Cypress Takes Control of Ride-Sharing Program : Transportation: The city’s decision to begin a car-pool operation at an industrial park has brought complaints of unfairness from some small businesses.

This city has become the first in the Southland to bring ride-sharing under the control of local government, forcing all tenants of a business park to pay for ride-sharing services whether they need them or not, officials said.

Regulations of the South Coast Air Quality Management District require businesses with more than 100 employees to have a ride-sharing program. But at Cypress Business Park, where 199 of 212 tenants have fewer than 100 employees, business owners complain that the city is making them pay for a service they are not required to provide under the regional AQMD rules.

“Either way they are penalizing the smaller businesses,” said Bill Clark, operations manager for Fiat Motors, which has four employees.

But Phil Wendel, a spokesman for park tenant Yamaha Motors, supports the city’s establishment of a Transportation Management Assn. to organize ride-sharing for the business park.

“A transportation management association is the wave of the future,” said Wendel, whose business employs 381 people. “Ride-sharing benefits employers, employees and the community as a whole in improved mobility and air quality.”

Cypress officials said they approved the program to help ease traffic congestion in the business park of 6,800 employees.

“Cypress has always taken an aggressive stand on transportation issues,” said Mayor Cecilia L. Age. “I don’t like to pay any more than the next guy, but we have a major problem here.”

The Cypress City Council adopted the new program last summer, taking advantage of a section in AQMD’s Regulation 15 that allows local governments to regulate ride-sharing. Like the AQMD, the city requires businesses to work toward an average ridership of 1.5 people per vehicle.

But instead of answering to the AQMD, the businesses in the park must file an annual report with the city, which will act as a regulatory agency. AQMD officials are currently reviewing the city’s ordinance and declined comment, said spokesman Kayode Kadara.

The city ordinance established the association, a nonprofit organization with a staff of two and a board of directors composed of park tenants. The city requires each business to pay $20 per employee to the association, or $22.40 per employee to the city if a business chooses not to join the group.

So far, business owners have registered about 4,000 employees in the association. If merchants do not join the group by May 18 and cannot prove they have established their own ride-sharing program, a $22.40-per-employee fee will be added to their annual business license fee due in July.

The fees have angered the managers of many small businesses.

“It is not like we are running an office,” added Laura Amos, manager of Craftmart, whose 20 employees work a variety of shifts. Office workers “have designated hours that are almost impossible to keep in retail.”

Valli Keller, division manager for a medical laboratory in the park, said she supports the concept of ride-sharing but objects to the mandatory nature of the ordinance.

“The idea is good--it’s just the way the city went about it,” said Keller, who has paid the association $500 for her 25 employees. “I don’t think (ride-sharing) would work here at all. People are coming in from 3 a.m. to 5 p.m.”

Although ride-sharing may be inconvenient for some employees, city officials say it is a sure way to reduce traffic problems in the park.

“When we looked at the business park, we saw real congestion problems that we had to mitigate,” said Cypress Director of Public Works Robert Beardsley.

Since June, the association has collected about $117,000 in dues from park tenants, said Cheryl Cohen, executive director of the association. But most of that money--$84,000--has gone for the salaries of Cohen and one clerical worker.

The association has yet to begin its ride-sharing programs, Cohen said, pending the completion of a survey of employees to determine where they live and their work hours. The only activity organized since Cohen started work in December has been a training meeting about ride-sharing with help from Orange County Transportation Department officials.

In the future, the association plans to offer financial incentives to businesses that meet the AQMD’s standard of 1.5 people per vehicle, including a partial rebate of the dues paid to the group, said Gilbert Honeycutt, president of the association and a spokesman for Mitsubishi Electric Co.

The association will also offer bus passes, a service matching people interested in car-pooling, and transportation consulting for businesses in the park, Cohen said.

Cypress is the first city to pass a ride-sharing ordinance in the AQMD region, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, Kadara said.

Other cities, including Irvine, Brea and Newport Beach, have established transportation management associations, but businesses are not required to join. But an ordinance similar to Cypress’ is being drawn up in Irvine for the Irvine Business Complex south of John Wayne Airport, said Douglas Reily of the city’s Transportation Planning Department.