Transit Strike 2005!

I wake up this morning and find out that the annoucement for the strike came at 3am. Pretty much screwed up everyone's commute to the city. I guess this is one time when I'm happy that I am in the suburbs and commute to another suburb.

I was watching the coverage while getting ready and saw everyone walking across the bridges in the 20 degree weather to work. And some people had to walk several miles. All of the major entrances into the city -- bridges and tunnels -- were like parking lots. Amazingly, there were people who had no idea that you could drive anywhere below 96th St with less than 4 passengers in the car. Come on people, watch the news and save yourself the effort of having to turn around.

Gotta love the people who were riding in cars with strangers just so they could make their way downtown. This comes from a city where I saw tourists last week make the comment that no one on the streets responds to strangers saying hi and waving. Some lady on the news radio made the comment that she made it from Brooklyn to Manhattan via New Jersey. If that's not roundabout, I don't know what is. In fact, there really isn't a direct route from Brooklyn to New Jersey, is there? Maybe through Staten Island. Somehow, she ended up at the Port Authority terminal and was so disheveled that she didnt know which direction to walk toward 5th Avenue. What a mess.

Meanwhile, my favorite sign from a closed subway station: "Strike in Effect. Station Closed. Happy Holidays!!!!" Let's spread the holiday cheer while making the commuters' lives miserable. Way to go, TWU.

Side story from Julie: She told me that the strike indirectly affected her in Pittsburgh. She was in charge of current students at Carnegie Mellon making visits to their old high schools over the holiday as a part of recruitment programs. A couple of the students from New York called her today and said, "I don't think we can make the recruitment visit tomorrow because of the subway strike. I have no way of getting there." So look at all this time and effort Julie put in to organize these visits, and they get pre-empted because of our transit worker friends.

I'll be back later on tonight with whatever other craziness I can gather.