Smog-Fighters Concede Ride-Sharing Is Unfair to Some : Environment: Poor and minority commuters may be put at a disadvantage, air quality officials acknowledge. But they are pleased by the program’s early results.

Ride-sharing--a key component of the anti-smog fight being waged by the South Coast Air Quality Management District--may unfairly affect some poor and minority commuters, air quality officials acknowledged Friday. They added, however, that they are encouraged by early indications that the program is producing increased car-pooling.

The AQMD board decided to hold hearings sometime this summer on the equity issue.

About 9,000 of the region’s employers with staffs of 100 or more currently are required by the district to establish plans encouraging workers to car-pool, take the bus, bike or walk--anything that will get more cars, along with their pollutants, off the roads. The largest employers began implementing plans in late 1988 and the remainder are due this June.

The air quality district’s staff hopes to expand the program to include high school and college students by 1992 and to include 10,000 more employers with work forces of 50 or more by 1993. Eventually, most companies in the district’s four counties--Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino--may be added.

Though the district must approve all of the ride-share plans, employers have wide latitude in deciding how to persuade workers to give up commuting alone.

And that worries some activists in labor, environmental and minority circles. In testimony Friday, they cited one employer--Los Angeles County--which imposed high parking fees to discourage workers from driving solo.

Until October, the county provided free parking downtown. Since then, fees averaging $50 a month have been deducted from workers’ paychecks. “Fifty dollars a month is not the same thing to somebody making $40,000 a year as it is to somebody making $13,000 a year,” said Kimberly Kyle, an official of Service Employees International Union Local 660, which represents about half the county’s work force.

“This is unfair social policy,” said Eric Mann, director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center. “It puts the burden on people who can’t afford it.”

Robin Cannon, who represents Concerned Citizens of South-Central Los Angeles, told the AQMD board, “You’re asking people who have to go to one area of town for child care and then to another area for work to use an inadequate bus system and still keep their jobs.”

All of them asked the district to set up a grievance procedure so workers can appeal plans they believe are discriminatory.

Board members said the criticisms made sense.

“I don’t agree that (the ride-share rule) is racist. It’s not; it’s very neutral. But I certainly agree that it does provide the opportunity for what I’ll call mischief,” said board Chairman A. Norton Young-love.

“This really does take us into people’s lifestyles,” said board member Carole Beswick.

The district’s executive officer, James M. Lents, said in an interview he would like to see the board require employers to notify workers when a ride-share plan is being prepared to give them an opportunity to help shape it.

Meanwhile, he termed “encouraging” a study by UCLA and USC researchers that shows average riders per vehicle increasing from 1.22 to 1.3 at 74 companies in the ride-share program.

The change represents a 6% decline in single-person commuting, said Martin Wachs, a UCLA transportation planner who helped prepare the study.

“It’s statistically significant and it’s impressive,” Wachs said. “But they’re going to have to do much better than that.”

The district’s target is an average of 1.5 people per car.