LOS ANGELES - Mechanics for the nation's third-largest public transportation system went on strike yesterday, shutting down buses and trains that an estimated 500,000 daily riders count on to get around Los Angeles County.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority mechanics walked off the job after midnight, and union officials said bus drivers, train operators and other workers would honor picket lines, halting some 1,900 buses, as well as light-rail and subway lines.
The strike will continue indefinitely
until we get a contract Neil Silver, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said early yesterday by telephone. He was speaking from a picket line where he had joined about 50 members of the union, which represents some 2,200 MTA employees.
More than a dozen maintenance workers waived picket signs after midnight at an MTA center in West Hollywood where buses are cleaned and refueled. We just dropped everything said David Wilson, 26, of Los Angeles.
It was the area's second transit strike in three years; a walkout by bus drivers in 2000 shut down the system for 32 days.
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