Supervisors to Vote on Issue : Money-Losing Van Pool Nearing End of the Road

The county government’s van pool program--a symbol of San Diego County’s commitment to public transit and energy conservation--is wilting for lack of use and is on the verge of elimination.

The program was begun with high hopes in 1980, when the nation’s second major gasoline shortage prompted fears that gas would soon cost $2 a gallon. Now, the 11-van network has fallen victim to a series of changing circumstances, including plummeting fuel prices.

Just 54 of the 12,000 county government workers use the vans, and the program, designed to be self-supporting, is expected to end the fiscal year $8,000 in debt.

Chief Administrative Officer Norman Hickey wants to junk the network and sell the vans. County supervisors will review the issue April 15.

Larry Watt, who runs the program for the Department of Public Works, said the van pool was an idea that, despite its good intentions, “never really took off.”

The plan was to provide convenient transit for county workers whose schedules or residences prevented them from using the public transit system. The county hoped the program would help alleviate a parking shortage at the courthouse in downtown San Diego.

Three 12-passenger vans were bought in August, 1980, and eight were added a year later. The vans, using pool participants as drivers, pick up workers at locations near their homes.

At its peak in 1983, the network served 96 county workers. But Watt said a combination of factors led to the program’s downfall.

He said nearly 1,300 county employees, many of them former van pool riders, now take advantage of a $30 county subsidy to buy monthly bus passes. With the subsidy, the passes cost workers $8 a month.

Van pool fares, meanwhile, are $28 to $48 a month. A recent 321% increase in liability insurance rates means next year’s fares would average $64.

Watt said it has always been tough to persuade workers to leave their cars at home. With gas at less than 90 cents a gallon, that job is even harder.

“Whenever I try to sell people on the van pool, when I tell them the fare from South Bay to Kearny Mesa is $47 a month, their first reaction is, ‘Well, I can drive for that much,’ ” Watt said.

To keep ridership up, the county has opened the program to other than county workers, and 21 of the 75 current participants are non-employees. Watt said an extensive effort to market the service within the county has failed to generate many more riders in the past year.

“Taken together, the cost of gas, the bus pass subsidy, the availability of free parking, and Southern Californians being very auto-oriented, these are the reasons it never took off,” Watt said.

At least one rider, public works employee Bill McBride, believes the county would be mistaken to close down the system and sell the vans.

McBride, who rides from Escondido each day to his office in Kearny Mesa and serves as a backup driver, said he believes patience and more aggressive promotion could save the van pool.

McBride said only one General Dynamics employee rides in his van from Escondido, despite the fact that thousands work a short distance from several county buildings in Kearny Mesa. He said the county could do more to reach potential van pool riders among the General Dynamics work force.

When gasoline prices rise again, and if the county closes the parking lots flanking the County Administration Center on Pacific Highway, commuting may regain some of its old glamour, McBride said.

“I think the problems can be corrected,” McBride said. “The county should be a leader in this. To abandon it is a step backward.”