(Photo: Xinhua)

Several million commuters faced their worst nightmare Tuesday morning as a massive transit strike brought New York City's transit system to a halt, threatening businesses and stifling movement across the five boroughs, but for the most part, New Yorkers took the inconvenience in stride.

On a normal day about 3,000 pedestrians and cyclists make the crossing over East River and into Manhattan via the Brooklyn bridge, but by early this morning, the bridge was already crowded with New Yorkers walking into Manhattan, just like it was just over 25 years ago.

It was April when transit workers walked off the job for 11 days back in 1980, but back then, temperatures were in the 60s not the 20's and 30s New Yorkers are dealing with on Tuesday.

In a show of solidarity with displaced straphangers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined thousands of commuters crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on foot as he made his way to his City Hall office shortly after 7 a.m.

One of the main meeting points in the city today for those looking to carpool into Manhattan is the Shea Stadium parking lot, but it does not seem to be working that well yet.

For the most part, drivers are having a hard time finding the three other people necessary to carpool into Manhattan between the hours of 5 and 11 a.m. Plus heavy traffic in the area as well as general confusion, is also slowing people down.

Transit workers began walking off the job at 3 a.m. following a vote of the union's executive board, hours after union leaders rejected the MTA's final contract offer at the end of a contentious bargaining session.

All subway entrances were then locked and station agents and token booth attendants walked off the job.

The city has deployed its strike contingency plan to help smooth the bumps for the region's seven million commuters.

Until 11 a.m. on each day of the strike, vehicles with fewer than four passengers are prohibited from entering Manhattan at all bridges and tunnels south of 96th Street, and barricades at 96th Street prohibit cars with fewer than four people from passing southbound through that point. However, vehicles traveling within Manhattan need not have four passengers.

Even with the restrictions, traffic on the West Side Highway and FDR Drive was backed up for miles by 5:30 a.m. North of 96th Street, drivers were spotted picking up strangers to make it past police checkpoints with the required four passengers.

Meanwhile, the city's public schools are opening two hours later than normal to allow extra travel time for students.

A strike by the city's 34,000 transit workers is illegal under the state's Taylor Law, which provides for substantial fines against public workers who strike. The city comptroller's office says the city stands to lose 1.6 billion dollars in the first weekof a strike, with the hardest economic blow coming on the first day.