Executives Push Traffic Programs : Incentives May Thwart Growth-Control Measure, They Say
San Diego business leaders met Thursday to urge rapid action by employers to cut down on traffic, stressing that positive results before the November election might dissuade voters from approving a strict growth-control measure.
San Diegans Inc., a private nonprofit group of about 100 center city business executives, hosted speakers from public transportation agencies and from firms whose workers are using their cars less.
James Schmidt, vice chairman of Great American Savings Bank, said the citizen-backed Quality of Life initiative limiting construction of new housing “is a back-door assault on jobs” that is fueled in part by frustration with clogged streets and freeways, and he called for companies to swiftly enact incentive programs and subsidies to encourage their employees to car-pool or take the bus.
‘We Have to Do Something’
“We have got to act. We have got to do something,” said City Councilman Bruce Henderson in lending his support to the group’s self-described “War on Traffic.”
At the same time, Henderson gave a plug for Proposition K, which he said would require employers of 25 or more people to offer staggered work hours.
“It’s one of the easier steps (to cut down on traffic), and we’ve got to get (the public) to buy in by getting them to vote,” Henderson said. “We still have a chance to not become another Orange County or Los Angeles County.”
Ron Kendrick, who heads the business group’s transportation committee, said it hopes to cut the number of downtown employees who drive alone to work from 65% to 50%. In October, the group and city agencies will sponsor trial programs of car-pooling and staggered work hours, Kendrick said.
“We’re concerned with the economic impact of the ballot initiatives, and we want to do what we can on our own to deal with congestion. Hopefully, the public will then be able to see in a better light more of the pros and cons of the propositions--particularly the cons,” he said.
The business group also hopes to win a $50,000 grant from the U. S. Department of Transportation to set up a private-sector coordinating body to reduce traffic to the workplace, he said.
“We’re just getting it started, but it could be a wonderful model for the rest of the county,” he said.
Among the employer options outlined at the two-hour meeting were partial or full subsidies for riders of public transit, partial subsidies for parking lot fees (with or without added discounts for each car passenger) and company shuttle buses to and from remote parking lots.
Representatives from the California Department of Transportation, the Metropolitan Transit Development Board and the San Diego Assn. of Governments gave presentations showing that traffic--especially freeway traffic--has increased at almost double the rate of population growth because of the employment boom and the farther reach of development, among other factors.
5% Increase in Capacity
They said other factors, such as ongoing road construction and the implementation of reversible traffic flow lanes and car-pool lanes, will increase freeway capacity by only about 5% in the foreseeable future, while the current 160,000 vehicles per day will swell to 250,000 by 2010.
Several of the speakers lauded last year’s Proposition A, which allowed the county to raise an estimated $2.2 billion for transportation by increasing the sales tax a half-cent.
That money has just begun to flow into public coffers, but Anne-Catherine Vinickas of the MTDB said the agency will launch a new express bus on Interstate 15 next month and run other buses later into the evening.
