NYC Transit Strike Highlights Skating as Commuter Alternative

Skaters in the News:

Inline Skates Become Darling of NYC Transit Strike

News Stories Feature New Yorkers Rolling to Work

By Robert "Just the Factoids" Burnson

The New York City transit strike is doing a nice job of highlighting the commuter potential of inline skates.

Hundreds of otherwise strikebound New Yorkers have been skating to work, and the news media is taking notice.

News stories about the strike have uniformly mentioned inline skating (more often than not called "rollerblading") as one of the "creative ways" New Yorkers are getting to work.

And a favorite photo to go along with the stories has been of commuters, sometimes dressed in overcoats, skating along the crowded boulevards.

One Reuters story began this way: "New Yorkers begged rides on the Internet, dusted off their bikes and put on their skates on Wednesday in a battle to beat a mass transit strike."

Later, the story quoted 42-year-old medical researcher Rudi Hiebert, who said the strike provided him with "a good excuse" to dig out his inline skates.

"I need the exercise," he said. "It's a beautiful day — I think I might keep skating to work even when the strike is over."

Newsday Poll

New York Newsday is asking its readers to take a poll on how they are getting to work during the strike.

So far, 5582 people have responded.

Of those, 2.5 percent chose the "Rollerblade" response.

By comparison, 33.1 percent chose "Walk" and 4.3 percent chose "Ride my bike."

The largest number of participants (38.6 percent) chose "Nothing! I'm stuck at home."

(Posted on Dec. 22, 2005)