The Port Authority's top administrator today is to recommend declaring a formal impasse in labor negotiations with its main union.

Chief Executive Officer Steve Bland also confirmed he'll offer options, effective soon, to try to keep bus-trolley service running and end the stalemate with Local 85, Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents 2,300 bus-trolley operators, mechanics, other hourly workers and first-level supervisors.

He refused to disclose specifics but said he expects an "eventful" board meeting starting at 2 p.m. today, when he'll make his recommendations public.

The authority board accepted a fact-finder's report on Sept. 12 but the report was rejected later the same day by Local 85's 20-member executive board.

"We're at an impasse," Mr. Bland said of negotiations with Local 85. "I'll be making a recommendation to bring this to a close. The chances of achieving a negotiated settlement are hopeless, so we have to take other action. When the union voted no [to the fact-finder's report], it invalidated everything and put us back to square one."

During the month following issuance of the report, only two negotiating sessions were held before a state mediator.

The bargaining was recently stepped up, with sessions held last Friday, Monday and Tuesday. Mr. Bland participated in the last meeting, which ended after about six hours with the union rejecting the latest offer put forward by authority negotiators and management rejecting the latest offer from Local 85.

"We could meet 20 hours a day for the next 100 days and things are not going to change," Mr. Bland said, expressing exasperation over the lack of progress dating to the beginning of the year, when talks began.

The Austin, Texas-based Capital Metro transit system last week imposed a health care offer on 800 ATU workers, citing federal law allowing it to unilaterally do so for all or part of the latest contract offer. Like the Port Authority, Capital Metro's contract with the union expired June 30.

Local 85 has continued to work under the terms of the previous contract since it expired June 30, and bus-trolley service has continued uninterrupted for people accounting for about 230,000 rides a day.

Mr. Bland, the authority board and county Executive Dan Onorato, who is withholding $27.7 million in funding from the agency, have insisted that any new contract reduce legacy costs involving retirement and health care, whose long-term obligations make the financial future increasingly bleak.

"We have to do something," Mr. Bland said, noting that allowing Local 85 to work under provisions of the old contract could continue indefinitely, rendering the authority unable to meet payroll by the end of the year and likely leading to bankruptcy.

"The union will tell you that [in negotiations] it has proposed ways to cut costs, but every one of its cost savings would end up costing us more, not less," he said.

"We have to take action. We're at an impasse."