[Timesink]

Note this does NOT mean a strike still can't be called at some point overnight if talks fall apart. BE PREPARED.

[Timesink]

bump for bump lists

[Timesink]

Metro North will remain active and additional trains will be added in the event of a strike. However, trains will inevitably be PACKED and operating off-schedule due to all the extra time involved in taking on and letting off passengers. You might want to consider getting on in, say, Katonah. (It will take 24 hours from the outset of any strike action for this additional service to be in place. (This amount of time is needed to reposition and reconfigure train equipment to provide special shuttle train service in the Bronx.)) See mta.info for complete details.

The LIRR system will be somewhat more messy. Again, see mta.info.

[ikka]

In the latest update to the sprawling backup plan, some dollar vans and livery cabs have been organized to serve set routes at fixed prices. Some livery cabs would follow bus routes in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, picking up and dropping off passengers at each bus stop for $2 each.

Bloomberg should seize on this and allow even more of the free market to function. A little more work on such a plan might be enough to break the union, if it came to that.

Why not allow people with cars to apply for and receive "emergency medallions" after passing a criminal background check and being fingerprinted and photo ID'd? They could pay into a special insurance fund to cover liability, and would be billed via credit card for each day an emergency existed, on the assumption that they would use the car for livery service. Something like that would allow Bloomberg to tell the unions to cut the crap and be happy with what they have.

[laurav]

Well, I took the 4-5 uptown after midnight, seemed to be running just fine, and the operator wasn't in a hurry to close the station. In other words, my bet is that any strike will occur later in the week, and chances are they'll announce a settlement in the next 24 hours.

[concerned about politics]

O'Riely discussed this. He said those who clean the subways get something like $30,000.00 per year, get 8 weeks vacation (?) and work a full three hours a day. Wages compliments of NY taxpayers, of course.
They want more?

[Wright is right!]

One good thing about CNN's morning show is that their storefront window affords an easy glance out on the streets, where one could easily see lots of transit-authority buses running their normal routes.

For such a big story, there's not much in the media about it this morning.

Michael

[Boobarooza]

There was never going to be a strike. The MTA and the TWU are not stupid. A strike would be the death blow to the both the MTA and the union as well as the entire city. Once the judge handed down the injunction, the TWU knew what the score was. All this talk of a strike is just what it is - talk. Both the MTA and the TWU hyped this up in the media because some people (like Troussant) like to get their faces on television. Gullible viewers then started running around like Chicken Little. There will probably be a settlement announced sometime later today.