dresese

The Transit Strike

Along with every other NYC blogger, I feel compelled to post on the transit strike that happened today. I didn't particularly need to go into Manhattan today, but I was interested to see what kind of havoc would be unleashed in Forest Hills.

Forest Hills has a ton of commuters that travel to Manhattan every day, so today when there was no subway, almost everyone seemed to default to taking the Long Island Railroad. The LIRR was totally prepared, and had set up a booth to sell & check tickets. This is necessary because the ordinary system of selling tickets via machine and walking around and checking them on the train doesn't work so well when people are packed like sardines. I anticipated a big line. However, it was much much longer than I had anticipated. It went down to the corner, which wasn't so surprising...

...and way down the block, as far as the eye can see...

...and after 5 or so blocks, around the corner, then around the corner again.

Everyone was amazed at how long this line is, but they still lined up anyway. What else could you do?

In the street people were stopping to ask cars driving by if they were going into Manhattan, and if so, can they have a ride. Shuttle buses were lined up on the side of the road. And I saw many school buses, which may or may not have been doing extra duties.

Hopefully the strike will be over tomorrow. I feel sorry for these people, waiting outside for hours in the cold, just to go to work, knowing that they will have to do the same thing again in reverse, in just a few hours.