Air Quality Board Kills Ride-Sharing Proposal : Votes Down Incentive Plan for Large Employers Despite Strong Show of Support

The South Coast Air Quality Management District board Friday killed a proposal to require large employers to offer workers ride-sharing incentives.

The ride-sharing measure was voted down 8 to 5 after a three-hour public hearing despite strong support from air quality district staff and an unusual array of business groups, government agencies and environmental organizations. Supporters of the plan had outnumbered opponents by a 4-1 margin.

Thomas Heinsheimer, AQMD vice chairman and a staunch opponent of the proposal, said its adoption would have been a “first step” toward mandatory ride-sharing.

The AQMD staff had estimated that the proposal could take as many as 200,000 cars a day off area freeways and cut emissions of carbon monoxide and other automotive pollutants by more than 100 tons a day.

‘It’s a Downer’

“It’s a downer,” said Barbara Sullivan, executive director of the Coalition for Clean Air, after the decision. “We’re missing some really good air pollution reductions we could have had.”

The proposal, under development by the AQMD staff for two years, would have applied to public and private employers with more than 700 workers at a single location. There are about 500 such firms, with an estimated 1.3 million employees, in the four-county South Coast air basin.

They would have been required to appoint an in-house ride-sharing coordinator and to offer incentives to coax commuters into car pools, van pools or buses.

The incentives--such as subsidized bus fares or parking for car pools, or an end to free parking for solo commuters--would be intended to raise ridership during rush hour above the current average of about 1.15 riders per car. Depending on their location, companies would have had to provide a package of incentives designed to raise the average to between 1.3 and 1.6 riders per car within two years.

Workers would not have been required to join car pools, nor would employers have been required to achieve the ridership targets. They would have been subject to penalties only for failing to develop ride-sharing plans.

David Howekamp, chief of the air management division at the Environmental Protection Agency’s San Francisco regional office, praised the proposal as “innovative, effective and enforceable.”

Federal Sanctions Possible

He reminded the board that the South Coast district will not be able to meet national air quality standards by the 1987 deadline, raising the possibility of federal sanctions. These sanctions could include a cut-off of federal highway and sewer construction funds and a ban on permits for new polluting industries.

Howekamp said the ride-sharing measure, “if properly implemented . . . is a viable alternative to mandatory imposition of sanctions.”

Robert Bacon, a city councilman from West Covina and chairman of the Environment and Energy Committee of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, said the association backed the proposal because current ride-sharing efforts have had little success.

“Caltrans’ numbers show that the level of ride-sharing in the region in 1984 dropped for the third consecutive year,” he said.

“In the meantime, the region’s transportation system simply cannot keep pace with the growing demand placed on it.”