NEW YORK (AP) — Commuters in New York City’s suburbs navigated a gauntlet of car, bus and subway routes to get to work Monday after a strike on the Long Island Rail Road that shut down the nation’s busiest commuter rail system entered its third day.Unions representing rail workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, which runs the railroad, negotiated for much of Sunday, wrapping their talks around 1 a.m., but failed to reach an agreement, despite pressure from the National Mediation Board and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. A spokesperson for union workers said negotiators returned to the bargaining table early Monday.Katie Dolgow, who teaches first graders in Manhattan, said it had already taken her an hour just to travel from Long Island to Queens as more commuters turned to the region’s already notoriously gridlocked roads. But her big concern was coming home.
“I have to get my son at daycare by 5:30. It’s going to take me longer getting home. I’m a teacher, I’m going to have leave work at 1:30,” she said. Picketers were out early. “We’re just asking for a reasonable cost of living adjustment on our wages,” Byron Lee, a locomotive engineer, said outside Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. “People think that you don’t deserve it.”
