We’re Driving Ourselves to a Lousy Quality of Life in Our Smog-Maker Cars : Transportation: We suffer from obstinate attachment to the car. If we stop subsidizing it, we’d get smog and traffic relief.

A poll in The Times reveals that most Southern California drivers are angry and frustrated about traffic, that 38% have made obscene gestures to other drivers, that 5% keep a gun in their car and that 20% admit to running a red light within the past month.

Another drivers’ poll, commissioned by the state, reports that 24% said they would car pool, that 25% would ride public transit if available, but 43% think that industry should pay the bill for clean air.

Both polls suggest that greater public education is necessary. Autos, not businesses, create about 70% of our smog.

It is not the auto per se that has diminished the quality of life in the region. In fact, our marvelous freeway system is one of the best in the world, and helps build and maintain a world-class economy in California. The problem is the obstinate attachment of Southern Californians to their cars--some even consider them a birthright. The car is admittedly a necessity to those for whom public transportation or car pooling is unavailable or impractical. But for others, the attachment is simply convenience or personal identity. Eighty-four percent of those interviewed drive in solitary splendor.

Most of us cannot seem to accept the disturbing reality that freeways are not free. They not only cost a lot to build and maintain, but the presence of smog and congestion also imposes costs on drivers and nondrivers alike. We must recognize that each of us has to do some adjusting.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments (SCAG)--made up of local elected officials from all parts of this six-county region--has adopted a transportation plan designed to improve air quality and commuter mobility well into the next century. It is part of the regional air plan and is called the Regional Mobility Plan, or RMP. Its success will depend on the recognition by individual drivers of how much they contribute to air quality and traffic problems and their consequent willingness to adjust travel habits.

A bus takes up the space of only three cars, but can carry as many people as 30 cars, since most people drive solo. Even so, buses have had a relatively small effect on mobility. Eighty-three percent of the region’s drivers said it’s been more than a year since they rode a bus, and even more disturbing, more than two-thirds indicated that they wouldn’t take public transit regularly if it were available.

These habits and attitudes help to explain why, as 5 million people are added to the six counties of our region over the next 20 years, the average freeway speed will fall to about 17 m.p.h.-- on average . On the really congested segments of the freeway, walking would sometimes be faster. If we are to improve our mobility and maintain our place in a world economy, people and goods must move faster than 17 m.p.h.

Smog and congestion are two problems that can be mitigated together. So what are their solutions? The RMP calls for expanding the public transit fleet so that the bus, train or monorail is more convenient, comfortable and timely. The RMP supports dedicated car-pool lanes so that car poolers can bypass solo drivers stalled in traffic. (Actually, everybody benefits from car-pool lanes, because these passengers would otherwise have been driving.) The RMP also calls for building more roads to improve intra-regional travel.

Who will pay for these improvements? A good step would be to stop subsidizing the auto. If charged for the full cost of building and maintaining freeways, the economic cost of emissions damage, the time cost of congestion and the dollar cost of parking, more people would voluntarily join car pools or ride public transit.

With today’s technology, these charges could be calculated for travel time, auto usage and emissions by having computer chips attached to cars and sensors on freeways. There could be exemptions for special circumstances. Revenues derived from these charges could be used to support good transit systems for the basin and perhaps technological research for cleaner auto fuels.

Will the RMP succeed? Will the AQMD succeed? The outlook for relief of congestion or smog, if we are to believe the results of The Times Poll, is bleak. The current situation is another application of the well-worn but nevertheless true statement from Pogo: “We have met the enemy and it is us.”

SCAG and the South Coast Air Quality Management District created a growth management and transportation task force to involve the public and private sectors in finding solutions to make the plans work. Possibilities include car-pool lanes, traffic-management programs that go beyond ride-sharing, and market-incentive proposals that call on the biggest congestion makers and polluters--the auto drivers--to pay their share and make use of various transit forms.

Those of us serving on the task force took our first action by calling on Congress to have the flexibility in the federal Clean Air Act for market-incentive approaches for Southern California. Active in advocating this concept are SCAG, SCAQMD, the Southern California Gas Co., the Claremont Institute, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund. Creating the flexibility for market-incentive solutions is essential to addressing our congestion and air quality problems.