Strike halts NY transport

New Yorkers struggled into work on foot, by bike and in cars shared with strangers after subway and bus workers walked off the job for the first time in 25 years yesterday, stranding millions of people during a peak holiday shopping and tourist season.

America's largest mass transit system ground to a halt just five days before Christmas in a strike that city officials warned could cost New York $1.6 billion if it lasts a week.

Last-ditch talks between the Transport Workers Union and the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority collapsed shortly before a midnight strike deadline.

The strike kicked within hours, affecting seven million subway and bus users. The last strike in 1980 lasted 11 days.

During the morning rush hour, police set up checkpoints at bridge and tunnel entrances, turning away cars carrying fewer than four people to avoid gridlock in Manhattan. Drivers desperate to fill their cars invited strangers to get in, while pedestrians made for Shea Stadium in Queens where city authorities had organised a makeshift carpool centre and cyclists streamed over bridges into the city.

Vehicles were backed up to get into Manhattan, where morning traffic moved relatively freely because so many cars were refused entry. People packed onto commuter buses as well as the suburban trains and ferries that were still running.

Many Wall Street firms had provided shuttle buses to bring workers in and financial markets were operating as normal.

A New York state court found the Transport Workers Union in contempt of court after it called the stoppage yesterday, and ordered the union to pay a fine of $1 million a day.