TWU Local 100 has begun to strike "MTA properties" in New York - meaning buses and subways shut down.

Mayor Bloomberg is not pleased.

Here's the city's plan for "alternative transportation."

The union has an alternative plan too - it's going to blogger if its web site crashes again!

Here's a site with some New York City traffic cams, so you can follow along with the fun today as it happens.

MORE: Traffic on the Long Island Expressway and other highways was moving at a nice clip, although there were a higher ratio than normal of angry, psychotic tailgaters. Train station parking lots didn't appear to have any extra volume on Long Island, either.

MORE: Amy Langfield has a lot more at AmyLangfield.com and NewYorkology.com.

Gothamist posts union boss Roger Toussaint's statement, which includes this:

"All Local 100 stewards are directed to report to their assigned strike locations, picket lines, or location nearest you immediately. To our riders, we ask for your understanding and forebarence."

Well, one rider posted this on Gothamist:

Way to go, Transit Union. For all those people without health insurance, who get paid hourly, who can't work and now don't get paid, I wish you luck getting your contract.

Nothing like holding an economic gun at the forehead of the city, especially people worse off than you.

That's probably not the understanding Toussaint was hoping for.

MORE: Commuter Jeff Jarvis is in rare form.

MORE: If you follow conventional wisdom, and don't drive into the city, you'll avoid situations like the photo at right. (NYC DOT cam via Alkemis.)

MORE: Gov. George Pataki is back from New Hampshire and Iowa and is on the case.

MORE: CNN Pipeline, the new, Internet-based subscription service of CNN which provides four live news streams all day long, has been covering the strike and showing breathtaking aerial video of traffic backed up all throughout the city's five boroughs. But when a correspondent was prepping to shoot a live report for CNN, and was standing in front of the camera outside Penn Station, he began - apparently unaware the video was streaming all over the world - to jawbone with his camera man. The reporter (who looked unfamiliar and unhappy) laughed, shook his head, and said, on cam, "You know, it's funny. You and I have worked for this company for how long? And it's still..." It didn't appear he was going to say something flattering about his company, but just at the moment of truth someone spiked the live stream from CNN Pipeline. Rats.

Tag: Transit Strike