Transit Strike Looms in N.Y.

Millions of commuters were making alternative plans to get to work or school today as the nation’s largest mass transit system prepared for a strike for the first time in 22 years.

Negotiations between New York officials and the 34,000-member transit workers union continued past a midnight EST deadline without a work stoppage after the union announced that enough progress had been made on noneconomic issues to “stop the clock.”

“We will negotiate as long as there is progress being made,” Secretary-Treasurer Ed Watt said.

However, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told residents earlier Sunday that they should “make plans assuming that there is a strike.”

Bloomberg himself bought a $500 mountain bike Friday and said he would use it to get to City Hall this morning if there was a strike. “Nobody’s going to shut down New York,” the mayor vowed.

But with 7 million commuters using the subways and buses daily, legions of workers were expected to be stranded or stalled. Taxis were preparing to pick up multiple fares, and several dozen “group ride” stands were being set up around the city. Scores of ferries were being added to take commuters from Brooklyn and New Jersey across the East and Hudson rivers. Some large businesses reserved blocks of hotel rooms so their workers would not have to commute at all.

The prospect of a strike had institutions and businesses, large and small, scrambling to keep operations as normal as possible. For huge Bellevue Hospital, that meant hiring private buses to carry employees from the outlying boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, while also stopping every 10 blocks in Manhattan to pick up more workers. “We have nurses, aides -- thousands of employees -- we can’t do without,” one hospital administrator said. “And most don’t live right in the city.”

On the other end of the scale was lawyer Paul Feinstein, who practices alone at a midtown Manhattan office and has to worry only about himself and an assistant who lives in Brooklyn. “She may be able to stay with her boyfriend in the Village and hitchhike up to the office,” Feinstein said Sunday. “And if I have to get to court, I’m not above hitchhiking either. You just stick out your thumb and hope someone’s going your way. Or I may drive down at 4 a.m. and sleep in my car -- and hope they fine those idiots [at the union] $1 million a day.”

Strikes by public unions are illegal here, and workers face fines of two days’ pay for every day they are off the job. In addition, a Brooklyn judge who issued an injunction against a strike Friday, saying it would have an “enormous, debilitating and destructive” impact on the city, could levy additional fines against the union.

But leaders of the Transport Workers Union say they are skeptical of claims by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that a $1-billion deficit makes it impossible to offer any raises for the first year of a new contract -- and only productivity raises the two years after that. The union originally had asked for 24% raises over three years, then reduced its demand to 6% raises each of the next three years.

Although union leaders complained throughout the weekend that the MTA was refusing to make realistic offers on pocketbook issues, union President Roger Toussaint said he had not given up hope. But, Toussaint added, the city was “pushing transport workers to the brink” by failing to put “any serious proposal” on the table.

When union officials emerged from talks at midnight, they suggested that although there was still a stalemate on money questions, there had been progress on other issues “of dignity and respect for our members,” an apparent reference to union requests for easing of disciplinary procedures it says are overly punitive.

Negotiations were being conducted around the clock at the Grand Hyatt Hotel alongside Grand Central Station, a hub for commuter trains from New York’s northern suburbs -- which will continue to run if there is a bus and subway strike.

“There is no person capable of riding in on a white horse with a bag of money to resolve this contract,” Gov. George Pataki said at a Sunday news conference, rejecting calls for him to intervene in the talks.

Transit workers and supporters rallied outside the hotel, meanwhile, chanting: “No benefits, no work.”

City officials have said that a 50-cent hike in subway and bus fares -- now $1.50 a ride for those without monthly passes -- may be necessary just to reduce MTA deficits. A strike could cost the city up to $350 million a day in police overtime costs and lost business and taxes, according to the mayor.

If there is a strike this morning, city officials said, the start of classes at New York City schools will be delayed for two hours to give the students more time to get there.

Some New Yorkers said getting to work is especially crucial this time of year because of the increase of business -- and expenses -- during the holidays.

“This is the time you need money,” said Kate Hobson, 32, who works as a waitress on the affluent Upper East Side of Manhattan but lives in more affordable Astoria, Queens. Her solution? She took a subway in Sunday and was planning to stay with her parents, who live in Manhattan.

“Otherwise it’s a 50-block walk over the 59th Street Bridge,” Hobson said.

But there was no such easy answer for her friend, also an Astoria resident, who was worried about how she would get her father home from a Manhattan hospital -- he was scheduled to be released today after treatment for a heart attack.

Despite an emergency order that would mandate carpooling and the establishment of staging areas outside the city for commuters to pair up, roadways are expected to be gridlocked if there is a strike. “There’s nothing good that can come of this,” Hobson said.

Yet many New Yorkers apparently were not ready to take emergency measures until a strike becomes a reality.

At the Grand Hyatt Hotel, there were still rooms available for tonight. Farther uptown, the famous Plaza Hotel on 5th Avenue also reported no barrage of calls from people looking for a place to stay close to work. “We’ve not had a flood of requests,” a reservation agent said.