Impact Mounts in Transit Strike : Labor: MTA will not meet again with mechanics until Friday; no weekend service is planned if walkout continues. Long waits, lost wages plague stranded riders.

As Los Angeles’ first transit strike in more than a decade wore on, frustration mounted across the region’s tangled roadways Wednesday with angry freeway drivers bristling over rush-hour delays and anxious bus riders scrambling to keep their daily routines from also screeching to a halt.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its striking mechanics ended six hours of negotiation late Tuesday night and will not meet again until Friday. If no agreement is reached by then, bus riders face an even tougher time: No weekend service is planned.

The full impact of the walkout, now entering its fourth day, is only beginning to register for hundreds of thousands of car-less commuters, who have been forced to put up with long waits, lost wages and unexpected hardships--like the Mid-City woman who was denied a job interview after arriving 15 minutes late in a bandit cab, or the stranded Delta Airlines cabin cleaner who had to spend the night curled up at LAX.

“It has totally turned my life upside down,” said Katheryn Marie Smith, 25, as she waited for a bus in the Westlake district to take her home to Eagle Rock. “I’m buying a car.”

The job action, led by the MTA’s 1,900 mechanics, is also taking a growing toll on those who work for the nation’s second-largest transit system, which Wednesday put only 18% of its buses on the road. Supervisors--some of whom have not maneuvered the lumbering vehicles for decades--rushed to relearn the basics. They were greeted with taunts from mechanics, as well as drivers and clerks who are honoring the picket lines; the workers formed human blockades outside some of the MTA’s 32 bus yards.

After hearing claims by transit officials that replacement drivers had been threatened as they crossed the picket lines, a Superior Court judge Wednesday ordered the strikers not to come within five feet of a moving bus. Although there were indications that the strikers had backed off, they remained a vocal presence outside many yards, such as the South-Central facility, where they chanted, barbecued ribs and hooted at their bosses, who responded from behind the wheels with sheepish shrugs.

“C’mon baby . . . let’s see what you can do . . . don’t hurt nobody,” some of the strikers teased, as the rusty drivers hesitantly pulled into the yard.

“It’s not a great feeling to be operating under these conditions,” conceded veteran supervisor Will Ivory, 47, who was thrust into emergency service despite having last driven a bus when Richard Nixon was President. “I know a lot of these guys. I definitely understand where they’re coming from.”

On Day 3:

* Despite the two-day suspension of negotiations, striking workers and MTA management expressed cautious optimism. Sources close to the talks said the two sides are considering a compromise that would eliminate the major stumbling block: the issue of subcontracting. Under discussion is a labor-management committee that would set rules on the MTA’s desire to shift some work from its unionized workers to less expensive private companies. Union leaders fear that the practice could ultimately eliminate their jobs. In a pointed jab at the MTA’s top brass, strikers leaked a document revealing the salaries of the highest-paid officials--40 of whom, according to the list, earn more than $100,000 annually.

* The strike-crippled agency managed to put another 27 buses on the road, bringing the total in service to 345, which traversed 30 selected routes. Normally, 1,900 buses serve 200 routes. The MTA also boosted from 40 to 56 the number of phone operators assigned to staff an information hot line, 1-800-COMMUTE. Even so, callers lucky enough to get through had to wait an average of seven minutes before speaking to an operator. A new phone line featuring recorded transit information--1-800-870-0MTA--also was placed into service.

* Traffic on freeways remained congested, though the increase Wednesday was gauged at just 2%, which officials said was the equivalent of adding five minutes to the typical commute. “It’s the difference of going 50 m.p.h. versus 35 m.p.h. or less,” said Chuck O’Connell, deputy district director of operations at the local Caltrans office. Those figures represented a decline from Tuesday, when Caltrans had said that extra congestion was adding about 15 minutes to the average commute. Traffic volume was reported as slightly heavier on freeways that buses usually travel, such as the Hollywood, San Bernardino and Pomona. Vehicles on surface streets continued to flow smoothly--the result, city officials say, of fewer buses on the road.

* With hundreds of students unable to attend summer school because of the strike, Los Angeles Unified School District officials adopted a new policy allowing students to make up class assignments and tests, or to be dropped from the program without a grade. The policy differs from previous summer school rules in which students who miss more than three days without valid excuses can be given a failing grade. But district officials said that the bus strike is unusual and that they do not believe the students should be penalized.

* Business was booming for taxi companies, as well as for other entrepreneurs, who took advantage of the chaos by charging stranded straphangers for rides to their destinations. At the same time, many Angelenos were barely aware of the problem--further evidence of the two-tiered nature of Southern California commuting.

“It’s like a lot of things in the news--you feel kind of detached unless it directly affects you,” said David Schrader, an attorney with Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison who commutes from Manhattan Beach to his Downtown office in a black Mitsubishi Eclipse. “I don’t drive past any of the picket lines. I haven’t seen anyone waiting endlessly at a bus stop. I haven’t even really noticed any increase in the traffic.”

As it has from the beginning, the brunt of the strike continued to be felt by the more than 500,000 commuters who rely on the public transit system every day.

Ever since MTA mechanics, followed by 5,000 bus and train drivers and clerks, walked off the job at 12:01 a.m. Monday, Alfredis Tapia has been forced to spend more than seven hours a day improvising his way to a hodgepodge of part-time jobs around town.

“I’m depressed, worried, just like everyone,” said Tapia, a Westlake district resident, as he boarded a bus at Alvarado Street and Wilshire Boulevard, hoping to make it on time to his job at a dry cleaner in Pacific Palisades. If the strike goes on, he said, “I’ll probably go crazy.”

Not far away, Fernando Bangandian fumed, while fingering his monthly bus pass. “I’m wasting my money like this!” snapped Bangandian, 27, as he waited for a bus to take him from his class at the nearby Associated Technical College. He just started classes this month, but said he was thinking of dropping out if the bus strike continues to make his commute last several hours.

“A lot of people’s getting mad,” he said.

Few have a horror story, however, to compare with that of Paula Smith, who works nights cleaning the cabins of Delta airplanes.

To get to work from her Mid-City home Tuesday afternoon, Smith caught a yellow school bus, which took her only as far as Slauson Avenue before the driver announced to her surprise that it was the end of the line.

She then walked to Century Boulevard and waited at another bus stop for about 45 minutes before she was spotted by a friend with a car who took her the rest of the way to the airport. But if her journey to work was a pain, it was nothing compared to the return trip. When Smith got off work at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, she discovered that there would be no bus service until dawn.

“Pretty bad,” is how she described her restless night, spent huddled in an LAX passenger terminal. “Tonight will probably be the same thing again.”

Scrambling to get more buses on the road, MTA officials on Wednesday continued their efforts to train administrators in the finer points of defensive driving.

While no MTA personnel were forced to become bus drivers during the strike, they would not have been paid had they declined to attend the intensive four-week bus driver program being held at the agency’s El Monte depot.

Gladys Lowe, a grant analyst in the MTA’s capital planning section, was among several dozen employees who spent the day in class, shoulder to shoulder with many other reluctant but diligent students, who never imagined that they would sit behind the wheel of a bus.

“I don’t like to drive,” the 35-year-old Santa Clarita resident lamented.

“It’s not my cup of tea,” added Larry Bates, 51, who usually conducts seminars on interpersonal skills. He said he was stunned when he first sat in the driver’s seat. “Seems like a cockpit with all these buttons. It’s a whole different view of the world.”

The striking drivers who stood vigil since 2:30 a.m. outside the MTA’s South-Central bus yard on 54th Street made sure to use their replacements’ lack of experience as ammunition. Chanting “Whoomp there it is!” to a rap beat, they blocked each bus from leaving the facility for four minutes--a time mutually agreed upon by union leaders and police.

Claude Mitchell, a 17-year veteran mechanic, complained Wednesday that one of the supervisors behind the wheel had stared him down and then barreled by, grazing his hip with the bus bumper. “If that had been one of us, we would have been called in for a drug test,” said Mitchell, who was not injured.

But most of the other strikers were remarkably sympathetic to the drivers who had been called in, explaining that their beef was with the top brass and not mid-level managers, who had no choice in the matter. The gentle teasing during the four-minute blockades was like a congenial minuet.

“The only reason it’s peaceful is that we know these guys would rather not drive these buses off the yard,” said Willie Haigler, 46, a driver for the last 10 years. “If these were scab drivers, all hell would break loose here.”

After reading one replacement driver’s tale, however, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Huss decided to impose some limits.

In an affidavit presented to the judge, Andrew Bernstein contended that his life was threatened and his path was blocked as he tried to maneuver a bus out of a Downtown Los Angeles bus yard. “A (striking) driver ran to my bus . . . and pulled open my window and tried to get at me,” Bernstein wrote. “My home was threatened with destruction.”

Richard A. Katzman, an attorney for the MTA, also contended that picketers were “endangering themselves by attempting to block or impede the 40-foot, seven-ton buses that enter and exit the divisions. The picketers are causing the buses to delay commencement of service on MTA’s lines. They are causing the buses to leave the divisions at alternate exits, which creates a danger to the bus operators and to motorists on the public highways.”

Huss, in ordering strikers to keep their distance, said: “This is serious, and it will not be tolerated by this court if it is true.” He set an Aug. 12 hearing on a preliminary injunction.

Joe Freitas, a lawyer for the mechanics union, said that the protests at the bus yards have been noisy but have been nonviolent and monitored by Los Angeles city and transit police with no arrests. He added that he did not believe any mechanics had prevented replacement buses or other vehicles from entering or leaving bus yards, but that union members would abide by the court order.

“I don’t anticipate any problems whatsoever,” he said.

At the MTA bus yard in Sun Valley on Wednesday, there were not enough strikers to try to block buses anyway. Where about 40 had picketed at the entrance of the yard the previous day--delaying buses for up to 15 minutes at times--only two strikers were out Wednesday afternoon. Everyone else had gone elsewhere to avoid the searing sun.

“I don’t think we’d be successful in blocking a bus,” said John Crogan, a striking mechanic, sitting in the shade as supervisors pulled buses out of the depot. “Everybody’s just being real cool today.”

San Fernando Valley taxi driver Stephen Kloc has no ill will toward the strikers or frustrated commuters, but he’s in no hurry for the strike to end, just the same.

“I’d say business has increased maybe 60-70%,” said Kloc, an ex-Marine, as he pulled out of the Checker Cab yard at 7 a.m. 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 they are not likely to pull a knife on him, as happened once, or to 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,” said Kloc, who has been driving a cab since January of last year.

For Alex Regio, the strike has been a chance to turn a quick buck, albeit illegally, undercutting the prices charged by cabbies like Kloc.

First, the 19-year-old unemployed painter had to get his ’87 Nissan Sentra out of the shop, where it was being serviced for clutch problems. But by Wednesday, even though it shakes and rattles between gears, he was ferrying people in the MacArthur Park area for $2.

“I’m trying to take advantage of the extra opportunity that the RTD is giving us,” said Regio, who after 2 1/2 hours of work had shuttled 10 riders and had $20 in his pocket.

Already, he had developed a marketing strategy, placing his wife, 24-year-old Miriam Cruz, in the front seat with him. “There’s people who look at me, I’m a man, and they’re nervous,” he said. “When they look at my wife, they look her over and say, he doesn’t look that bad.”

Times staff writers Nicholas Riccardi, Beth Shuster, J. Michael Kennedy, Timothy Williams and David Colker contributed to this story.