Little progress made in bus talks

Friday, June 7, 2002 | 9:30 a.m.

Despite calls from throughout the community to resume talks, the managers of Clark County's bus system and striking drivers reported no real movement Thursday to reopen negotiations.

"Everything right now is just standing still," Amalgamated Transit Local 1637 President Frank Opdyke said.

The strike began 18 days ago, cutting the number of daily passengers on the Citizens Area Transit system in half, to about 75,000. Striking drivers and the management company are far apart on wage, benefit and other issues.

Officials from the Regional Transportation Commission, the agency with overall responsibility for the bus system, have met with union leadership and with officials of ATC, the company managing the system under contract.

"I've met with both sides and listened to their stories and they both tell me that they're willing to start talking again," RTC General Manager Jacob Snow said. "I don't think we can do better than that."

But none of the parties reported any change in status over the last 24 hours in the 18-day strike. Snow said he hopes negotiations reopen soon, but has no timeline.

ATC spokeswoman Valerie Michael said the company's strategy of importing drivers from the company's other operations around the country and of hiring replacement drivers locally is paying off.

Almost all the system's 51 routes now have at least some service, she said, except for fewer than a dozen express routes that are served by other buses.

"Service is pretty much on schedule, which is not to say that every route is on time," Michael said.

Some riders have reported waits of more than an hour for buses which used to come by every 15 minutes.