How people get to work...

Image from Transportation Alternatives

...during a transit strike. There was so much coverage about the transit strike in New York City that I didn't bother covering it, and I'm too ignorant to partake in a discussion about labor rights. However, we started a discussion on PPS about how people got to work and there are some good comments there.

I like to see how the everyday plays out in the city, so how people got to work interests me, and the event had varied results. We had one intrepid staffer who took 4 modes of transportation to get here: walking, car, water taxi, then taxi. Then we had other people who didn't want to come in because their bike tires were flat and they couldn't face 45 minutes of riding in the cold. Having no subways running is highly inconvenient, to be sure, but it seemed that city travel is a lot about the state of mind, and whether one is up for it...or not.

Honestly, I thought that NYC, given a transit strike, was much better off than most American places in that the structure of the city offered many options for commuting, even if the subway was down. Biking wasn't happening along fast 4 to 6 lane highways as it might in other sprawl-ridden communities - from Brooklyn and Queens to Manhattan, it happened on city streets and across bridges, many of them with bike paths. The city was able to open up major thoroughfares in Manhattan to bikes with little effect on traffic. It was a great chance to view our city under a different light. What would happen if we made our bike paths wider? If there were fewer cars? If more people walked?

Perhaps this is too positive a perspective to take, and I certainly wouldn't want another transit strike -- we were lucky that it lasted only a few days -- but I thought overall it was great to see all the activity in the street throughout the day.

And, please treat the transit workers with respect. They are people like you and me who have to commute to work too. That they make our commute so much easier deserves credit.