Commuter Lot Guards Proposed : Transportation: Security patrols were among several congestion-relief proposals compiled for county officials.

Hoping to lure commuters into car pools and buses, county officials are suggesting that uniformed guards begin patrolling park-and-ride lots.

The aim would be to send the message that the lots are safe.

“It was not because of any crime increase, but to let the public know that if they do park in the park-and-ride, they will be able to have security there,” County Supervisor Edmund D. Edelman said.

Edelman is chairman of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which released several congestion-relief proposals recently, including the security guards. Among the others:

* A toll road “at an undetermined location” through the Santa Monica Mountains to relieve congestion on the San Diego Freeway.

* Car-pool lanes on Sherman Way and Victory Boulevard across the Valley.

* A rail line from North Hollywood to Pasadena.

* More connector lanes at the intersection of the San Diego and Ventura freeways.

* A toll road through the San Gabriel Mountains roughly parallel to Angeles Forest Highway.

* Widening the Antelope Valley Freeway to eight lanes from the Santa Clarita Valley to the northern edge of the Antelope Valley.

* Widening California 138 to four lanes between Palmdale and Pearblossom.

The proposals, packaged as the Congested Corridors Action Plan, were compiled at Edelman’s behest.

“Next to fighting crime,” Edelman said, “I think moving people is the most important thing in the metropolitan area.”

The commission received the plan without comment. Staff members said most of the ideas needed extensive study before they could be turned into specific proposals.

Security patrols could start within the next three months, Edelman said. The guards would probably be armed and would work for private security companies except on Rapid Transit District lots. That agency would use its own personnel.

The California Department of Transportation, which operates seven park-and-ride lots in the San Fernando Valley, has had problems filling the larger ones, transportation planner Terry Blank said.

A Caltrans survey in November said most of its lots were operating at 70% of capacity the day of the survey. But a 200-space lot in Studio City had only 70 spaces occupied; a 200-space Canoga Park lot, only 55. If those lots had security guards, they might fill up, Blank said.

Commuters dropped off by car pools at an Encino park-and-ride lot recently said patrols would make them feel more secure about leaving their cars.

“That would help a lot, because I think some cars have been broken into,” said Ngoc Nguyen, who car pools every day to an electronics company in Camarillo. “Not always, but once in a while.”

Sara Hyman, who commutes with two other co-workers to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, said she feels secure because she returns to the lot when it is still light outside. But “for other women, I often wonder how safe it is,” she said.