new Jersey Transit is on strike bringing trains on the nation's third largest rail system to a halt now it's the first statewide transit strike here since 1983 which lasted for more than a month workers walked off the job shortly after midnight which was the deadline for New Jersey Transit Leadership and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainment Union to reach a contract deal for its roughly 400 engineers the two sides have been at odds over salary increases union members have been without a contract since 2019 and say they should make a similar salary to their peers at railroads in New York the Murphy administration has insisted it's put forth a fair wage proposal and says what the union is asking for would be a quote budget buster so how did the talks break down and how long could this last and how can commuters get around we have team coverage tonight with our reporters fanned out across the state we begin with senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan who was with the governor earlier today after catching up with rail riders this morning commuters here in Cranford lined up for express buses to Port Authority one of the remaining routes available into New York for some 100,000 weekday rail riders left stranded after NJ Transit engineers walked off the job at midnight over a wage dispute how's it going uh not well this is my first morning and I wasn't sure where to go and how to get there and this is not the closest bus station to my house but it seemed like the easiest one to figure out it's just stressful not knowing when the trains are going to come and um like when the strike's going to be over tonight I was supposed to go to the Yankee game um straight after work so I don't know how I'm going to do that now because you know getting home could be an issue at least Matt Duso's got options from his employer to work from home generally fewer folks head into the office on Fridays anyway but others don't have that choice i've got three kids i'm work full-time in the city so Lauren Hayes caught a ride with Boxcar one of the private charter bus companies that ramped up service in anticipation of the strike she says it's worth a few extra bucks i went ahead and I booked in advance for the next couple weeks so that I could just be prepared because the lines sometimes here for the regular New Jersey transit buses can be like I don't know sometimes 40 to 50 people deep express buses did look full but they ran frequently enough to keep lines here from getting too long this morning and while some felt NJ Transit Rail Service was going to the dogs I uh sympathize with the with the workers it's it's um you know it's been 5 years since they've gotten a raise the workers are faithful and I I hope that they will resolve the matter soon i want to make sure we get one thing straight up front it did not have to come to this it is frankly a mess of their own making and it is a slap in the face of every commuter and worker who relies on NJ Transit governor Murphy speaking this morning at an empty train station in Aberdine noted the morning commute encountered few issues he said the strike followed a good faith offer to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen it would have given their members almost exactly what they have asked for being paid the same wage as engineers at other transit systems in our region and crucially that contract would have provided our engineers their hard-earned raises without blowing up NJ Transit's budget but talks went off the rails over a so-called MeToo provision that lets other NJ Transit unions demand similar contract enhancements involving concessions the agency claimed it simply couldn't afford to make so what now we've had 3 days of extraordinarily productive discussions and I'll say this to you if you sort of look at this contract as a 100% deal we're 95% there if Monday comes without a contract NJ Transit's planned extra bus service including four parking rides that'll cost the agency an extra $4 million a day a handful of union members picketing near the station made a solution sound simple we want a fair contract you know for fair wages and and get back to our job because our job is to move people and that's what we want to do the last NJ Transit strike lasted 34 days that was back in 1983 both sides in this one say they are eager to resume negotiations in Aberdine i'm Brenda Flanigan NJ Spotlight News