'I can't afford $80'

Home health aide Andrea Gray, 58, of Jamaica, Queens, took a shuttle bus that left 179th Street at 8:20 a.m. Tuesday to get to a job in Locust Valley.

But when she arrived at the Ronkonkoma train station after 9 a.m., she saw Uber charging $80 for a ride to Locust Valley.

“I can’t afford an $80 ride,” she said.

Gray said she canceled the job, which was to relieve another home health aide, and hoped her agency would be able to send someone else.

She didn't know there would be no more buses running back to Jamaica, let alone that railroad service would start at noon.

Gray was one of the first people to buy a railroad ticket since the end of the strike.

“I guess I’ll walk around,” she told Newsday as she waited for service to commence.