NYC Commuters Hoof, Hitch To Work
They got around any way they could. Perfect strangers shared cabs, people who normally use subways and buses hopped on to commuter trains, water taxis or even walked in the chilling cold — anything to get where they were going.
The first transit strike in 25 years forced millions of commuters and city residents to think on their feet Tuesday, to find alternatives to mass transit buses and subways that stopped running in the early morning hours.
Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Roger Toussaint announced the citywide strike just after 3 a.m. EST, four hours after rejecting a contract offer management described as "fair."
The city activated emergency plans by the city, limiting travel by vehicles with less than four people and barring commercial vehicles between the hours of 5 and 11 a.m. Roadblocks at the bridges and tunnels into Manhattan turned back vehicles not meeting those requirements and jammed up others that did.
WCBS-AM reports as many as 75 percent of the cars trying to enter the borough may have been turned away Tuesday morning.
More than 7 million daily riders normally rely on the city's buses and subways — the largest mass transit system in the United States — and the 33,000-members of the TWU.
Video Archive Of Strike Coverage
Some, like CBS News' Constance Lloyd, walked across bridges into Manhattan.
"Most of the people are just trying to get to work, serious, walking fast, a quick, brisk pace," she reported from the 59th Street Bridge, made famous by a Simon & Garfunkel song. "There are definitely people that haven't done this in awhile and are huffing and puffing as they're going." Others tried to drive in.
"The lines of cars were miles and miles, stretching back into Queens," as police checked each car for the required four occupants, Lloyd said.
At the 96th Street barricades, below which cars with fewer than four drivers could not go, commuters tried to find rides.
"They're looking for a ride right now in the freezing and bitter cold," reported WCBS-AM's Paul Murnane. "I just had a lady knock on my window and ask if I was heading anywhere in the vicinity of Midtown in the next few minutes."
The strike couldn't come at a worse time, reports CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. A city full of holiday tourists who can't get around could cost New York millions of dollars.
The union rejected a contract offer at 11 p.m. and did not announce its strike decision until just after 3 a.m. Tuesday. Shortly afterward, lawyers representing management and the city began drafting a request to a judge to declare the workers in contempt of court for calling an illegal strike.
Toussaint, announcing the decision to strike, said that at a time when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has a surplus of $1 billion, "this contract... should have been a no-brainer."
"Make no mistake, these are bullying tactics and we will not accept them," said MTA chairman Peter Kalikow of the TWU's strike decision, adding that the walkout is "a slap in the face of all MTA customers and all New Yorkers."
Toussaint says he does not understand why the MTA, in his view, has taken "a hard line" on health benefits and pension. Addressing the people of New York, Toussaint cast the union's strike as "a fight over whether hard work will be rewarded... a fight over dignity and respect on the job."
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was swift to respond to the strike announcement, calling the union's action "selfish" and a "cowardly attempt … to bring the city to its knees."
"We cannot give them the satisfaction," said Bloomberg, calling on New Yorkers to walk, bicycle and find other ways to get around to avoid shutting down businesses and schools and the "havoc" he says the union is intent on creating. The mayor — wearing an "I love New York" sweatshirt to underscore his message — went on to say that New Yorkers have a habit of getting through tough times and will once again prove that this is a city that works — "even when our buses and subways don't."
The union, said Bloomberg, must understand that its actions have consequences.
A contempt of court ruling for the union, which is being sought by the MTA and the city, could mean steep fine for the union's leaders and members: two days' pay for every day they are out on strike.
Buses still on the road at the time the strike was called were expected to drop off all passengers and return to their depots. Subways were expected to finish their trips as turnstiles were chained and locked.
News of the strike sent many New Yorkers scrambling for their car keys, trying to get into town before 5 a.m., when most of Manhattan will be off-limits to vehicles trying to enter with fewer than four people. That rule will be in effect from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. until the strike ends. Numerous car pool locations have also been set up.
New York's subway has about 1.4 billion riders a year and is the fifth-busiest system in the world, behind Moscow, Tokyo, Seoul and Mexico City. Counting buses and commuter railroads, the MTA estimates that it moves 2.4 billion people a year.
Mayor Bloomberg has said that a transit strike could cost the city as much as $400 million a day — a figure that includes police overtime and lost business and productivity. It would be particularly harsh at the height of the holiday shopping rush.
The mayor has also said that a strike could freeze traffic into "gridlock that will tie the record for all gridlocks."
The transit workers' old contract expired early Friday, but the union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to keep talking through the weekend.
The two sides are divided over wages and an MTA proposal to raise the age at which new employees become eligible for a full pension from 55 to 62.
At a rally in Queens Monday, employees of the striking Jamaica Buses and Triboro Coach bus lines formed picket lines early in Queens, many chanting, "No contract, no work!"
Later in the day, hundreds of union members rallied outside Gov. George Pataki's office in midtown Manhattan, partly blocking traffic and screaming for a transit system walkout. "Shut it down!" they chanted.
The last citywide bus and subway strike in New York was in 1980. The walkout lasted 11 days.