TWU Strike
The Transportation Workers Union began a strike last night that stops all of the buses and subways in New York City. Which effectively shuts Manhattan down. Which makes my life very, very difficult. Though the Long Island Railroad, the Five Towns Resident's commute of choice is still running, the lask of public transportation once you get to Penn Station makes it close to impossible to get around the city. And with carpool rules being implemented due to the strike, vehicles with less than 4 passengers are being turned away by police before they get to the city. So I'm staying home.
Saw some video of Mayor Bloomberg walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, wearing just a thin jacket in frigid temparatures, to show solidarity with the throngs of people walking to work from Brooklyn to Manhattan. The guy could teach GWB a thing or two about relating to his constituents. Gotta love the guy.
The footage of the masses out on the streets hoofing it to work is just unbelievable. Endless hatted heads bobbing up and down with puffs of vapor coming out of their mouths.
Anyone else out there in the J-blogosphere staying home because of the strike?
posted by orthomom at 7:44 AM
19 Comments:
I work in Jersey, and NJ Transit isn't on strike, so.... yeah i'm there. The $30 cab ride up almost the entire length of Manhattan Island in the middle of the night last night coming home from hanging out with friends in Brooklyn was pretty cool. It was an adventure, albeit an expensive one. No traffic yet at that time.
Luckily, the friend who usually drops me off at the subway station in Bay Ridge after these gaming/hangout times took me all the way over the Brooklyn Bridge (after accidentally being forced to circle across it once already :-P ).
I run my company from home most of the week but today I have the wonderful good fortune of having my husband join me since he thinks he can't easily get to work. (I might put him on a Command bus [those are supposedly running and should drop him off at his office doorstep in Manhattan, though the schlep from where we live is a bit far, but not impossible] tomorrow if he drives me crazy enough).
It is nice to have company during the day and I am looking forward to having someone to share my lunch break with. And he is watching over me to make sure I stay 'focused' [and right back at him].
I made it in. A long and twisted journey covering Long Island, Queens, Manhattan, New Jersey and back to Manhattan. I can't wait to do it all over again in 7 hours!
I wanted to stay home, but unfortunately the strike does not affect public transit in the greater Boston area... :(
That was me above. "Other" didn't work properly that time, it seems...
- Shanna
JPT:
Long Island to Manhattan via New Jersey? That's gotta suck.
Thankfully, I have no more finals untill Thursday, and by then, LIRR will be running shuttles between Jamaica, Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, Woodside, and Penn every 15 minutes into the city won't be that bad.
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Living in Washington Heights, studying in Washington Heights, working in Washington Heights ... sometimes my extended student lifestyle can be convenient. If not lucrative. See my blog for a more upbeat attitude about the strike.
I am lucky enough to be able to work from home -- brought my laptop home yesterday and have been on it and on the phone most of the day. My husband though took the LIRR from Forest Hills to midtown. He was lucky and caught one right away (he bought a ticket yesterday) but someone else I know waited 1 1/2 hours to get close to board the train -- the line was 7 blocks long.
Good luck to all.
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/rnr/118832386.html
TWU hard at "work"?
I'm a freelancer, I work from home, so I am as I always am--sitting in my bedroom, wearing my fuzzy slippers, pounding away at the keyboard.
For a change, something to balance out having to self-insure my health!
Luckily, my wife had a ride to a seminar in Brooklyn today, which was in place of working in Manhattan. Fortunate scheduling! :)
I could telecommute. It's what I did today. Internet, phone ... I had the foresite to e-mail documents to myself and bring files home. But for some unknown reason, my employer wants us all in the office by 9 am tommorow. So I'm hoofing four miles to the LIRR at 6 am to make it to Penn Station to walk 30 blocks. Some (wealthy) people who live in Westchester and had no problem getting in to work this morning have no idea what us real people are facing. Sorry, needed to vent.
Fortunately, my only responsibility today was to go to an interview 14 blocks away from my home.
yeah Mom, it does suck. But I convinced myself this morning that in the big picture, what's an extra hour in my commute? I'm just going with the flow. The transit workers are under-appreciated and under-paid. They're entitled to show the city that they don't want to be treated like garbage anymore...ahhh, who am I kidding?! As someone was quoted in today's paper, "I would love to have a job that would give me a 3% raise every year, benefits for life, both medical and dental, life insurance for life, and retirement at 62 with a full pension. Any openings, let me know"
As someone was quoted in today's paper, "I would love to have a job that would give me a 3% raise every year, benefits for life, both medical and dental, life insurance for life, and retirement at 62 with a full pension. Any openings, let me know"
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Who's stopping you? Fill out an applications if its so wonderful.
Dov, did you miss the point? The point is that they don't have it so bad. Especially not bad enought to protest by inconveniencing 7 million riders. Whatever sympathy they had in NY has been washed down the toilet.
Idiot that I am, I stayed home on the first day of the strike (and will get pay-docked for it, no doubt) before it finally dawned on me that I could walk to the nearest currently-operational railroad station in 45 minutes. Of course, I wasn't counting on waiting an hour and a half outdoors in the cold to buy train tickets. By the time I got to Manhattan, my feet were so frozen that I had to give myself 20 minutes in the train station before going outdoors for the walk to the office--I was seriously concerned that my toes were bordering on frostbitten.
Today, I was lucky enough to get a ride to another one of our offices (not in Manhattan), only because our son is home from college with his car. Thank goodness. I'm still exhausted from all the walking yesterday. Mind you, it could have been much worse, so I can't complain too much.
Personally, I'm not as upset about the strike as some are, although maybe that's because I've been able to find ways to get to work. Strikes are classic labor tactics. My husband, a retired government employee, said that he wished that *his* so-called union had fought for *him* to get a salary commensurate with his education and productivity.
Subway Sally
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