NEW YORK — Thousands of New Yorkers began a chaotic commute to work Monday as talks between striking Long Island Rail Road workers and the MTA continued for a third day.

The MTA and a consortium of unions representing 3,500 LIRR workers returned to the bargaining table at 7:30 a.m. Monday morning, following a late-night session that ran until about 1 a.m. Monday. As of Monday afternoon, the talks were still ongoing.

“No new proposals took place this morning,” Gary Dellaverson, an attorney who has been acting as the MTA’s chief negotiator, told reporters Monday afternoon.

With no service on the nation’s busiest commuter railroad, passengers coming into Manhattan from Long Island were put on shuttle buses beginning at about 4:30 a.m.

Speaking to NBC’s Today in New York early Monday, MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said the turnout for the shuttle buses was pretty light, but admitted that rush hour wasn’t in full swing.

It appeared that most commuters, Lieber said, took Gov. Kathy Hochul’s advice to work from home, he said.

The shuttle buses will be taking Long Islanders to several transportation hubs in Queens so travelers can take New York City Transit the rest of the way to work, he said.

City subway trains, particularly at these transportation hubs, “are at capacity and running well today,” Lieber noted.

In Hillside Monday morning, a transit worker at the Jamaica – 179th Street station of the F train, one of the drop-off points for the shuttle buses, told the Daily News that the rush of waylaid commuters was busy, but not overwhelming.

One commuter, who took the shuttle from Ronkonkoma to the Hillside station, told The News his commute was smooth before beginning his second leg, taking the F into Manhattan.

Still, the MTA warned Monday that shuttle bus service was limited and could only take about 13,000 commuters to the city Monday — a small fraction of the 300,000 that use the LIRR on workdays.

“Let’s face the facts — it’s impossible to fully replace LIRR service, so effective Monday, I’m asking that regular commuters who can work from home, should. Please do so,” Hochul said Sunday.

Another shuttle-bus rider, Bryan Vargas — an adjunct professor at John Jay College — told The News he was heading east from Jamaica to visit his mother.

Vargas said he wasn’t upset about the strike, but worried about some of his students who relied on the LIRR to get to class.

“I have finals this week and I have students who can’t make it to their finals,” he said.

“I would have thought Hochul would have been more on top of this,” he said of the governor. “I feel it falls in her lap. It’s a state agency at the end of the day.”

“I feel that the workers are asking for 5% and the MTA is offering 3%,” he continued. “So that seems like a no-brainer, 4% — Make this happen!”

Both sides were back at the table as of Sunday night, but it remained unclear if relief was on the horizon.

Lieber called those negotiations “productive,” and hoped to get the contract “over the finish line” Monday, he said.

In a statement Sunday, though, two of the unions representing the workers, the IAM Union and the Transportation Communications Union, described what they called “a disconnect between Mr. Lieber and the reality faced by workers who have gone four years without a raise.”

The unions added: “There appears to be a serious communication breakdown between Janno Lieber, MTA executives and the governor’s office about the realities of these negotiations.”

Hochul made an appearance Monday morning at MTA headquarters in Lower Manhattan, where talks were ongoing.

Sean Butler, a gubernatorial spokesman, said Hochul was briefed by MTA leadership on the status of the negotiations.

“She is pleased that the unions accepted her invitation to return to the table, and encourages both parties to continue negotiating in good faith,” Butler told The News.

The strike comes after more than two years of contract negotiations, two federal mediation boards and two weeks of talks that failed to find common ground on the one outstanding issue — raises.

The two sides settled over back pay, with a handshake agreement to retroactively raise wages by 3% for 2023, 3% for 2024, and 3.5% for 2025.

The consortium of five LIRR trade unions — made up of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the Transportation Communications Union — demanded a 5% raise for 2026, which they said was necessary to keep up with inflation.

After initially refusing to go above 3% without further concessions on overtime work rules, MTA leadership ultimately offered 3% plus a lump-sum payment for the difference between a 3% raise and one year of pay at 4.5%.

The unions argued that such a lump sum would only cover one year, regardless of how long a future contract took to negotiate.

Asked about the strike on Monday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani did not throw his support behind either side.

“I remain hopeful that both sides will be able to reach a fair deal for the workers that ensure that this commuter rail system actually runs, and for the riders who depend on that very same system,” Mamdani said, adding that New Yorkers should expect more congestion and longer travel times as the strike continues.

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(With Josephine Stratman.)

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