L.A. Transit Strike Affects 450,000

Stories from the Los Angeles Times, Associated Press,
the New York Times and the Washington Post

Page 1 of 2

LOS ANGELES -- At rush hour, Lisa Smith is usually behind the wheel of a city bus, not picketing on a Pasadena Freeway overpass, the Associated Press reported.

But a strike by bus drivers that has idled 2,000 buses, rail and subway lines in a 1,400-square-mile area has left few things untouched in Los Angeles County.

"These people should be on the buses,'' said Smith, pointing to the freeway traffic mess below. "People who rely on buses need buses. We do care about the people. This is as stressful a time for us as it is for our passengers.''

Bus drivers and county transit managers agreed to meet Tuesday on the fourth day of a walkout that has forced nearly half a million commuters to search for new transportation.

The United Transportation Union, which represents 4,300 bus and rail operators, will have representatives at the meeting, but is not ready to resume contract talks, said spokesman Goldy Norton. Transit managers said they were ready to negotiate.

As the walkout moved into its first work day on Monday, hundreds of thousands of regular rail and bus riders scrounged for rides or got behind the wheel themselves, further clogging Los Angeles' already crowded roadways.

Freeway traffic volume rose 5 percent during the morning commute on Monday, adding about 30 minutes to the drive, the California Highway Patrol reported.

"It is a substantial amount, but it didn't result in a major headache like we thought,'' CHP Officer Bill Preciado said.

It was a different story on surface streets, where cars snaked bumper-to-bumper through downtown with workers complaining that commute times had doubled.

MetroLink commuter trains, which aren't part of the strike by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority system, arrived on schedule at downtown's Union Station.

Most commuters, some of whom carried bicycles on the trains, scattered on foot and bike or waited to catch connecting rides with co-workers in cars.

"I may have to take vacation time without pay if this continues,'' said MetroLink rider Donna Packard, 34, of Covina, who was stranded at Union Station.

The MTA said it faces a $438 million operating deficit over the next 10 years if it doesn't cut costs or increase fares. The MTA has offered 2.7 percent raises per year for three years; the unions want 4 percent per year.

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MTA Strike Has Deep Roots in Agency's Past Mistakes

Finances: Mammoth debt, costly union contracts and ambitious plans left directors with two choices: lower workers' pay or raise riders' fares.

LOS ANGELES -- The transit strike that has brought the nation's second-largest bus system to a standstill is the direct result of the MTA's past decisions to build the nation's most expensive subway system, take on billions of dollars in debt, sign relatively generous union contracts and keep pushing to expand mass transit, the Los Angeles Times reported.

As a consequence, the MTA's Board of Directors has boxed itself into a financial corner, caught between past obligations, future dreams and a demanding present.

While the agency is flush with billions of dollars to build more rail and bus projects, it struggles to pay to operate what it already has. The agency's annual budget is $2.5 billion, of which 50% comes from a penny-on-the-dollar state sales tax, 9.3% from fares, and the balance from state and federal subsidies and annual appropriations. The latter are earmarked for construction.

After opening almost 60 miles of rail lines in the last decade and being forced by a federal court consent decree to improve its long-neglected bus service, the MTA faces a massive $438-million operating deficit over the next decade.

That's before the agency takes on the responsibility of running light-rail lines from downtown Los Angeles to Pasadena and the Eastside or building busways across the San Fernando Valley and along Wilshire Boulevard. To do so would add an additional $287 million to the projected shortfall.

To close this gaping hole, the MTA board sees only two choices--cut operating costs by forcing unionized workers to make concessions or take the politically unpalatable step of raising fares for poor and minority passengers.

So the board has decided to finance future expansion by savings from its workers, politically the path of least resistance.

Unwilling to surrender their standard of living to pay for MTA's past mistakes, 4,400 bus and train operators have shut down the MTA's bus and rail system.

But the MTA board is determined not to give any ground this time. "The MTA must reduce its costs if we are going to expand service to this community," said county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, chairwoman of the MTA board. "The community is demanding more buses, more services. But unless we can get a reduction in our costs, we are going to have to start reducing services. We need to expand services."

With California's booming economy generating a huge budget surplus, Gov. Gray Davis has promised well over $1 billion in state funds to the MTA for new projects, including a light-rail line from Union Station to the Eastside, a busway across the San Fernando Valley from Warner Center to North Hollywood, and a busway along Wilshire Boulevard from downtown to Beverly Hills. The largess includes money to buy another 385 clean-fueled buses to replace older vehicles.

Despite this infusion of capital, the MTA doesn't know how it will pay the cost of operating the new service. The agency already is struggling with the consent decree to which it agreed to settle a federal civil rights suit. Part of that settlement requires the agency to reduce overcrowding and improve bus service. It is awaiting a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on its appeal of a federal judge's order to buy hundreds of additional buses.

The MTA already is committed to running a light-rail line from Union Station to Pasadena, although state lawmakers stripped the agency of responsibility for building the project.

The prospect of more rail lines is far more appealing to most MTA board members than running a bus system. Rail projects are seen as politically sexier than buses. They bring the potential to award large contracts to engineering, construction and other companies, which have a history of being active contributors to political campaigns, which the MTA's board members must regularly conduct.

And rail projects like the subway tend to attract a higher-income rider who will not ride a bus.

When it comes to finding operating funds, the MTA's hands are tied by the board's past penchant for borrowing to cover the cost of building rail projects.

The agency has amassed more than $7 billion in debt, including principal and interest to be repaid over the next 30 years. Most of those borrowed funds paid the cost of building two light rail lines and the local share of the Metro Rail subway from downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley, including cost overruns.

So today, one of the agency's biggest expenses is payments on that debt. Debt service alone consumes $343 million a year or 13.4% of the MTA's $2.5-billion budget. The money must be paid to MTA's bondholders before any buses roll or trains run.

To control other expenses, the MTA board has zeroed in on workers' paychecks.
Mayor Richard Riordan and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky have been outspoken that the $98 hourly cost of running an MTA bus is higher than any transit operator in Southern California. They are fond of comparing the MTA's operating cost to the Santa Monica municipal bus line, a small operation that spends $64 an hour to operate buses, but does not operate under a consent decree or serve a vast area with a huge population of low-income riders.

Riordan and Yaroslavsky blame the difference in expense on the MTA's unions. But the record shows that it has been a two-way street. Every collective bargaining agreement must be approved by the MTA board.

Three years ago, the MTA board voted 10 to 0 with three members absent to approve the United Transportation Union contract that contains what the directors now call "outmoded and antiquated" work rules. Those casting "yes" votes included Riordan, Yaroslavsky, Burke, and Supervisors Gloria Molina, Mike Antonovich and Don Knabe, and Gardena City Councilman James Cragin, all of whom still sit on the MTA board.

Burke said in the past that the MTA board would simply give in to union demands, but not now. "Every time there was the threat of a strike, the pressure became so great on those people who were actually at the leadership of MTA that they said we'll sign anything to keep from having a strike," she said.

In explaining why he now objects to the contract that he voted for in July 1997, Yaroslavsky said: "We have new management in this agency and they identified some of the problems with work rules. We are determined to make a stand now for the long-term interests of the bus riders of this region."

Yaroslavsky said that if the MTA fails to achieve the savings it needs from the drivers union, it will mean a 20-cent increase in the basic bus and rail fare of $1.35.

In the last three years, the MTA board has rejected two recommendations from MTA Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke to increase fares. The agency is free to do so under the consent decree as long as the increase does not exceed the rise in consumer prices. But the board has been reluctant to boost fares when two-thirds of the agency's riders have incomes of $15,000 a year or less.

Because of the widespread use of monthly, semimonthly and weekly bus passes and discount tokens, the MTA recovers less than 28 cents of every $1 it collects from the fare box. While the strike has brought the flow of fare box revenue to a stop, the agency continues to collect receipts from the county's penny-on-the-dollar transit sales tax although it is not providing any transit service.

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Commuters Scramble on Strike's 1st Weekday

Transit: A meeting today may set a time for resuming talks. Many MTA customers walk to work or school. Others rely on friends or unauthorized taxis.

LOS ANGELES -- The full impact of a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus and rail strike hit the system's 450,000 daily commuters Monday, the first weekday since drivers walked off their jobs rather than agree to concessions that included a sharp cut in income, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A state mediator persuaded the two sides to agree to a meeting today at which they will try to set a time for resuming negotiations. But that was the only sign of progress.

Commuters who rely on public transit scrambled across the Los Angeles area to find a way to jobs and schools without MTA buses, subways or light rail lines. Some walked for miles in the searing heat. Others spent their entire day's wages on taxis to get to work.

Still others rode bicycles, hitchhiked, found rides with friends, relatives or co-workers or hopped aboard unmarked vans that began plying the abandoned transit routes, sometimes charging two or three times the regular $1.35 bus fare.

"Hasta la Westwood!" a woman yelled from an old van at Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. "Tres dolares." ("To Westwood! Three dollars.")

Three women jumped in, wedging themselves into narrow spots on the vinyl seats. But 15-year-old Sergio Siguenza couldn't afford the fare, and despaired that he would ever make it to his classes at Fairfax High School.

"I think I'm just going to go home," he said. "I just can't get a ride."

About 4,400 drivers, members of the United Transportation Union, went on strike Saturday, hours after a breakdown in negotiations with the MTA. The transit system's management, facing a growing deficit, is demanding new work rules and a 15% cut in overtime costs.

The drivers, who earn between $10 and $20.72 an hour with overtime, say they are barely clinging to the middle class and cannot afford to give up any income.

About 45 activists, bus drivers and bus riders held a demonstration to demand that the five county supervisors who sit on the MTA's board end the strike by meeting the union's demands.

Marching with placards bearing photographs of the three Democratic supervisors on the MTA board--Zev Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who chairs the agency--the members of the Bus Riders Union were joined by strikers outside the county Hall of Administration.

Among the chants that marchers read from yellow pieces of paper were: "Hey, Burke, stop the strike, this is our lucha [struggle], this is our fight," and "Riders and drivers won't pay for your rail, your racist plans are going to fail."

Members of the BRU, an activist group pushing for better bus service, said they sympathized with striking drivers and accused the MTA of building expensive rail projects for the middle class on the backs of the agency's working-class employees and riders.

"Most of them [bus drivers] are working-class people, much like the bus riders," said organizer Shawn McDougal. "If the bus riders were wealthy white people, we wouldn't see the MTA board treating us this way."

McDougal scoffed at the MTA's pleas of poverty, noting that the agency has found $200 million to help fund the Pasadena Blue Line and built what has been called a palatial headquarters downtown.

The MTA runs the nation's second-largest bus system, as well as a fledgling subway and rail network. Because most Southern Californians drive their own cars, most commuters felt the impact of the strike in subtle ways, if at all.

The California Highway Patrol said traffic on the region's freeways was 5% heavier than usual, but not significantly more congested. Similarly, officials with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation said that while traffic on streets was heavier than usual, there were no extraordinary jams.

Still, along some stretches of Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley, people were walking faster than cars were moving; some carried dress shoes slung over their shoulders and had a businesslike focus to their stride.

Rochelle Omg, a 24-year-old legal assistant, found a half-full way of looking at it.
"Hey, walking is good exercise, right?" said Omg, who usually takes the bus from her home in Van Nuys to her office in Encino.

Most of those who usually depend on mass transit managed to find alternative ways to get where they needed to go. It just wasn't always easy.

On the Eastside and in southeast Los Angeles, many regular bus riders hit the streets on foot. Cooks, factory workers, textile employees and others awoke at least two hours before they were expected to be at work to make the long trek. They wore comfortable shoes, packed their lunches in easy-to-carry grocery bags or backpacks and brought bottles of water to keep from dehydrating in the unusually hot weather.

Not all of them realized at first that there was a strike. For three hours, starting at 5 a.m., Marianna Molina and her uncle Uriel Barrieto, both immigrants from Honduras, sat at an MTA bus stop on the corner of Atlantic and Washington boulevards in Commerce waiting for their regular bus to take them to Bell, where they work at a warehouse packing novelty items.

"A lady told me the strike is over," Molina told a reporter. "So where are the buses?"

Informed that the strike was still on, Molina looked up Atlantic Boulevard in desperate hope that a bus--any bus--would nonetheless arrive. They were already two hours late for work. Molina hoped her boss would understand.

Finally, offered a ride by a motorist, she smiled. "We pray to God that this strike will end soon," she said.

There were similar scenes of early morning confusion at the San Fernando Valley's two subway stops.

Patricia Abila, a 22-year-old fashion designer, got out of a car in front of the North Hollywood Red Line station, started walking toward the plaza, took in the deserted parking lot and then whipped around and tried to chase down the car that dropped her off. The car left before she could stop it.

"At first I didn't realize why so many cars were missing," she said as she leaned against a pay phone, out of breath, calling home for a ride to work. "I heard about the strike last week. I just didn't think they'd go through with it."

Employers of transit-riding workers had braced for the worst, but found that most of their staff made it to work one way or another.

"We have 100% attendance today," crowed downtown knitting contractor Jackie Bender. "A lot of white-collar workers might not have made it."

It was the same across a variety of industries that employ low-wage workers, most of whom don't get paid if they miss a day. In fact, it was a lack of customers, not employees, that bedeviled some Southland companies.

Foot traffic on Huntington Park's normally bustling main drag dwindled to a trickle with the double whammy of high temperatures and idled buses. That translated into sluggish sales for retailers such as Dearden's furniture store, which targets working-class immigrants with $700 living room sets.

"It's empty out there . . . and slow in here," said store manager Frank MacLean. "Pacific Boulevard is normally busy any time of day with people walking or waiting at the bus stop."

The strike disrupted life for more than 16,000 students in Los Angeles and thousands of others across the region who rely on MTA buses to get to school.

Many hitched rides with aunts, uncles, friends, strangers--anyone they could tap. Some paid a few dollars to hop in "gypsy cabs" operated by motorists who were ferrying passengers around Los Angeles for the right price.

Some parents rearranged work schedules to shuttle their children to school and pick them up afterward. But students whose families don't own cars bore the brunt of the problem. Many rose before dawn, removed the heaviest books from backpacks and set out by foot or bike.

"My shoulders hurt," said Cody Bailey, a seventh-grader at Virgil Middle School in the Pico-Union district as he approached his campus. He had just walked a mile and a half and was sweating profusely. Cody was late, and he feared the repercussions.

"I think they are going to give me detention," he said. "They'll probably say I should have walked faster."

The strike also was felt at community colleges, where many classes were one-third to one-half empty. Administrators at some colleges estimated that at least half of their students depend on public buses.

The strike had a modest ripple effect on counties surrounding Los Angeles, as L.A.-bound commuters lost their ability to transfer into the MTA system.

For instance, Metrolink trains, operated by a regional consortium called the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, serve the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura.

While Metrolink was not affected by the MTA strike, many of its passengers are used to transferring onto MTA buses or subways at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. They had to find other means of transportation Monday.

There was, for instance, super-commuter Andy Gonzales, who demonstrated the resilience of the mass transit rider. The Moreno Valley resident usually takes Metrolink to Union Station and then takes the Red Line to the Blue Line to the Green Line to get to his job in Torrance. Since his car broke down two months ago, Gonzales has mastered public transportation.

He said he knew he might have to take a Torrance city bus from downtown Los Angeles if there was an MTA strike.

"I thought I'd take that bus if all else failed," he said. "Well, all else failed today."

(Continued)

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