The Missing Link in the Best-Laid Plans of Transportation Managers : Congestion: The little trip that working parents make to take their children to a care provider creates a lot of pollution and traffic.

Exasperated with the freeway crawl and with noxious fumes, California voters agreed early last month to pay for some transportation relief by raising the gas tax. But most commuters ill experience little comfort--especially working parents.

The Air Quality Management District’s commuter program, for example, neglects the needs of workers who must drive their children to school or to child-care facilities. The plan asks employers to help reduce drive-alone commutes from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Employers are supposed to reward workers who participate in ride-sharing programs, use public transit, agree to a compressed work week or reduce drive-alone trips by other means.

Day-care centers unfortunately aren’t geared to 10-hour days, four times aweek. Car pools and public transit are also less satisfying options for workers who are parents. Before catching the bus, a parent must typically drive a short distance to take his or her child to the care provider.

Starting a cold engine for a five-mile drive produces 60% of the pollution a 20-mile trip does, according to the AQMD. A program designed to improve air quality by reducing the number of vehicle trips, then, must take into account the needs of working parents. Otherwise, its benefits, at best, will be limited.

It’s not surprising that child-care needs have been overlooked as a work-related and transportation issue. Today’s concept of childhood is quite different from the days when father and son, mother and daughter worked side-by-side at home. After the Industrial Revolution, families just moved closer to the factories.

With the advent of child-labor laws, the wives of men working at the factories stayed home with the children, largely remaining there until the 1950s. Exceptions were made during the two world wars, when women had to fill factory positions left vacant by men in the armed forces. During World War II, factories provided excellent child-care centers for workers, but the facilities were closed after the men returned from the war.

During the 1950s, relatives and neighbors took care of the children of working parents. But as more and more women entered the work force, fewer neighbors and relatives were available. More divorces and escalating living costs were also factors driving women into the job market. A growing number of parents began to take their children to day-care centers and licensed homes located outside their neighborhoods.

By 1987, 55% of working women had children younger than 6 years of age. A 1988 study by the California Department of General Services showed that of 2,729 state employees surveyed, nearly 20% drove their children to or from school or day care. Ninety percent of the drivers were women. The trip to the child-care provider added, on average, eight miles to the round-trip commute.

The survey also indicated that parents did not walk or bicycle their children to school or day care. Among parents with children at home, ride-sharing dropped one-third; among working women with children, use of public transit declined by three-fifths. Because most users of public transit are women, the survey results suggest that the ability of buses, light rail and trains to solve the state’s transportation problems is limited.

Happily, more employers are beginning to offer child-care programs. Los Angeles County, for example, provides excellent child care for its employees, alleviating many of the worries facing working parents. But it does not take their transportation needs into account, since the centers are only located at hospitals. Workers assigned to other, sometimes distant county sites must still detour to deliver and pick up their children.

Child care at the work site offers employers more than a tremendous recruiting advantage. It is also good transportation policy, since the extra miles that parents drive to child-care providers would be eliminated. However, the effect on ride-sharing programs and the appeal of alternative transportation would be minimal. Few parents would take three children on a bus, and a father or mother driving three children to the work place would not be among the most popular ride-sharing partners.

Some employers, including government agencies, have considered guaranteeing ride-sharers and transit users transportation for personal emergencies. They have also considered restricting on-site child care to workers who ride-share or use alternative transportation.

One emerging child-care strategy could increase use of public transit. Some transportation agencies are planning to build child-care facilities at transit stations or at park-and-ride lots. Such a facility opened this year on the light rail-line of the City of San Diego Metro Transit Authority. In San Jose, one is being considered at a point where buses, light rail and commuter trains meet. It would include care for mildly ill children, a service working parents sorely need. Boston, Atlanta, the Port of New Jersey and the County of San Diego are conducting feasibility studies for locating child-facilities care in existing transportation centers or along major transportation corridors.

Child-care facilities at residential sites would probably best serve parental needs and ease traffic congestion. These centers could organize car pools to drive children to neighborhood schools. Parents willing and able to walk, bicycle or take a bus to work could eliminate car trips altogether.

By whatever means, transportation-demand managers must make provisions in their plans for the growing percentage of workers who require child care. A commuter plan that ignores the needs of a large segment of the work force is doomed to fall short of its goals of reducing miles driven and number of trips made.