Unless two negotiating teams can bridge what appears to be an unbridgeable gap on Wednesday, HRM will see its first transit strike in 14 years.

Over 700 Metro Transit workers will be heading to the picket lines Thursday unless the municipality and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 508 can work out an eleventh-hour deal to keep the buses and ferries running.

That didn’t look likely Tuesday as the two sides played a lot of “he said, he said.”

Negotiations broke off before noon. Union representatives alleged the municipality left the negotiating table.

But Metro Transit director Eddie Robar told reporters later that afternoon the municipality hadn’t gone anywhere.

“We’re back all night tonight, all day tomorrow ‘ whatever it takes,” he said.

Those comments came after a two-hour closed-door meeting between Robar and Halifax regional council. Robar said he received no new instructions from council on the negotiations.

Ken Wilson, president of Local 508, said he had received no request from the conciliator to return to the table as of late Tuesday evening.

While the municipality budged from contracting out service ‘ the purported main issue up to now ‘ they did not back down from issues around scheduling and raises.

Robar said the union is looking for a three per cent raise in each of the next three years, which he estimates will cost the municipality $10 million. Metro Transit’s proposal is for a two- year deal with a four per cent overall raise ‘ by Robar’s estimates ‘ at a cost of $1.8 million.

Wilson said the two-year deal is unacceptable ‘ but not because of the money.

“The (ATU) has never, ever striked over getting something, wanting something, or money. It’s counterproductive,” he said.

“The employer set this freight train in motion, not the union.”

Amid all the claims, there is one certainty: if the two sides can’t come to an agreement by midnight tonight, people depending on transit are out of luck.