By bike, on foot, they got there

TAMIR SMITH's route to school is usually a breeze of a subway ride, a straight shot on the Broad Street line from South Philly to the Franklin Learning Center, in Spring Garden, where he is a senior.

Yesterday, on the second day of SEPTA's city-crippling strike, Smith and his buddy Donald Ross, 14, a freshman, did the unthinkable.

They walked to school.

"I started counting the blocks, but I lost count," the 18-year-old said cheerfully, as they approached their school at 15th and Mount Vernon streets, from their homes near 15th and Federal.

Let us count for you: That's 30 blocks, a distance of 2 1/2 miles, give or take.

Day 2 of the SEPTA bus-subway-and-trolley strike was a day of reckoning for thousands of school kids - who'd had a planned vacation day on Tuesday - and a day of resignation for bedraggled workers.

Lines for commuter rail, which was still operating, shrank just a tad, but anger over the strike - some of it directed at union workers who walked at 3 a.m. with little warning - seemed to grow.

"I'm pregnant and I'm tired," said Lorraine Awuku, 30, of North Philadelphia, standing on a long line that looped around Suburban Station. "It's just inconvenient. It seems like they are bullying the riders and holding us hostage by doing this."

"It's ridiculous - and all the SEPTA workers can be replaced," said Jennifer Deangelo, 23, of Darby. "That's the only word for it: ridiculous."

Cisco Navarro, 41, a part-time night clerk at the UPS distribution facility in South Philadelphia, got to work via a patchwork bus system that UPS, like many companies in the city, set up by hiring bus companies.

His biggest challenge, he said, was getting the buses to stop.

Employees have to show company IDs to get on the bus, but drivers can't tell who is a UPS employee from a distance - and sometimes, he said, they don't stop.

"You're waving your arms," he said, adding that he has now borrowed a UPS hat. "I need to bring cheerleaders."

School district officials said that they hadn't yet computed yesterday's absenteeism rate in all district schools. In high schools, there was a 16 percent average reduction in attendance, said district spokesman Fernando Gallard.

Students who missed school yesterday because of transportation problems will be excused with a note from a parent or guardian, Gallard added. And most schools would bend tardiness rules to accommodate students, he added.

"We have specific schools that we know are magnet schools. Those schools are being more flexible with regard to tardiness," Gallard said. "Neighborhood schools, where most kids come from the surrounding neighborhood, will not be as flexible."

About 58,000 public, private and parochial students use public transit, Gallard added.

Outside Ben Franklin High School, in Spring Garden, sidewalks that normally are empty after school's 8 a.m. start still bustled with students a half-hour after the first bell rang yesterday morning.

Ninth-grader Portia Carpenter usually takes a bus from West Oak Lane to get to school. Yesterday, despite leaving a half-hour earlier than usual to catch the R7 train to nearby City Hall, the irritated 14-year-old still was a half-hour late to school.

"I don't think [the strike] is fair, because they're basically saying we can't get to school on time, and that's going to affect my grades," Carpenter said.

Ben Franklin junior Christopher Bishop said that he'd have to skip football practice to make it to a youth service at his church in Logan, where he plays piano.

He wasn't sure how he'd get there, but he was sure how he feels about the strike.

They "should just give the workers what they need, because they're going to be losing money the longer this strike goes on," said Bishop, 16. "Eventually they'll have to give them what they want anyway, so just do it now, and make everybody happy - including me, because then I could go to football practice."

The students' commute home wasn't much easier.

Borat Tan, 16, goes to the Parkway Center City High School, on 13th Street near Green. He commutes from Olney. When he spoke with the Daily News, it was 3:30. "Normally, I'd be halfway home by now," he said, as he waited for a ride. "Why'd they have to strike? They had a good contract."

Salvatore Benedetto, 16, of South Philly, was just getting ready to hop onto a bicycle to ride home from Benjamin Franklin High School on Broad Street near Brandywine when the Daily News caught up with him. "Normally I take SEPTA," he said. "It's such an inconvenience. I had to ride my mom's bike to go to school."

Despite the strike, people with court hearings still need to show up in court.

"Absolutely," Dave Wasson, chief deputy court administrator for the First Judicial District, said yesterday.

People who aren't able to find a way to get to court should contact their attorneys, he said. If people can't contact with their attorneys, they should call the city 3-1-1 information line to be connected to the courtroom, or should call the courtroom directly. Courtroom numbers can be found online at: http://courts.phila.gov/mobile/courtroomdir.asp

Wasson said that the strike did not translate into more bench warrants' being issued yesterday.

Staff writers Christine Olley, Julie Shaw, St. John Barned-Smith and the Associated Press contributed to this report.