So they should cut fares for riders by a nickel or something and make the pay raises 4% a year and be done with it.

I could be an arbitrator. This is easy.

i've been reading a lot about this strike, and it kind of makes me hate both sides. the mta has for years been mismanaged, with ridiculously creative accounting, a penchant for trying to sell highly valuable real estate for giveaway prices to billionaires who hardly need the handouts, and a debt load that's insane.
the union has done a decent job of standing up to some of the MTA's stupid ideas, much to the benefit of straphangers like myself. however, there demands also seem unreasonable, as haq describes quite well.
what's funny about all this, is that while i dislike both sides, for the moment i'm happy about the strike, cause i'm telecommuting, which rocks.

i bet you ride the bus with my special gentleman friend, he lives off of willy.

i am really, really hoping to get a job downtown so i can walk to work. so much less hassle.

Hey, Pittsburgh finally has something on New York - fancy that...

We avoided a transit strike the union was threatening us with about a month ago.

i just can't believe that the contract would actually be scheduled to expire during the holiday season. that's kind of poor planning, regardless of whether or not it would be expected to be renewed.

Yer probably right. Balding dude, mullet, late 50's? Talks to himself quietly?

Today's thrilling ride involved a standing room only bus full of urban middle-schoolers, shouting at / punching one another, clogging the aisles, and making me wish for death.

urban middle schoolers? what's urban in madison?

"Eh! Eh Keisha! EEEHH!!! I'ma tell you what, that skinny white bitch over there eye-ballin you! Maybe she a dike!" etc. Then a 10-minute treatise on why "it ok to steal, long as you don't git caught... Why pay for it, when you can have it for free? I mean shit..." Word for word. 10 years old, tops.

yeah i didn't see any of that. at all.

3:30 pm, Jenifer Street, Buses 3, 4, or 38. Like clockwork.

But yeah, our "urban" is NOT equal to Real urban.

Sounds like what my friends, who were twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two at the time, were saying in '00.

But, oh, Scary Carey, who is My Nemesis, where are you now?

How's the band working out? Still rocking the New Blind (Bomb) Nationals?

My commute wasn't too bad. I walked a total of at least an hour (which isn't too bad compared to other people), and took the LIRR from Queens to Manhattan. Thank God for the LIRR otherwise, I'd be stuck.

I'm just not looking forward to doing it again for the evening commute.

As far as the TWU workers, most of them are uneducated ghetto trash and I don't have any sympathy for them. They could've continued to work through negotiations but chose not to.

If this goes on for a bit, do we get refunds on my monthly metro card? if not, ill really be pissed. oterhwise, this strike is only forcing me to keep up my cardio plan.

I haven't even thought of that. I still have at least 2 weeks left on my unlimited monthly card. Bastards.

Every day the strike lasts, your card is extended by the same. So if it lasts 12 days, your card would last an additional 12

OK good.

Spoken like a true southern racist.

Why thank you kind sir.

It's all relative, but these union jobs pay more. Just from my experience, there are MANY people living in NYC doing jobs they got hired to do because they have education and experience that start out well below $35k. Many jobs in "creative" industries pay shit. I'm going to stop now.

Thanks for that.

*cleans coffee off monitor again*

whew.