CITY TRANSPORTATION BOARD WILL LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVES.

Byline: Rick Orlov Staff Writer

With the bus strike stranding hundreds of thousands of workers and students, Los Angeles city officials on Friday began exploring ways the city could provide more transportation service while cracking down on bandit cabs.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski won approval of her proposal to have the city's Department of Transportation - which already operates several DASH systems - to look at ways it can provide more transportation services around the city.

At the same time, council members voiced concern over the proliferation of bandit cab operations that have sprung up and the threat it presents to the public as well as lost revenue to the city.

``There is a real danger here,'' Councilman Nate Holden said. ``I was at a station where the (Santa Monica) Big Blue Bus was dropping off passengers, and they were scrambling to get into these vehicles. It took the police to come out and stop it or someone would have got hurt in traffic.

``And, there is a danger to the public. It is only a matter of time before we hear of some young girl getting into one of these and end up being hurt and the city could be held liable.''

Transportation officials said they have been trying to enforce the city's laws on the illegal operations, but they only have four investigators for the entire city, and there has been at least one incident where the investigators were surrounded by a crowd when they attempted to arrest a driver of an illegal cab.

However, Councilman Mike Hernandez said the department had failed to show sensitivity to the crowd in the Pico-Union area when it made the arrest.

``You should have tried to get the Spanish-language media to report on the dangers,'' Hernandez said. ``What concerns me is you went into an area that is heavily reliant on mass transit and attempted to use it as an example. It sends out a bad message.''

Councilman Rudy Svorinich, who heads the council's Transportation Committee, said he will be holding hearings in the near future on the possibility of increasing the number of cabs licensed to operate in the city.

``We have to realize that these (illegal) cabs are filling a void right now,'' Svorinich said. ``Even though we now find ourselves in a transit crisis, we shouldn't back away from enforcement of our laws against bandit cabs.''