LIRR strike forces NYC workers into nightmare travel that adds hours to commute

The Long Island Rail Road strike forced some commuters to waste two extra hours on the road as they scrambled to catch shuttle buses while motorists who drove into the city struggled to find parking Monday morning.Nassau and Suffolk county residents who typically rely on the LIRR to get into work described their trip into the Big Apple as a “nightmare” and “hell” as they were reduced to pawns in the heated bickering between the MTA and the picketing unions.“Everyone’s miserable, but the people really getting screwed are the ones who physically have to show up somewhere,” Wantagh local Kevin Haller, 38, told The Post as he boarded a bus at the Bellmore station.Diane Carlucci, 54, was forced to leave her house at 5:30 a.m.to catch a shuttle bus from the same station and it took her nearly three hours to reach her job where she works as a billing coordinator at a doctor’s office.Usually, she would enter Penn Station in less than an hour as she blasted the unions for the train shutdown that started Saturday morning.“So it’s really terrible, and I’m getting palpitations thinking about doing this every day while those stubborn a–holes – who already get paid way above national average and get out-of-control overtime – stop the system and make life hell for hundreds of thousands of people,” the Bellmore resident fumed.The MTA-provided buses picked up workers from six locations across Long Island, then dropped them off at different subway stations in Queens, leaving workers to take subways the rest of the way as train workers picketed outside Penn Station and other spots in the region.Paralegal Marisol Vega, 39, said her commute, which involved a bus, a subway and then another bus added almost two hours to her travel.“I’m already exhausted before I even start work,” the Seaford resident said.Ricky Persaud, who took a bus from Ronkonkoma to Queens called the arrangement “mayhem,” while Andrea, who did not want to share her last name, d...