There may not have been much public transit service yesterday, but at least the weather was nice enough to walk home.
That was the attitude of MBA student Jeromie Park, who, like 400,000 other Philadelphians, found himself without his usual ride to and from Center City when many SEPTA workers went on strike yesterday.
It is unclear how the strike affected classes and work on campus today. Office of the Provost spokeswoman Nancy Nicely said that no data is kept on how many professors are late to class -- for traffic reasons or otherwise.
Community members will continue to have to adjust.
Bob Bedard, spokesman for Transport Workers Union Local 234, said that no new meetings with SEPTA have been scheduled.
Many SEPTA workers spent the day picketing at vehicle depots.
Though he declined to speculate when negotiations will resume with SEPTA officials, he said that the strike will go on "as long as it takes."
"It's a horrible inconvenience for people, and we're apologetic for that," he said, "but it's our only option to protect our rights."
Park said that for now he will try to coordinate splitting cabs with his friends who live in Center City, but if the strike goes on for too long, money could become an issue.
He added that he will also consider using the "contingency plan" shuttle buses now being offered by Penn and Drexel.
The buses run six times in the morning from 7 to 9:30 a.m. and five times in the evening from 4:15 to 6 p.m. between 16th and Locust streets and the Penn and Drexel campuses.
The buses ran on time today and everything went according to plan, said Larry Bell, director of Business Services for the University.
Though Bell said he was expecting between 150 and 175 riders on each round of the shuttle buses this morning, there were only 73 riders for the 80 seats on the two buses that ran at 7:30 a.m. and 118 riders at 8:30 a.m.
"I would've thought they would have been packed," he said, theorizing that the combination of the nice weather and the late announcement of the strike caused many people to either stay home or walk to work today.
He added that there were no delays on the Loop Through University City bus line today and that its ridership was not any higher than normal.
Burth Lopez, a third-year Law student who lives in Center City, took one of the shuttles today but said that "it was a big pain because it doesn't run as regularly in the evening."
He said that if the strike goes on for a significantly longer amount of time, he would consider "walking, biking or cabbing."
If it is prolonged, he said, the strike will be especially problematic for Law students, as many of them live in Center City.
Vukan Vuchic, a Transportation Engineering professor, said that a lengthy strike would be worse than problematic for the city.
"We are in a very sad situation," he said. "It cannot go on for a long time without doing tremendous damage."
Vuchic -- who said he could not guess how long the strike will last -- blamed the situation on the adversarial relationship between union and SEPTA management.
He added that the strength of unions in Philadelphia and what he believes is the "weakness of political leadership" in the city have contributed heavily to the problem.
SEPTA officials could not be reached for comment.
