Where Do 7 Million People Go When Transit Shuts Down?

What are the alternatives for the 7 million daily transit riders? Cabs seem like a good alternative, but cabbies may also stay home if the strike goes on.

1 minute read

December 21, 2005, 9:00 AM PST

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"On a typical day here, the subway and bus systems move 7 million passengers. All of that traffic, for the time being, has been left to fend for itself. A gusher of pedestrians flowed across the Brooklyn Bridge at rush hour. There appeared to be a record number of bicyclists braving the cold.

...The cars, it seems, were all stuck above 96th Street, where cops were stopping them if they did not have at least four occupants, an emergency carpooling rule imposed for the strike. Those restrictions also affected all of the tunnels and bridges into the heart of the city, as well as a handful of major roads -- such as parts of Central Park Drive West, parts of the FDR Drive, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Henry Hudson Parkway.

...Great news for the 12,778 taxicabs circulating throughout New York, right? Well, it isn't. Not according to Sotirios Gavritsas, and not according to a half-dozen other cabbies who chatted as they drove around town Tuesday."

Wednesday, December 21, 2005 in The Washington Post

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