Free Parking for Workers May Vanish : Smog: Air Pollution Control Board may eliminate employer-paid free parking in an effort to improve air quality.

In a plan that could dramatically change lifestyles, the county Board of Supervisors is considering requiring businesses to charge their employees for parking in order to get single drivers out of their cars to help meet stringent state clean air standards.

Under the proposal, businesses that fail to meet ridership targets aimed at reducing drive-alone commuters through increased use of car-pooling and public transit could be forced to eliminate free parking or parking subsidies to their employees.

Starting in 1994, such businesses could be required to charge employees $50 a month to park even in company-owned lots where parking now is free, as well as pay half of other workers’ transit passes. By the year 2000, the monthly parking fees could rise to as high as $100, and companies would have to pick up the total cost of workers’ bus, trolley or other transit passes.

Predictably, the sweeping proposal already has drawn strong opposition, which county officials expect to intensify by the time the supervisors, acting as the region’s Air Pollution Control Board, act on it this summer.

“It’s a very tough proposal, but it may be the only way San Diego is going to really clean up its air,” Supervisor Susan Golding said. “The Clean Air Act is going to require some significant lifestyle changes, particularly among those who drive a lot and especially among those who drive a lot alone.”

When the program was unveiled this week, Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce officials complained that it would place an unfair burden on business commuters, who they said represent only about a quarter of the county’s total traffic volume.

In addition, they argued that the plan would impose costly paperwork requirements on businesses and that the regulation’s potential effectiveness had not been demonstrated through a cost-benefit analysis.

“To the extent that the (parking) fee is intended, in part, to act as a disincentive to single-driver vehicles, our membership seriously questions whether any such . . . program will work by itself,” Chamber of Commerce Chairman Mel Katz said in a letter to the supervisors.

Any final measure would permit exemptions for certain businesses or employee groups within individual companies whose unusual work hours would make car-pooling or even mass transit impractical. For example, a firm whose sales staff works irregular hours might obtain exemptions for those employees even though the regulations would apply to clerical workers who start and finish their shifts at the same time daily.

The so-called “Employer-Based Trip Reduction” proposal, which will be the subject of public hearings over the next several months, is designed to improve local air quality by reducing the number of vehicle trips in the county by 700,000 by the year 2000, according to Richard Sommerville, the county’s air pollution control officer.

Despite the fact that auto emissions have been reduced 90% over 30 years, cars and trucks still account for nearly 60% of smog-forming pollutants in San Diego’s air, Sommerville said. That factor was a major contributor to the county’s failure to achieve state air quality standards on 139 days last year.

Since 1980, the number of miles driven on weekdays here has increased by 7% annually, twice the rate of population growth. During the past decade, the number of auto trips has increased by 5% a year, with about 80% of all home-to-work commutes being single-occupant autos, county figures show.

“The problem is people are making more trips, driving farther and doing it alone,” Sommerville said.

The proposed regulation is envisioned as being a major component of an overall program intended to help the county meet the California Clean Air Act’s requirement of a 5% annual reduction in air pollution.

San Diego’s comprehensive air-quality plan might also eventually include restrictions related to sporting events, shopping malls and other events, or locales that generate large volumes of traffic, county officials said Wednesday.

The state clean air law specifically states that, if that 5% emission reduction target cannot be achieved--as San Diego officials doubt that it can be locally--”all feasible transportation control measures” should be used to improve air quality, phraseology that county leaders believe encompasses proposals such as the one unveiled this week.

If adopted, the measure would require companies with 11 or more employees to meet annual targets for reducing solo commuters among their work force. Those standards, which would be phased in over the next three years, depending on companies’ size, eventually would affect more than 16,000 businesses that employ an estimated 900,000 people, about 75% of the local work force.

Interim targets for most companies would be set in the mid-1990s, with final targets being in place by 1998.

For purposes of establishing the trip reduction targets, the county would be divided into three zones, with the strictest targets applying to the downtown San Diego and center city area because of its large employment base and easy access to public transit.

Although the state law mandates an average of 1.5 riders per car by the year 2000, San Diego’s average during peak-hour job commutes is less than 1.2 riders, county officials said.

To persuade single drivers to either car-pool or turn to public transit for their commute to work, financial incentives and disincentives would be established. As free parking and employers’ parking subsidies were gradually eliminated, ride-sharing subsidies and companies’ share of transit passes would be increased, according to pollution board staffer Bob Goggin.

In order for those parking fees to serve as an effective deterrent to one-passenger cars, the regulations would require that the cost be paid by drivers themselves, not by their employers.

That provision, however, is one of several that county leaders and business representatives alike agree could be difficult to monitor. Indeed, though intentional violation of the standards could result in fines of up to $25,000 a day, county administrators concede that it could be difficult to verify whether, for instance, companies might simply increase workers’ salaries to compensate for the parking fee.

“If someone wants to cheat, they’ll always find a way,” Golding said. “But I don’t think it will reach that point. The people of San Diego want clean air and water, and I think they’ll be willing to support a reasonable program to achieve that.”

Though county officials argue that the California Clean Air Act gives them the authority to impose the parking fees and related administrative charges, they also acknowledge the likelihood of a legal challenge if the regulation is adopted in its present form.

“The grumbling has only begun,” Goggin said. “I’m sure it will get louder.”