Businesses Hail Defeat of Forced Commuting Plans

San Fernando Valley businesses Friday welcomed the defeat of a proposal that would have forced them to develop programs to encourage employees to share rides to work to ease traffic and parking problems.

Officials of Valley businesses said they already are helping workers share rides and that such programs should remain voluntary.

The plan, called Regulation VI, was voted down by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. It would have required Southland employers with 700 or more workers at one site to submit plans on how they would encourage workers to share rides, use van pools or take buses to work.

Large Valley employers said they did not like the proposal because it would have required too much paper work and because some plants, with split shifts, have difficulty arranging ride-sharing. They said voluntary ride-sharing programs are already in place at some large Valley plants and offices.

“We aren’t opposed to the goals of the proposal, but we didn’t think the actual proposal was productive,” said Charles Manley, director of facilities, planning and operations at California State University, Northridge.

Formal Opposition

Two business groups, the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. and the Valleywide Transportation Committee, did not support the plan. The association formally opposed it, and the transportation committee refused a district request to endorse it.

But Roger Riga, assistant director of transportation planning for the Southern California Assn. of Governments, a group of county and city governments that had endorsed the plan, predicted that traffic congestion will increase on Valley freeways unless employers offer more ride-sharing programs. Riga said the California Department of Transportation already considers the Ventura Freeway in the Valley to be the nation’s busiest highway.

“There is increased growth projected in the Valley, in Ventura County” and in areas adjacent to the Valley, he said. “We see more congestion, not less.”

Earl G. Burke, plant manager at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Van Nuys, said sharing rides is hard for many of the plant’s 1,350 employees because the company uses staggered shifts in which workers start at different times during the same shift. Workers on the evening shift, for example, could be assigned to start anytime from 5 to 8, he said.

No Formal Program

The company encourages employees to share rides when possible, he said, but has no formal program.

Many of the largest employers in the Valley have ride-sharing programs, working with Commuter Computer, a nonprofit organization that helps employers arrange such programs. The group’s president, Ted Widby, said it works with 368 employers in the Valley, among them Litton Industries in Woodland Hills, Hughes Aircraft in Canoga Park and the Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International in Canoga Park and the Santa Susana area.

About 1,500 of Rocketdyne’s 7,000 employees in Canoga Park and the Santa Susana area use car pools, a company spokeswoman said. Rocketdyne also has three vans for workers who live in Palmdale, Lancaster, Saugus and Newhall, the spokeswoman said.

Hughes, which employs 3,500 at its Missile Systems Group in Canoga Park, has a small program in which four vans each bring up to 11 employees to work daily from Palmdale, Camarillo and Thousand Oaks, a company spokesman said.

Litton shares two vans with other employers at Warner Center in Woodland Hills for workers who live in the Lancaster-Palmdale area and has another for workers who live in Simi Valley, said Ron Palmer, who coordinates the company’s ride-sharing program.

One of the largest commuter programs is at Warner Center, where the City of Los Angeles, developer Voit Cos., the Warner Center Assn. and Commuter Computer are in the middle of a one-year ride-sharing program, which is partly funded by the city.

Norman Emerson, Voit’s public affairs director, said that from 5,500 to 6,000 of the 35,000 employees at Warner Center share rides, most of them in cars.

But Riga said existing programs are insufficient. He said research by the association shows that ride sharing has generally declined in Southern California as gasoline prices have declined over the past few years.

Without programs like the one proposed by the district, he said, interest in ride-sharing programs will increase only when gasoline prices rise.

Times Staff Writer Stephen G. Bloom contributed to this story.