and 11 a.m. The woman said she saw a cab pull over, and she replaced the person who was being dropped off. "Being at the right place at the right time was all you could hope for," she said.
Toni, a young mother from East Rockaway, commutes into Manhattan four days a week. She took her regular 7:35 a.m. train out of East Rockaway on Tuesday morning, but upon entering the city, noticed an eerie difference. "It was so quiet," she said. "I work on Madison Avenue, and it was so quiet without the buses."
Toni said she was thinking many people had opted to stay home in the wake of the strike -- until it was time to go home. "Then it was utter chaos," she said. "Many of the subway entrances were closed, and a lot of people from Queens were using the Long Island Rail Road to get home, so there was a line around the block waiting to enter Penn Station."
Toni got home without any further delays, but said she is expecting the situation to get worse the longer the strike goes on. She said that a co-worker who lives in Queens walked for 40 minutes to the LIRR's Jamaica Station on Tuesday morning, and then waited in line for over four hours to get on a train to Manhattan.
Tim, a New York Police Department detective from Valley Stream, was called in to work at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning to work strike detail, which encompasses Penn Station, Grand Central Station, the LIRR station at Jamaica and the main arteries into Manhattan, including the Lincoln, Holland and Queens-Midtown tunnels and the 59th Street, Triborough and George Washington bridges. Abandoning his normal 10 p.m. shift time was cruel, Tim said, "But it's my job. I just hope the strike is over soon."
As of press time Wednesday, the MTA and the TWU had still not reached a contract agreement. The last New York City transit strike, in 1980, lasted 11 days.
"It's OK. We're New Yorkers," said Toni. "We rise to the challenge and take it one day at a time."
< ITAL>Andrew Coen contributed to this story. Comments about it? KBarone@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 202.
