Greyhound Riders Find Tickets Buy a Long Wait : Travel: About 200 complain of having to tarry for up to two days at downtown terminal. Firm blames delays on changes in drivers’ schedules.

About 200 weary ticket-holders complained bitterly Monday that they had been waiting up to two days at the seamy Greyhound depot on Los Angeles’ Skid Row for buses headed to the Bay Area.

“It’s been horrible,” complained Tanya Gallegos, 33, who said she had been waiting at the bus station since Saturday. “There are babies crying, kids throwing up and people sleeping everywhere--on the floors, in the chairs, in the halls . . . everywhere.”

Greyhound’s regional manager, John Butler, conceded that his northbound buses were running behind schedule, but he said the disgruntled customers were exaggerating--he doubted that anyone had been waiting more than 12 hours.

Butler blamed the delays on regional changes in driver schedules and route assignments that left the company temporarily unable to cope with a passenger increase from the spring break at local schools and the annual northern migration of farm laborers from Mexico.

Although Greyhound is still saddled with a drivers’ strike that has stretched into its 13th month with no end in sight, the acts of violence that intimidated both passengers and replacement drivers have stopped, Butler said.

“We’ve got enough drivers,” he said. “It’s just a matter of getting adjusted to the new schedules. Things should be getting back to normal this afternoon.” In fact, by midafternoon, the waiting lines had shortened considerably.

But that wasn’t soon enough to satisfy ticket-holders such as Nova Parham, 20, who was sitting on the floor across from Door 14 Monday morning with her 16-month-old daughter, Alexandria.

There were about 20 people ahead of her in line and about 60 behind her, all waiting for a bus that seats 43. A few were on their feet, but most were sprawled on the floor, trying to sleep. As time passed, the line continued to grow.

“Alexandria and I got here at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, in time for a bus to Sacramento that was supposed to leave at 11 a.m.,” Parham said. “We got our tickets and we got in line, but they wouldn’t let us on, because that bus was full. . . .

“They told us to come back at 2:30, and we did, but that bus was full, too,” she said. “By then there must have been 100 people in our line, and there were lots of other lines, too.”

Parham said the same thing happened again at 11 p.m. She said the bus after that, due at 3:15 a.m., never showed up.

“They say the next one’s due in three more hours,” she said. “I’ve got no choice but to wait, because I can’t afford to go any other way.”

Greyhound officials said there are no reserved seats, so it’s first-come, first-served, with no guarantee of a seat on any bus.

“That really gets me,” said Scot Rose, who was heading for Eugene, Ore., from Flagstaff, Ariz. “If they haven’t got the seats, they shouldn’t sell the tickets.”

Greyhound information clerk Annette Smith said some customers she talked to Monday morning were “pretty mad. . . . I tell them, ‘Go ahead. Cuss me out. But you’ve still got to wait in line.’ ”

She added: “Hey, when you pay a cheap price, you get cheap service.”