Knicks playoff game Tuesday night and the strike ending? Coincidence?
The most remarkable thing about the Hicksville train station Tuesday afternoon was how normal it seemed.
Barely three hours after trains resumed running, a few dozen passengers stared at train schedules, punched keys at ticket kiosks and waited on platforms. The familiar squeal of railroad brakes sounded as trains arrived. Automated announcements blared from loudspeakers like they normally do.
Giancarlo Cornejo, who was waiting for a westbound train with his 8-year-old daughter, had a theory about the timing of the strike's end. He figured the deal between the LIRR unions and the MTA had been struck because of the Knicks. The basketball team had a playoff game at Madison Square Garden Tuesday night — not even 24 hours after the contract dispute was settled.
Not that the Queens resident is inclined toward conspiracy theories.
"If it wasn't for the Knicks being back on ...," Cornejo said. "That has something to do with it."
Some passengers rued the money lost and the hours they'll never recover as they recounted tales of the previous days' commuting adventures.
"I must have spent 60 bucks on taxis because there was no trains," Pedro Francia, of Hicksville, said as he described his Monday trip to Farmingville, where he is a cook.
But Sunday was worse. That cost him $70.
"I tried to take the bus and the bus never come," he said.
Farhana Ibrahim took the train home from her Manhattan job Tuesday afternoon, but getting to work in the morning entailed a three-hour ordeal involving a shuttle bus from Hicksville to the city.
"It was worse" than her Monday morning commute, she said.
On Monday she had hitched a ride with a friend.
"It wasn't that bad, but I don't want that," Ibrahim said.
Carl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.
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