Bracing for longer-than-usual commutes to NYC next week
Kenneth Wasserman at the Cold Spring Harbor LIRR station on Friday. Credit: Newsday/Sam Kmack
Kenneth Wasserman, of Cold Spring Harbor, is a transportation consultant who uses the railroad to commute to the city on days he has to be in the office. He mostly works from home, but said he’ll have to make that trek at least three times next week.
“We have people flying in for this [meeting] on Monday and they won’t let us choose a different day. Sometimes you just have things you have to go to, which is crazy because I haven’t been in the city in like three weeks,” he said. “Of course it’s the week they’re doing the strike — really bad timing.”
Wasserman, who spoke to Newsday at the Cold Spring Harbor station on Friday morning, said he had only one “reasonable” commute option if rail service is shut down next week.
“I definitely don’t want to drive all the way in. I think that’s just terrible. And could take an Uber the whole way but that’s also really expensive and terrible,” he said. “The only reasonable option is to take the shuttle bus from Huntington.”
The transportation consultant was uncertain about how badly the alternate commute would affect his schedule, but estimated it would take at least two hours — or twice as long as it normally takes him to travel to work by train — and prevent him from dropping his kids off at daycare.
“I don’t know how long it would take me to drive into Huntington and even just find parking. I don’t know how long the wait is for the shuttle, if there’s going to be a long line to get on the shuttle and then how long that’s going to take,” he told Newsday.
Wasserman said the MTA and workers union “need to come up with a last-minute deal, whatever it takes.”
“I’m really hoping they come up with some sort of a deal because it’s just going to be awful for commuters and people are going to hate the railroad,” he said. “It’s just going to hurt everything.”
Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.
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