More than two months after the end of the three-day New York
City transit strike, both the attention and the tension have
dimmed. But there is still no settlement in place, and indeed
some transit workers have signed a petition to vote again on the
contract that had been rejected on January 20th by a mere seven
votes. It would be difficult to say with whom the majority of
New York bus and subway riders sided, the transit workers or the
management of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It is a
safe bet to say that during the inconvenience of the strike
itself, most commuters had little polite to say about either of
them. Since people tend to sympathize with those who seem
similar, it is worth looking at the ways in which transit
workers resemble, and differ from, transit riders. New York City
is one of the few places in the United States in which only a
minority of people rely on the automobile to get to work.
Nationwide, 86 percent of people who live in or near central
cities commute by car. In New Yor