The impacts on the Philadelphia transit workers strike will go beyond basic transportation disruptions, says a Virginia Tech expert.

“There are stresses that abound for the strike,” says Virginia Tech engineering professor Kevin Heaslip. “The striking workers are going with less of a paycheck. People in the city have to deal with increased cost and delay. For example, people that have childcare may have to pay by the minute if they are late to pick up a child. This stress can manifest itself in many different ways. Overall the resilience of the city is less when there are less transportation options available.”

Heaslip, who is based at Virginia Tech’s National Capital Region campus near Washington D.C., is a registered professional engineer with more than 10 years' experience in the transportation field. His expertise includes measurement of system resilience, transportation resilience, transportation engineering, public transportation, and urban transportation planning.  Full bio here.

Quoting Heaslip 
“What we have seen in Washington is that people are resilient for short delays, like a one-day shutdown of Metro, and planned delays. However, the unknown makes things more difficult. The advent of ride sharing provides more options for people. However, these disruptions often require people to be adaptable and resilient. Self-reliance is very important in these situations because there is little that government can do to help in these situations.”

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