NEWPORT BEACH : City Has New Plan to Boost Car-Poolers

City officials have taken a new approach in the effort to have city employees car-pool or take public transportation to work.

To comply with new South Coast Air Quality Management District standards, the city has offered to give employees the chance to earn time off by reducing their personal driving time.

If approved by the AQMD, city employees at the three different work sites will be able to earn up to three extra days off each year by finding alternative means of transportation. This incentive is part of a larger package that the city is required to submit to the AQMD each year.

Among the other incentives that the city is planning on instituting is a quarterly prize drawing for employees who earn tickets by ride-sharing, a bicycle loan program and reserved parking spots for car-poolers.

The city’s first set of incentives was rejected by the AQMD because officials of the agency said the city’s plan didn’t do enough to get people out of their cars. City traffic engineer Rich Edmonston said the city is hoping to eliminate about 100 trips a day to the work sites.

Although the city had initially considered providing monetary bonuses to employees who reduce their car trips to work, Edmonston said that changing the paychecks and providing the bonuses was shaping up to be an administrative nightmare.

“Like everybody else, we’re trying to identify incentives that will work and won’t cost the city an arm and a leg,” he explained.

If the second incentive package is also denied, the city will have to consider a more rigorous set of guidelines, including a compressed workweek or parking fees gauged to the number of people in each car. The city is only given three chances to submit an effective ride-reduction report.