Though bus drivers in Orange County walked off the job Saturday, it took the workweek to begin for the strike to deliver its wallop. Sensing profit in some people's misfortune as workers struggled to commute, enterprising motorists transformed their vans and trucks into bootleg taxicabs. If anything, the bus strike, which shut down about 60% of the county's routes, highlighted Orange County's gap between its wealthy and working class, between the haves and have-nots. Many of the Orange County Transportation Authority's 225,000 daily riders are telemarketers, fast-food workers, maids, landscapers and machine operators. Two-thirds of county bus riders are Latino, about one-fifth are white and 72% don't own a vehicle, according to a 2005 OCTA ridership survey.
See "Bus strike means a hard road for the working poor", Tony Barboza, Ashley Powers, and Christian Berthelsen, Los Angeles Times, July 9, 2007