AQMD’s Ride-Sharing Proposal a Power Play, Not Clean-Air Plan

Remember Big Brother? Well, say hello to Big Mother. The South Coast Air Quality Management District board has decided that Southern Californians’ transportation preferences (“life styles”) are inconsistent with a long-term reduction in air-pollution levels. More candidly, commuters’ habits are inconsistent with the AQMD’s never-ending quest for greater power and authority for itself. Accordingly, the board has approved a “voluntary” ride-sharing program for Southern California. Over the next few years businesses with more than 100 employees will be required to offer incentives for them to abandon their autos in favor of car pools or public transportation for their trips to and from work.

The official description of this idea as “voluntary” is sheer sophistry. Employers will be required to prepare and implement ride-sharing plans under threat of $1,000-a-day fines. Thus the program is coercive by any standard, and the fact that the coercion is aimed at employers rather than employees does not change that. Indeed, the pressures on employers inevitably will be shifted onto employees because of the potential financial penalties. The AQMD clearly is trying to shield itself from the predictable outrage of motorists by shifting the enforcement burden onto employers.

Obviously, cleaner air is a goal that anyone can support. This does not mean that any proposal blithely promising cleaner air should be supported. It is necessary to ask, “Will it work?” and “At what cost?” This proposal will not work, and indeed cannot work, in the short or long term.

The goal of the ride-sharing program is a reduction in the number of automobile trips, particularly during peak-congestion (rush) hours. This reduction is to be achieved by offering incentives for employees to share rides or otherwise to reduce their automobile use. But the kinds of incentives that employers feasibly can be forced to offer, like preferential parking, simply are not going to be worth enough to employees to induce them to sacrifice the privacy, convenience, flexibility and other benefits of individual commuting by automobile.

The costs of automobile operation--fuel, maintenance, depreciation, parking, etc.--are substantial. That commuters continue to accept them suggests that the benefits of private automobile use outweigh the expense. The number of people who voluntarily will sacrifice them in exchange for marginal benefits will be small. The incentives being suggested by the AQMD, like showers for those who ride bicycles, speak volumes about the proposal’s dismal prospects for success.

Nor can the proposal reduce automobile use or pollution levels in the longer term. Peak-hour congestion develops because people highly value the ability to drive to and from work and home. But the price of using the roads is zero. This difference between the prices and value of road use is in effect a “free lunch” for commuters, but everyone would like to get the free lunch. Thus a “shortage” develops in the form of peak-hour congestion. People “compete” for the free lunch by getting onto the roads, and continue to do so until worsening congestion raises time costs sufficiently.

If the AQMD proposal reduces the number of automobiles on the roads, it also will speed traffic, thereby reducing the time cost of commuting. This means that some people who previously avoided driving will be induced to drive again. And make no mistake about it--the supply of potential peak-hour drivers is staggering. The net effect will be the same amount of traffic, with the same congestion and the same air pollution but with more people traveling.

The evidence supports this view. The three diamond lanes in Southern California are reserved for car pools and buses. The faster travel in the diamond lane is an AQMD-style “incentive.” However, traffic in the non-diamond lanes is moving as slowly as ever because the shift of some people into the diamond lane initially reduced congestion, and so induced others to replace them on the freeway.

Subway systems in New York, Washington and San Francisco provide huge “incentives” (subsidies) for people to leave their cars at home. Has the use of autos been reduced in those places? Of course not: The use of the subways by some erstwhile auto drivers merely has made it easier for others to drive and for new business to locate downtown. If you, dear reader, believe that the Metro Rail boondoggle will reduce automobile use in Los Angeles, then I would like to discuss with you some nice condominiums in Beirut.

None of this is news to the AQMD; its real goal is not cleaner air but more political power. It is the AQMD that will have the authority to grant exemptions, and so it is the AQMD that will be able to demand other things in return.

Since the board is appointed, it finds it easier than, say, the City Council does to dispense with such minor technicalities as the consent of the governed. Isn’t the electorate weary of mindless social engineering by mindless bureaucrats? Hasn’t it had enough of Big Mother?