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Long Island Rail Road workers across five unions are threatening to go on strike as soon as next Thursday, a move that would shut down the country’s busiest commuter railroad serving 300,000 daily riders.
The potential walkout comes four months after NJ Transit’s locomotive engineers went on strike for three days. Teachers missed classes, nurses were late meeting patients and riders who had already bought monthly passes had to pay out of pocket for alternative modes of transportation.
But the fallout from an LIRR strike would likely be even worse. While New Jersey commuter railroad riders had several alternatives to get into the city during the work stoppage — like the PATH train, ferry service, Amtrak and a sprawling network of buses that run into the Port Authority bus terminal — Long Islanders who rely on mass transit would be all but stranded by a strike.
“ We’re f—ed,” lamented LIRR commuter Sharon Hersh. “I would not come into the city because I’m not going to sit in traffic for three hours and then pay $100 to park my car, or get a $100 ticket on the street.”
NJ Transit officials urged commuters to work from home if they could during last May’s strike, and MTA officials suggested the same thing in the event of a LIRR strike. But Hersh said that’s not an option for her: She owns a shop called Balloon Saloon in Tribeca, and takes the LIRR into the city every day except Sunday. A labor strike, she said, would literally deflate her business.
The MTA hasn’t yet released an alternative service plan, but officials have floated the idea of running extra buses that would connect to subways in Queens.
Gerard Brigmann, the advocate for LIRR riders on the MTA board, recalled when the railroad’s workers went on strike in 1987, and said the shuttle buses provided by the MTA were a nightmare.
“ Sometimes the buses won’t pull out until they have a full load,” he said. “So you could get to your bus and sit there for half an hour or 20 minutes … and then the buses aren’t necessarily going to go where you want them to go, or leave from where you want them to leave from because they can’t possibly cover every station.”
That strike lasted for 11 days and was resolved after President Ronald Reagan intervened.
In this case, Gov. Kathy Hochul is already blaming President Donald Trump for the potential strike. She said his administration’s National Mediation Board that was arbitrating the contract dispute allowed the workers to walk away from the table, effectively setting the stage for a walkout as soon as next week.
“ The White House already intervened and they screwed us in the process,” Hochul said Wednesday. “They never should have given license to stop the negotiations.”
Under the federal Railway Labor Act, Hochul could request that the president establish an emergency board to mediate the contract dispute and avert a strike. She has so far declined to do so.
The five LIRR unions threatening a strike have been without a new contract for three years. The group sent a letter to Hochul on Tuesday alleging the MTA “continues to misrepresent the status of negotiations in the press,” and disputing that the end of mediation was a decision by the Trump administration.
The unions are seeking raises that are in line with the high cost of inflation and go beyond what other MTA unions recently received. MTA officials said unions want a 16% raise the agency can’t afford.
The dispute puts Hochul and the MTA between a rock and a hard place. A strike would disrupt commuters’ lives for days or weeks. But transit officials said agreeing to the union’s current demands would force the agency to increase fares beyond the 4% biannual increases to cover the wage increases.
MTA spokesperson John McCarthy said the agency’s fares are directly tied to its labor costs.
”It’s pretty clear the way we budget is based on what we put in dollar value for our labor contracts,” he said. “ The bottom line is we don’t want a strike, our riders don’t want a strike, and we would hope that the people who work on the railroad wouldn’t want to have a strike.”
Curious Commuter
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Question from Aron in Brooklyn
Why is the MTA opting for light rail service on the new Interborough [Express] line?
Answer
The Interborough Express project is a “light rail” line, or a tramway that uses lighter train cars compared to a typical, heavier subway car. In planning the route, which aims to run along existing freight train rights of way, the MTA found the light rail option would be easier to execute than building out a “heavy rail” subway line.
Officials have argued the light rail would require less major construction near the freight tracks. There are also several tunnels — including one in East New York — that aren’t large enough to fit the MTA’s subway cars. MTA planners previously said they’d need to order smaller, custom-built train cars like those that run on the PATH system in order to make a heavy rail system feasible for the Interborough Express. Several manufacturers are already building light rail cars for systems across the country, which makes them easier for the MTA to purchase.
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