Taxi Drivers Benefit From MTA Strike : Labor: Some people who normally take the bus are now calling a cab to get to work and elsewhere.

Taxi driver Stephen Kloc wishes no ill will on bus riders, but he is in no hurry for the strike to end either.

“I’d say business has increased maybe 60-70%,” ex-Marine Kloc says as he pulls out of the Checker Cab yard at 7 a.m. Wednesday on his way to his first fare of the day. “All through the days, the calls come--not just during the drive-time hours.”

The clientele is by and large pleasant, too. Those displaced by the strike might not be big tippers--after all, they’re making a major adjustment from the $1.10 bus fare to the cab’s $1.90 pickup fee plus 20 cents for each one-eighth of a mile or 40 seconds waiting time--but Kloc figures that they aren’t likely to pull a knife on him, as once happened in North Hills, or get sick in his cab, which has happened a few times with fares picked up at bars.

“These are nice people who woke up Monday morning and realized . . . they would have to find another way to get to work, or wherever,” says Kloc, who has been driving a cab since January, 1993.

Those who can afford the fare are happy to see him arrive at the door.

“I’d heard I might have to wait an hour, but this wasn’t bad at all,” says David Felix, emerging from his apartment building in North Hollywood at 7:20 a.m., his untied tie draped around his neck.

Felix asks Kloc to stop at a nearby liquor store so he can get a copy of The Times, and then to take him to Paramount Studios, where he works as an accountant. Normally, he catches a bus that travels over the hill to Hollywood at 6:15 a.m.

“I used to drive, but I had this little problem with speeding tickets,” he says as Kloc drives the cab--actually a van that seats up to six--onto the street.

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“I was up in Camarillo, where I have a house, over the weekend, so I didn’t know anything about the strike,” Felix says. “I went out to catch my bus as usual on Monday and I was out there an hour, wondering what was going on, when a policeman came on by in his patrol car and told me. It just blew me away.”

Kloc pulls into the driveway under the ornate studio gates. The fare is $15.10. Felix hands him a $20 bill and asks for $4 back. But because Kloc has not yet gotten change that morning, he has to give him a $5 bill--losing not only his tip, but an extra dime.

Still, Kloc shrugs it off as he heads back to the San Fernando Valley. “That happens,” he says with a smile. It was certainly better than the few times passengers have bolted from his cab without paying.

Kloc receives no salary. In fact, he has to pay $650 a week to Checker, which owns and maintains the cab and sends him out on calls. Anything earned above that amount in fares and tips is his profit.

“It’s not bad work; the money is good,” says Kloc, who began studying real estate at Valley College after his discharge from the Marines. When he found that he needed some extra money to pay bills, he started to drive a cab and liked it.

“It’s like being on vacation,” says the affable Kloc, dressed in regulation white shirt, dark pants and tie, with the added personal touch of a red San Francisco 49ers cap. “I get paid for sightseeing.”

The real estate market being what it is, Kloc stuck with the cab.

On Wednesday, the second fare is in Van Nuys: Philip Hawkins, an architect, wants to go to the Amtrak station in Burbank, where he is to board a train for the start of a train and bus trip to Lake Tahoe. Hawkins is barely aware of the strike.

“In 21 years in Los Angeles, I could probably count the number of times I’ve taken a city bus on one hand,” Hawkins says.

The fare is $4.50; Hawkins hands Kloc $5.

The dispatcher has another fare for Kloc in nearby North Hollywood. Polo Maramba, 20, usually car-pools to his job as an accountant at Burbank-based Iwerks Entertainment, a company that makes special-format movie theaters and virtual-reality attractions.

“The car-pool driver got in an accident and couldn’t come today,” Maramba says. Normally when he can’t car-pool, Maramba takes the bus to Iwerks. But this day, he enjoys the relative luxury of the cab for a change.

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“This is nice,” he says, slumping down in the seat. “And this guy doesn’t drive like a New York cab driver.”

The fare is $7.30. Maramba hands over $8.

Then Kloc is off to the next pickup radioed to him by the dispatcher. He never knows when one of these normal calls could end up as a chapter in local cabby lore, a thought that reminds him about the time he picked up a man in North Hollywood who simply said, “I’m going to Vegas.” When Kloc asked the man if he was aware how much that would cost, the man tossed $500 on the front seat and off they went. By the time they reached Las Vegas, the meter read $440. But with a generous tip, plus money for gas and meals, Kloc got a total of $1,300 for the one-way trip.

The call in North Hollywood turns out not to be in that league. Brandon Siler, 19, emerges from an apartment building carrying a suitcase, garment bag and electronic keyboard. He is going to the Greyhound station in North Hollywood to catch a bus back to Sacramento.

An aspiring rapper, Siler had been in town for a couple of weeks looking for work as a waiter, hopefully in Hollywood, near the music industry. But the bus strike interrupted his plans.

“I couldn’t take the bus anymore, so I decided to go to my mother’s for a while,” Siler says. “I won’t come back until I get a car.”

His brief time in Los Angeles, trying to get around in spite of the strike, is not a total loss, however.

“Maybe I’ll get a song out of it,” he says, getting out of the cab.

The fare is $3.90. There is no tip.