Officials Hope to Drive Up Costs of Solo Commuting : Environment: Regulators plan to reduce air pollution by making trips expensive for the lone traveler.

Call him Raedarius solitarius or Solo Commuter, a thriving species that air quality officials hope will be increasingly endangered in the coming years. Of the many weapons that authorities plan to wield in the fight to thin his ranks, the most potent, they expect, will be a new one: the dollar bill.

In the next 20 years, Solo Commuter may well leave home in the morning thinking, “Oh, no. My official odometer reading is coming up soon and I bet I’ll have $90 in emissions charges.” He could have to pay a fee for rush-hour highway travel while car-poolers ride free. At work, he could find on-street parking rare, meter rates high and free employee lots a thing of the past.

If the latest draft of the region’s air quality plan is adopted as written and proceeds on schedule, the cost of driving will be going up--and some price hikes will show up soon.

Until recently, most of the effort to clean the smog-shrouded skies focused on industry. But motor vehicles are responsible for two-thirds of the pollutants in the air over Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Gains made by stricter emissions controls on cars and cleaner gasolines are being wiped out by rapid increases in the number of autos on the road and long-distance commutes.

In their intense campaign to purify the air, regulators are aiming at a cherished Southern California custom: getting into a car and heading for the highway in splendid isolation.

Since 1989, employers with more than 100 workers have been required to come up with plans to encourage ride-sharing. That mandate will be extended to smaller companies and to college students in coming years.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments and the South Coast Air Quality Management District--the organizations charged with air cleanup--have decided that more is needed in the nation’s No. 1 gasoline market. More than 5 million people travel to work each day, the overwhelming majority of them alone.

“We’ve had a free lunch for the automobile,” said SCAG planner Robert Huddy, who devised many of the transportation measures under consideration.

“If we’re really going to clean this place up, we all have to be responsible for our actions,” said Judy Wright, who chairs SCAG’s Transportation Committee.

The rule-makers hope that higher costs will be instrumental in persuading Solo Commuter to take a serious look at alternatives.

The proposed plan is scheduled for a vote in June. Already, state legislators are introducing bills to buttress the program. Business leaders are helping to finance consultant reports lauding what they call “market incentives.” One such study, by an Environmental Defense Fund analyst, projects that a package of fees averaging $5 to $6 a day per vehicle would reduce hydrocarbon emissions by 19%. Hydrocarbons are one of the building blocks of smog.

Of course, this type of attack faces a host of obstacles: some questions of practicality, some questions of fairness and the certainty that the proposals will enrage vast numbers of people.

If Solo Commuter proves to be a tenacious survivor, even tougher regulations are in store.

If higher costs and other inducements do not slow the 8% annual increase in vehicles on the road, the air will almost certainly be too dirty to meet federal standards by the 2010 deadline.

If so, the plan’s contingency measures would be up for enactment, further raising the cost of driving. AQMD suggests:

* Smog taxes on gasoline and diesel fuels.

* Official odometer readings, perhaps coinciding with smog checks, which would be used to calculate a pollution fee based on mileage and the model year. A 1983 car, says the example in the proposed plan, could be assessed $88.90 for 10,000 miles.

* Smog charges in addition to regular rates at parking lots.

If high pricing does not work, SCAG and AQMD could turn to:

* Prohibiting lone drivers from entering the freeway system during summers, the Los Angeles smog season.

* Summertime rationing of gasoline and diesel fuel.

* Requiring work at home and shutdowns of most government offices during Stage 1 smog alerts.

* Limiting the number of vehicles registered in the four-county area.

Early reaction to the plan’s transportation proposals has been mixed.

“It’s a historic step in the right direction,” said Ward Elliott, a political scientist at Claremont-McKenna College and longtime advocate of transportation charges.

“Trying some pricing things might be effective, but you have to make sure you do them cleverly and you have to make sure you’re sensitive,” said Veronica Kun, staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “You could be creating a hardship, especially for poor people. And you have to make sure that whatever money is collected goes back into some form of public transit or the employer buying vans for a van pool.”

Even some of those behind the proposals wonder what they may be getting into. The most worried are the politicians, who know that this is a place where one man, one car is as sacred as one man, one vote.

“We may just have to pray for technology to catch up so we can get electric cars on the road fast and avoid this,” quipped Jon Mikels, an AQMD board member who also is a San Bernardino County supervisor.

Others are more optimistic. “I think Californians are in general much more conscious of what they put into their bodies than other Americans,” said Patricia Nemeth, who heads AQMD’s Office of Planning and Rules. “I believe with all my heart they will respond once they realize that every time they start the ignition, they contribute to pollution in the air.”

In the Bay Area, policy-makers also have been discussing hikes in bridge tolls for lone drivers, smog taxes on parking and a variety of other fees. Over the last several months, there have been extremely heated public exchanges but the recommendations are still part of their draft air quality plan, which was released Friday.

In the local four-county plan, the most immediate effect would be on parking. If approved, SCAG will be asking local governments to take these steps by Jan. 1:

* Eliminate free parking for employers of 100 or more and replace the benefit with a transportation allowance. An ordinance covering employers of 25 or more should be passed by Jan. 1, 1994.

* Increase daytime parking fees at metered spaces and public lots.

* Establish parking surcharges for single-occupant vehicles or discounts for car pools.

* Require employer-sponsored preferential parking for car or van pools.

If local governments do not enact such ordinances, said Nemeth, AQMD would likely incorporate them into districtwide ride-sharing regulations.

In support of the parking measures, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) has introduced a bill that phases out deductibility of employee parking as a business expense. The bill also exempts from state income tax any money paid to employees to replace free parking.

“If someone doesn’t drive, they get some dough in their pocket,” said John Stevens, chief of staff for the Assembly Transportation Committee, which will hear the measure later this month. “It could be some substantial money.”

Indeed, UCLA economist Donald Shoup says parking spaces in downtown Los Angeles are worth more than $100 a month. Shoup, who studied downtown parking last year, said half of the workers park free. If employees could choose between spending a transit allowance on parking or on a cheaper way to commute, pocketing the difference, Shoup said, auto traffic downtown could be cut by 22%.

Of course, downtown Los Angeles is a special case. Parking spaces are very expensive and the area is a hub for several transit systems.

Even downtown, an attempt to put the theory into practice sparked controversy. Los Angeles County, as part of its ride-share plan, gave workers an allowance--but set parking fees much higher. Union officials condemned the move as discriminatory against low-income employees. Their outcry has prompted AQMD to re-evaluate the fairness of the entire ride-share program.

Another piece of the economic arsenal--roadway congestion fees--is expected to generate even more furor, so much so that AQMD’s Nemeth says the district is not very interested in the concept.

Even so, SCAG has called for a pilot project. Most likely, the experiment will be conducted on a 10-mile stretch of the 91 Freeway in Orange County, where a private company plans to open four express lanes in 1994 alongside the existing eight public lanes. Officials envision a $2 toll during rush hours and a $1 toll at other times. Car pools, at least for the first two years, would ride free.

“We see this project as one of the best opportunities in the United States to test market pricing,” said Gerald Pfeffer, president of the toll-road firm, California Private Transportation Corp.

In the air quality plan, “political acceptability” is listed as an obstacle to further use of such fees, especially on public highways. One anticipated argument is that the average taxpayer already paid once to build the road--why pay again to use it?

Claremont political scientist Elliott cites the post office in response. “That’s like saying, you already paid for it, you’re entitled to overnight service without an extra charge.”

Higher prices at peak hours, he added, “make sense. We do it for telephones. If we didn’t, people would say they could only call at a certain time in a certain way. You fall into habits which are set by the pricing structure.”

Environmental Defense Fund analyst Michael Cameron said: “This would actually be a savings. The highways we have now would be used better and we wouldn’t need to build more.”

State Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) touts another way to promote better air quality. Hart is sponsoring a bill that would link sales taxes on new cars with the amount of pollutants they are expected to emit. A Hart aide said the buyer of a high-polluting model could pay as much as $800 in surcharges, while the purchaser of an electric car, which does not send out fumes, could escape sales taxes altogether.

Electric cars and other alternate-fuel vehicles are rare these days. That raises the question of what Solo Commuter can do to change his habits in the short term.

Bus and rail systems are one answer, but SCAG projects that transit operators are going to have a hard time finding the money to add to their fleets. Even with an aggressive campaign to increase ridership from the current 6% of commuters, SCAG expects mass transit to lure a maximum of 15% of work travelers.

“One thing we would like to emphasize is bicycles,” said SCAG environmental planner Felix Oduyemi.

AQMD’s Nemeth says she expects that most people who want to cut costs will participate in car and van pools.

Of course, there will be some commuters who decide not to go to the office at all. The plan includes several measures designed to encourage work from home, along with non-traditional workweeks--such as 10 hours a day for four days, which would cut one round trip.

SCAG’s staff believes that by 2010, 40% of employees will work at home or at a close-by branch office about 30% of the time, and 90% will have non-traditional schedules.

DRIVING OUT THE SOLO COMMUTER

Among the economic measures under consideration to reduce solo commuting in the Southland: * By 1992: Local governments would eliminate free parking for employers of 100 or more. Employees would receive a transportation allowance.

* By 1992: Local governments would increase daytime parking fees and meter rates, set a surcharge for single-occupant vehicles or discount for car pools.

* From 1991 to 1993: Demonstration program for road-use fees.

* By 1994: Local governments would eliminate free parking for employers of 25 or more.

Among backstop measures that could be put into place: * Emission charges on gasoline and diesel fuels.

* Emission charges on vehicle use based on mileage.

* Highway and road user fees.