Transit Strike Diary, Day 1

I watched Peter Kalikow and Roger Toussaint fighting each other to the death in an arena as thousands of commuters pelted them with rocks and garbage. Toussaint bit Kalikow's leg, and Kalikow retaliated by smiting Toussaint's head with a garbage can lid. Then I woke up. Rats!

At 12:01 a.m. today the transit workers did not walk off the job as promised. Roger Toussaint waited three more hours before annnouncing the strike was on. I slept badly, hoping that Della Reese might intervene, telling everyone that God loves them, and all would be well. I also had a 9:00 a.m. meeting scheduled, which meant I should have left home some time during the night to make my way. Most mornings I'm getting in the shower at 9:00, so for me to leave the house by 7:30 would have involved sprouting wings.

This morning I found out the meeting was canceled, so it took some pressure off me to be on time. It took me a while to find the right shoes. I briefly thought about feigning illness, but I decided there were people far worse off than I and braved the 22-degree weather. Although I live only 2.5 miles from work, in New York measurement that translates to 1.5 hours. I bundled up with a set of thermal everything, plugged in my iPod nano, and said, "Boots, start walkin'!"

My company is running buses along select routes. The nearest stop is less than a mile from my house, so I headed that way. I'd been walking about 10 minutes when it occurred to me that I had forgotten the bus pass I was given to get on the bus. So I turned around and went back to get it. I lost 20 minutes. This time I took 5th Avenue, which has less traffic and is shorter.

I got to the bus stop about 20 minutes later. A few people from my company were waiting, including a co-worker. No bus was in sight, and traffic slogged along Atlantic Avenue. I was already warmed up from walking. I stood at the stop for a few minutes, feeling my body cool down. "Tell you what," I said to my co-worker, "I'll walk the rest of the way. You wait for the bus and we'll see who makes it first." She laughed and said, "Deal."

As I turned up State Street toward downtown Brooklyn, Everything But The Girl's remix of "Missing" played on my iPod and I started walking briskly in step with it. The streets were quiet for 9:00 in the morning. About 30 minutes later I made it to the Brooklyn Bridge. About 20 people were waiting for the light to change to get onto the bike and pedestrian path. Traffic didn't look to be any worse than usual.

I hoofed it over the bridge, along with hundreds of other people. The last time I'd seen so many people was during the blackout of 2003. Then, so many people were walking on the bridge it began to sway. That didn't happen this time. Many amateur photographers positioned themselves in the most inconvenient places to get just the right shot of the teeming masses parading over the East River.

I was moved by how calm and unruffled everyone was. I half-expected to hear "Let the Rivers Run." Even cyclists, who realized that they had to insinuate themselves among the chaotic mass of walkers, were not obnoxious. Twenty minutes later I made it to City Hall, stepping over camera crews and auteurs who seemingly had to get just the right angle.

In another 20 minutes I was at work. Most of the businesses around Wall Street were closed. My office was fairly empty, mostly because people had wisely chosen to be on vacation. My co-worker was already there. She'd beaten me by only 10 minutes.

I kind of enjoyed the walk, even in the freezing cold. Now it's time to do it again, in reverse.