“All aboard!” an announcer called over the PA system shortly before noon on Tuesday, and a Ronkonkoma-bound Long Island Rail Road train pulled out of Penn Station. The strike was over.
It had run 84 hours, from a minute past midnight on Saturday through a full workday and a second morning commute. Newsday described it as the first strike to hobble the nation’s largest commuter rail system in 32 years. The BBC called it New York City’s longest transit strike in more than 30 years. Hundreds of thousands of Long Island commuters had been hit as trains stopped entirely.
Three days of workarounds
City and state officials told people to work from home and expect heavy traffic. The city ran some bus service from Long Island into Queens, and the MTA set up shuttles, but riders said the buses were sparsely used and the highways jammed. The first weekday rush hour ended with no contract. Commuters in Manhattan told the BBC they waited for transit updates that never came, and some without work-from-home options were late for their jobs. Talks resumed Monday morning after a weekend impasse between the unions and the MTA, where workers wanted a contract, better benefits and fair wages. A deal was announced late Monday.
Vinny Migliore of Babylon, an electrician at Kennedy Airport, was the only passenger on his shuttle bus from Howard Beach to Bay Shore. The trip took about two hours, against the 50 minutes he usually spends on the train. “It was pretty cool,” he said, though he was glad it was resolved quickly. Sherion Morris of Deer Park watched her commute stretch from 1 hour, 20 minutes to almost 3 hours. She woke at 3:30 a.m. to reach work by 7:15 a.m., taking a shuttle to Howard Beach and then the A train.
At the coffee shop and convenience store in Hicksville station, Farhat Qureshi said Monday’s business “was zero.” On Saturday she made $114 over 14 hours. She did not open Tuesday morning, and sales picked up only after 4 p.m.
Back on the rails
The MTA said the LIRR was running full weekday service on or close to schedule, and told riders to use the TrainTime app. Shuttle buses stayed on for the evening rush from six Long Island locations.
Alex Christoforatos of Floral Park found her usual parking lot empty. “I guess people didn’t want to commute to work today,” she said. Passengers on Tuesday were still divided. Bill Axmacher, 65, of East Northport called the strike “super inconvenient” and said he was “relieved.” High schooler Gavin Volk of Islip, who had to arrange rides to school, took it in stride: “Strikes over contracts, they happen every so often.”
Timing helped the railroad win a few fans. The Knicks hosted Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night. Brothers Adam and Andrew Ayroso of Bethpage arrived 90 minutes before tipoff. Giancarlo Cornejo, waiting in Hicksville with his 8-year-old daughter, suspected the game pushed the deal along. “If it wasn’t for the Knicks being back on …,” he said. “That has something to do with it.”
The week was already rough for Long Island travel, Newsday noted: a track fire shut down Penn Station, falling debris snarled the George Washington Bridge, and a sinkhole swallowed a car on the Long Island Expressway before the strike began.
Sources
- New York commuters face rush-hour chaos in first major rail strike in 30 years
- Latest updates: LIRR service resumes after strike – Newsday
