Strike Snarls Las Vegas Bus System : Labor: Pickets seek a pay hike and better medical coverage. A tour line is also affected.

Thousands of Southern Nevada residents scrambled to find alternative transportation Friday as a strike of the Las Vegas Transit System shut down most city buses.

Gray Line Tours of Southern Nevada, which provides tours for visitors to the area, was also hit by the walkout.

Nearly 200 members of the Teamsters and Truck Drivers Union Local 631, which claims to represent 90% of the 240 workers in the Las Vegas Transit System, walked off the job Thursday and set up picket lines at the companies and at the Downtown Transportation Center.

David Wikstrom, secretary-treasurer of Local 631, said the union was seeking a wage increase of 10 cents an hour and improved medical coverage that would have cost the company an extra $35 per employee per month.

Under the current contract, signed in 1988, drivers start out at minimum wage and reach $10.94 an hour after four years.

Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones said both sides had agreed to meet with a federal mediator in hopes of working out a solution to the strike. She said those talks could come as early as the weekend.

“This isn’t good for anybody,” Jones said. “We have limited (public transportation) resources as it is. This is particularly hard on the elderly and the disabled.”

Las Vegas Transit operates 45 buses and reported carrying 8 million passengers last year. Gray Line has 109 buses and reported carrying 1.9 million passengers in 1990.

A non-striking bus driver was arrested Thursday after he allegedly bumped a picket with a bus.