Restless Riders

As negotiations resumed Wednesday between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and two of its unions, 11-year-old Erendira Huerta considered the likelihood that she would have to walk to her South-Central Los Angeles school, if there is a strike.

It is a grim prospect for Erendira, who peered out at a neighborhood of liquor stores, body shops and boarded up storefronts as she weighed the possibility.

At the same time the girl stood in a queue at her bus stop, Ann Zander, a 67-year-old grandmother, interrupted her knitting on a Vermont Avenue bus and said she will be “in deep trouble” if there is a strike.

“I couldn’t get around--to shopping, to the doctor, to my church,” said Zander, en route to her work as a secretary for her Baptist congregation.

On another bus, known as the “Nanny Express” because it was put on line to take housekeepers and nannies from South-Central to Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades, a sense of alarm has been growing daily.

“They are worried,” said driver Jose Fonseca of his passengers, many of whom are immigrants from Mexico and Central America. “They are very concerned. They ask me every morning if there will be a strike.”

The MTA’s 450,000 bus and rail passengers--arguably the most important stakeholders in a possible transit strike--are split between those who have cars and those who don’t.

But the gap between those who depend on public transit and those who don’t is a wide one. Transit agency studies indicate that as many as three-quarters of its customers depend on public transit.

Those riders express a deep sense of anxiety about a bus and rail strike.

They fear losing jobs or missing school, and are already considering such plans as using vacation time during a strike because staying home is their best alternative.

Those with cars may have the biggest impact on the rest of Los Angeles, because they will once again be hitting the freeways.

But even some of them are uneasy about the prospects of a strike.

Cathy Williams, 40, who uses the MTA’s Blue Line to commute from her home in Carson to her job at an East Los Angeles health clinic, is one who would like to stay out of her car, other than for the short drive she makes every day to the Del Amo rail station.

“I don’t like driving on the freeway,” she said, getting nods from others on the train. “You get unused to it. You don’t want to go back.”

Although none of the unions have yet said they plan a strike, the 4,300-member United Transportation Union, which represents bus and rail operators, and the 1,860-member Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents mechanics, both took strike authorization votes this summer. A 60-day “cooling off” period has come and gone, with none of the big issues resolved. A five-day contract extension will expire at midnight Saturday. After that, it will be day to day, although two of the unions have promised riders at least five days’ notice before a walkout.

As for this week, buses and trains are expected to keep running.

“Barring anything stupid by the MTA, the public should not have to worry about getting to work this week,” said Tommy Elisaldez of the mechanics union.

Representatives for the drivers union and the Transportation Communications International Union, which represents 650 clerical workers, were back at the bargaining table Wednesday after a one-day adjournment.

Elisaldez said he thought the mechanics union would resume negotiations “sometime Friday.”

Should a strike come, the number of buses the MTA puts on the road would drop from 2,000 to 100, if that many. All Metro Rail operations would cease.

In that event, even five days’ warning would not help most of the bus and rail passengers interviewed Wednesday.

The possibility of a strike comes at a time when public transit riders have more options than ever before. The MTA recently introduced a new line of rapid buses, and, with completion of the Red Line, it runs light rail and subway trains on 59 miles of track.

‘We Would Have to Walk’

Clearly, some riders are making full use of the system, riding buses and trains to get from home to work to school, as well as to stores, church and social activities.

As young Erendira waited for a bus at 6:45 a.m., tightly clasping her mother’s hand, she was in a line that included other students from Carver Middle School, night shift workers on their way home and others boarding buses for day jobs.

Erendira’s mother said the family does not own a car. “We would have to walk,” she said, nodding in the direction of the school, 10 blocks away from the bus stop at Long Beach and Vernon Avenues.

“The only transportation I have is the bus,” said Zander, the 67-year-old grandmother, riding the 204 bus down Vermont on one of the city’s most heavily traveled bus lines.

As he left the Vermont/Sunset subway station in Hollywood, Rodney Williams, 37, said a transit strike would “shut me down completely.”

Williams, who does not own a car, lives in Silver Lake and relies on the subway and buses to get around. He uses the transit system to get to a UCLA Extension class in Westwood, to pursue fashion design work downtown and to take care of business in Hollywood.

“I don’t drive at the moment,” he said. “To eliminate a total means of transportation for me would be a really big deal.”

For Bill Williams, 52, who lives in Watts and works as a printer for the city of Beverly Hills, the prospect of a strike is like a nightmare resurfacing. He lost jobs in two earlier strikes, said Williams, a regular on the “Nanny Express.”

“I might have to rent a motel close to work,” he said. “I just can’t afford to lose this job.”

MTA buses and trains are also the lifeline for a number of San Fernando Valley residents who travel 30 miles or more each day round-trip between the Valley and downtown or the Westside for work, school and shopping.

Laura Rios, who rides buses from near her home in Canoga Park to her job in Beverly Hills, said she may have to leave the home she shares with her husband and move in with the elderly woman she cares for six days a week.

“She has to have somebody watch over her,” Rios said. “And I have to be able to get there without a car. [In the event of a strike,] the only thing I can see is to move in with her until the buses start going again. This is going to be a big problem for me.”

Those with no backup plan--no family available, no car and little cash--said an interruption in bus service would cut off their livelihoods and threaten their health.

Jack Jammal suffered a heart attack two months ago and has been diagnosed with diabetes. The retired hearse driver takes MTA buses from Burbank to Kaiser Permanente every other day for follow-up visits to the doctor.

“I might be able to get my daughter to take me to the doctor one day, but she works at Warner Bros. You can’t just walk into one of these studios and say, ‘I can’t come to work every two days. My father’s sick,’ ” Jammal said.

10-Hour Days for Drivers Questioned

Still, many of the bus riders appear to be siding with labor, particularly on one issue they found troubling: the MTA’s proposal to put most bus drivers on a four-day, 10-hour work schedule of split shifts. Though the drivers would be paid for 10 hours, they would actually have to be available for duty 12 hours. Counting commuting time, it would mean 14 hour days for some of the drivers.

Even now the drivers have stressful jobs, moving the lumbering buses in and out of traffic on the city’s busiest streets, with motorists sometimes honking or making obscene gestures at them, bicycle riders cutting in and out, and having to deal with the questions, complaints and concerns of a constant stream of passengers getting on and off.

Knowing what a driver’s life is like already, riders said they feared they would be getting on buses with exhausted drivers if the plan were ever implemented.

“They can’t push the drivers like that,” said Pam Crayton, who takes the bus every day from South-Central to a job with the House of Blues in West Hollywood. Even though she doesn’t know how she will get to work should there be a strike, she hopes the drivers hold firm in opposing the plan.

“That is dangerous for them and for us,” she said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Who Rides the MTA

Percentage of bus riders who do not have a car, truck or motorcycle in their household: 49%

Percentage of bus riders who do not have a valid driver’s license: 68%

Percentage of bus riders who use mass transit to get to work: 69%

Percentage of bus, rail riders with income of less than $15,000: 68%

Percentage of Los Angeles County’s population with income of less than $15,000: 20%

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Racial and ethnic background of MTA bus and rail riders

Latino: 51.9%

Black: 22.3%

White: 12.6%

Asian/Pacific Islander: 8.6%

Other: 4.6%

Source: MTA data for 1996-98, 2000

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Times staff writer Zanto Peabody contributed to this story.