Long Islanders Clog Highways on First Work Day of Rail Strike

Thousands of Long Islanders today took to their automobiles and choked highways into New York City on the first work day of a strike paralyzing the Long Island Rail Road, the nation’s largest commuter line.

Many commuters, starting well before dawn, drove or rode in car pools through bumper-to-bumper traffic to parking lots near outlying subways.

About 112,000 rush-hour commuters and 50,000 off-peak riders use the LIRR each weekday.

Because of today’s holiday for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, the full impact is not expected until Tuesday, and officials said emergency bus service will begin then.

But many commuters did not get that word and began lining up at major stations until informed they were a day early.

By 5:30 a.m., the Long Island Expressway was packed with vehicles headed for the city.

Many motorists drove to Shea Stadium in Queens, where a bottleneck at the gigantic parking lot backed up hundreds of cars.

Only one of the nine gates was manned, by a harried parking attendant who collected $2 each from drivers and groaned at the line of increasingly hostile motorists closing in on him.

“My God,” he said. “Nobody told me anything about this.”