One Lesson of a Strike: Those Riders Will Walk

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his aides walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with other commuters during the morning rush hour in New York on Dec. 20. New York transit workers walked off the job for the first time in 25 years, stranding millions of people who rely on the bus and subway system each day.(AP/Dima Gavrysh)

An article by the same title from the New York Times reports:

It takes longer to get to work without the subways, no one disputes that. But just more than a month after a 60-hour transit strike crippled New York City, other lessons are becoming clear, according to data collected by city officials while the subways and buses were shut down.

Among the findings: The number of pedestrians entering Manhattan skyrocketed during the walkout; bicycles and ferries were not used as much as officials had expected; and vehicle restrictions - including a cordon that blocked cars with fewer than four occupants from entering Manhattan south of 96th Street for six hours each morning - may have been harsher than necessary... The new data suggest that New Yorkers are more inclined to walk than they were 25 years ago.

"It's not uncommon for New Yorkers to walk a mile a day," said Iris Weinshall, the commissioner of the city's Department of Transportation, who intends to release the research here on Tuesday, during the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, which is part of the National Research Council.

On average, more than 34,000 pedestrians walked over one of the four East River bridges into Manhattan, compared with only 2,000 or so per day normally. Total pedestrian volume on the bridges from 6 to 10 a.m. was about 14,000 - about 14 percent higher than the 12,500 recorded during the 1980 strike.

On average, 11,717 bicycles crossed the East River bridges each day of the strike. From 6 to 10 a.m., the number of bicyclists on the bridges was 4,892, a 44 percent drop from 8,762 riders in 1980. The city has far more bicycle lanes and paths than it did in 1980, but Ms. Weinshall said bicycling was a less-attractive option because of the cold weather. The 1980 strike began on April 1 and lasted 11 days.

Index Keywords: transit; walking