New York ? A strike deadline came and went early today with no word of a walkout, but prospects remained dim that negotiators would reach a deal to avert a crippling shutdown of the city’s subway and bus system.

Talks broke down about an hour before the midnight strike deadline, and the Transport Workers Union and Metropolitan Transportation Authority offered bleak assessments of the possibility of avoiding a strike.

The 12:01 a.m. deadline passed with no word on whether transit workers would strike, however. The union board was meeting at its headquarters to discuss its next move.

Turning up the pressure on the city’s transit agency, union members at two private bus lines in Queens walked off the job early Monday.

More than 7 million daily riders would be forced to find new ways to get around if the 33,000-member Transport Workers Union shut down the nation’s largest transit system.

With an hour before the deadline, Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Tom Kelly said the MTA put a fair offer on the table.

“Unfortunately, that offer has been rejected,” he said.

New York City commuters wait on a midtown subway platform during the evening rush hour as the deadline for a mass transit strike approaches. The deadline passed at midnight with no word of a walkout. A citywide bus and subway strike would be New York's first since an 11-day walkout in 1980. The city's buses and subways, the nation's largest transit system, serve up to 7 million riders per day.

Kelly did not elaborate and the union said only that President Roger Toussaint was on his way to union headquarters to discuss developments with the board, which would vote on whether to strike.

Earlier, Toussaint sounded pessimistic about reaching a deal as he appeared before a boisterous gathering of union members Monday evening.

“As we stand right now, with six hours to go until our deadline, it does not look good,” he said. “I’m going to leave you now and go back to the hotel and give it one last shot.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said a walkout could cost the city as much as $400 million a day – a figure that includes police overtime and lost business and productivity. It would be particularly harsh at the height of the holiday shopping rush.

The mayor said a strike would freeze traffic into “gridlock that will tie the record for all gridlocks.”

Transit workers are barred under state law from going on strike. A walkout could bring punishing fines.

The last citywide bus and subway strike in New York was in 1980. The walkout lasted 11 days.