People find own ways to deal with stoppage

Health benefits, pensions and raises were the main sticking points.
Washington Post
NEW YORK -- The day the subway cars and buses stood still, New Yorkers got moving.
Millions of erstwhile straphangers waged their daily commute on foot, in-line skates, bicycles and motor scooters -- but rarely in anything as unfashionable as sneakers -- as they bundled up against the cold and shrugged off the city's first transit strike in 25 years.
Schools opened two hours late. Streets near the Brooklyn Bridge resembled a parking lot during morning rush hour. Cars tried to pick up extra passengers to meet an emergency requirement that vehicles entering the city carry at least four people. Some businesses sent shuttle buses to ferry employees to work. Others stayed home to avoid the mess.
By the end of the day, any novelty associated with the unconventional commute had worn off. Nerves were frayed, night had fallen and commuters used to traveling underground faced a long trip home by what might be an unfamiliar surface route.
"It makes you confused," said Sera Hargrevas, an interior designer who figured she would walk 150 blocks before the day was done. "I can't deal with anything else but walking right now. Everything is so crowded. People are so angry, they are hitting you and they don't even apologize. ... I'm a little tense."
Grim scenario
And that was just Day One. The walkout by the Transport Workers Union over pay raises, pensions and health benefits threatened to throw traffic into gridlock for days, torpedo the Christmas shopping season and cost the city as much as $400 million a day in economic losses.
By afternoon a state judge had imposed a $1 million-a-day fine against the union local for violating a state law that bars public employees from striking. The union said it would appeal. Meanwhile, the state Public Employment Relations Board dispatched a mediator with the goal of kick-starting negotiations.
"This selfish strike is illegal," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in an afternoon news conference. "We live in a country of laws where there can be severe consequences for those who break them. Union members are no different. .... You can't break the law and then use that as a negotiating tactic."
Union President Roger Toussaint said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, an agency with a $1 billion surplus, can do better by 34,000 workers who typically earn $35,000 to $55,000 annually while operating the nation's largest mass transportation system.
"This is a fight over whether hard work will be rewarded with a decent retirement, over the erosion or eventual elimination of health benefit coverage for working people," Toussaint said in a written statement. "It is a fight over dignity and respect on the job. .... Transit workers are tired at being under-appreciated and disrespected."
Commuters said they were the ones paying the price.
Aaron Profumo, 16, a high school student, had to walk much of the length of Manhattan from his home on the Upper West Side to Chinatown to catch a private bus for a previously planned trip to Delaware.