Ride-Share Plan Faces Big Test in AQMD Board Vote

A far-reaching ride-sharing program to reduce commuter traffic--and with it air pollution in Southern California--faces a crucial vote today by the South Coast Air Quality Management District board.

An estimated 8,000 companies employing 40% of the 3.5 million daily commuters in the South Coast Air Basin would be required to offer employees incentives to voluntarily share rides and reduce the number of trips between home and work if the program is approved.

Incentives could range from company-subsidized parking for van pools to showers for workers who ride bikes to work. Other trip reduction strategies include a four-day, 40-hour workweek and “telecommuting,” which involves an employee working at home on a computer linked with the office.

Individual companies would be left to decide for themselves which programs to undertake to meet the district’s goal of increasing the number of commuting passengers in each vehicle.

“We think certainly from the prospect of congestion and the air pollution, that it’s the single most important rule the district’s ever proposed,” AQMD Executive Officer James Lents said Thursday. Another district official compared the proposal’s significance to the rule mandating gasoline vapor recovery systems at service station pumps.

Today’s vote will mark the first major decision to be made by the AQMD board since it was granted new authority by the Legislature to crack down on air pollution in the nation’s smoggiest urban area.

The South Coast Air Basin, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, will not meet clean air standards for another 15 years or longer, even though federal law set a Dec. 31, 1987, deadline.

Companies have been required by the AQMD since 1977 to urge employees to share rides or use public transit during second- and third-stage smog alerts. Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to require 225 companies within the city limits that employ at least 500 to file ride-sharing plans by next May.