The transit workers' strike that crip pled Manhattan last month was clearly illegal. And the Transit Authority's will ingness to end the walkout by agreeing to pay an estimated $60 million in wage boosts and fringe benefits was hardly more correct. New York's tough Condon-Wadlin Act not only forbids strikes by public employees but prohibits pay raises to strikers for three years after they go back to work. Still, most New Yorkers — from Mayor John Lindsay to the harried ...

Miami's poorer residents have long complained that the city's meager public-transit system makes it harder for them to get to work. So when the Obama Administration announced the $787 billion stimulus plan earlier this year, many hoped some of that money would help fund plans like an expansion of Miami's undersized Metrorail system — especially a 10-mile northern extension that would reach into predominantly African-American and other minority communities largely cut off from downtown and other employment centers. But ...

Chances have increased slightly that the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will reopen in time for the Friday morning commute, transportation officials said Thursday evening.The 73-year-old bridge spans the San Francisco Bay and carries an average of 280,000 vehicles daily, according to the state transportation department. In the wake of the bridge's closing, commuters flocked to the Bay Area's rail system as an alternative. On Wednesday, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) said it had carried the most passengers ever. About ...

A former "enemy combatant" who was held in a South Carolina Naval brig for six years with no charges was sentenced Thursday to eight years and four months in prison, a Justice Department spokesman said.The 73-year-old bridge spans the San Francisco Bay and carries an average of 280,000 vehicles daily, according to the state transportation department. In the wake of the bridge's closing, commuters flocked to the Bay Area's rail system as an alternative. On Wednesday, Bay Area Rapid ...

Some New Yorkers may want to reconsider exclaiming "Thank God" when arriving at their destination subway station beginning next Monday. Or at least that's what a coalition of eight atheist organizations are hoping, having purchased a month-long campaign that will place their posters in a dozen busy subway stations throughout Manhattan. The advertisements ask the question, written simply over an image of a blue sky with wispy white clouds: "A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you" On ...

Federal safety investigators said Tuesday they fear flaws found in Washington's Metro subway system after a deadly crash this summer may endanger other transit systems, and they sent out an urgent recommendation asking that other rail operators check for similar problems. In letters to federal regulators, the National Transportation Safety Board said "all rail transit operators and railroads should be informed" about system flaws that could cause a track circuit to fail to detect a train. It was not clear ...

Five people were killed and seven were injured Tuesday when a local transit bus crashed into a ravine in western Germany, police said.

A suicide car bombing in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul killed four American soldiers and an interpreter Monday, the U.S. military said. But, the Council of State said, "measures taken since the end of the Second World War have compensated for the damage." Northern France was directly occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II while the south of the country was ruled by the Vichy government that collaborated with Adolf Hitler. France's role in the deportation of its ...

The British are coming, the British are coming -- to Brooklyn? By subway? New York's struggling Metropolitan Transportation Authority has sold the naming rights to the second-busiest subway stop in Brooklyn. The Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street Station will now have the name of a British bank, Barclays, added to it. Several subway riders are outraged that Barclays has purchased the naming rights to this subway stop, which sees about 10 million people go through it each day. One straphanger said, "A ...

A military helicopter crashed Friday in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 26 security personnel on board, the Pakistani military said. A Marine source described the fighting Thursday evening as "our most significant encounter." Sporadic fighting took place over several hours in the southeastern sector of Garmser district, said Pelletier, spokesman for the Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan. Helmand province, a poppy-growing region, is the focus of the military push called Operation Khanjar. Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world's opium, ...