De Blasio to be MIA for LIRR transit strike
The city’s tabloid newspaper front pages next week are easy to imagine: a photo of a nightmarish traffic jam caused by a strike at the nation’s largest commuter railroad juxtaposed with a shot of Mayor Bill de Blasio sunning on an Italian beach.
Despite the potentially damaging political optics, the Democratic mayor appears set on embarking Friday on a 10-day Italian vacation in the face of a looming Long Island Rail Road strike, which if it happens Sunday could paralyze portions of the nation’s largest city. The mayor had said he would return from his trip if a crisis arose but signaled this week that he believed his team could manage without him.
Some political consultants said the trip would look bad for de Blasio.