Thousands of commuters in Queens and Brooklyn found their regular bus drivers on strike yesterday, transforming the normal morning rush into a frenzied scramble for a ride to the subway – from neighbors, livery drivers, and others eager to make a quick dollar.

Drivers and mechanics of two of the city’s seven private bus lines went on strike just after midnight yesterday. The union workers at Command Bus Company and Green Bus Lines, which serve approximately 70,000 commuters daily, have worked two years without a contract. They are seeking job security, pay raises, and health benefits on par with Metropolitan Transit Authority workers. The MTA is supposed to manage the bus lines after the city purchases them, though talks on those deals have also stalled. The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1179, which represents the workers, will not meet with the city until Thursday.

The strike leaves commuters such as Rosa Rosario, who lives in Richmond Hill, Queens, in a lurch. Though the city had given commuter vans the authority to pick up passengers for $1.50 each along designated routes, including her Q10 bus line, Ms. Rosario found nothing but a mad scramble for livery cars on Lefferts Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue, where she normally catches her Q10 Green Line bus.

She found a car – after waiting an hour – paid $10 for the 10-minute journey to the subway, and arrived at her work in SoHo at 10. She had to smile and shake her head: She was only supposed to work a half-day.

“I shouldn’t have gone out,” she said on her way home outside the Kew Gardens subway stop on the corner of Queens Boulevard. “I should have taken the day off.”

Seeing a business opportunity amid the dearth of commuter vans, Ghulam Khanlodhy eschewed his broken-down taxi in favor of a 1991 beat up Honda Accord to shuttle passengers.

“It was crazy this morning,” he said, dropping off one passenger. “I even gave one girl a ride to school, no charge.”

The city has purchased and assumed control of only one of the seven bus lines that it was supposed to take over last month. With the two parties unable to agree on terms of the deal, Mayor Bloomberg extended the operating authority of the buses, giving both companies control of their bus routes in Brooklyn and Queens until April 30.

Caught between a looming buyout and having to operate a full fleet has taken its toll on both workers and the companies’ buses, some of which are in poor condition.

The lawyer representing both companies, Douglas Cooper, wrote a scathing letter to Mr. Bloomberg yesterday in response to the mayor’s recent comments that management was “ginning up” workers to strike.

“If by ‘ginning up’ you mean that management is trapping or tricking the workers into their strike, you evidence a profound misunderstanding of the causes of the strike,” Mr. Cooper wrote. “The city has caused it.”

The mayor struck a decidedly less confrontational tone.

“It would have helped the public if they had waited to negotiate before they went on strike, but that’s another reason perhaps why you want the MTA running transportation in this city,” the mayor told reporters yesterday. “But I am confident that cooler minds will prevail.”