The prospects were dim Tuesday that negotiators would reach a deal to avert a crippling shutdown of the New York City’s subway and bus system.
Talks broke down about an hour before the midnight strike deadline, and the Transport Workers Union and Metropolitan Transportation Authority offered bleak assessments of the possibility of avoiding a strike.
The 12:01 a.m. deadline passed with no word on whether transit workers would strike. The union board was meeting at its headquarters to discuss its next move.
Turning up the pressure on the city’s transit agency, union members at two private bus lines in Queens walked off the job early Monday.
More than 7 million daily riders would be forced to find new ways to get around if the 33,000-member Transport Workers Union shut down the nation’s largest transit system.
MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow told New Yorkers to “keep your fingers crossed.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said a walkout could cost the city as much as $400 million a day–a figure that includes police overtime and lost business and productivity. It would be particularly harsh at the height of the holiday shopping rush.
The mayor said a strike would freeze traffic into “gridlock that will tie the record for all gridlocks.”
Transit workers are barred under state law from going on strike.
