Pollution Rules to Affect Most Commuters : Transportation: County air quality requirements will gradually make solo driving a rarity. Thousand Oaks’ plan to close City Hall on Fridays is the most dramatic example.

New Ventura County air pollution rules that have prompted plans by Thousand Oaks to put most city workers on a four-day week will eventually change the commuting practices of thousands of other workers throughout the county, officials say.

The Thousand Oaks City Council’s decision last week to shut down City Hall on Fridays pending county approval was the most dramatic move yet in response to county plans for reducing air pollution.

Although the county’s other major cities are pursuing less startling methods to reduce automobile exhaust generated by their employees, they eventually will also have to come up with plans to reduce the number of workers who arrive alone every morning in their cars.

Under requirements to be phased in over the next year, county air quality managers will insist that large employers, including government agencies, have 1.35 people for each vehicle coming to work, or about four people for every three cars.

To meet the requirements, the Thousand Oaks council decided to compress the workweek for city employees to four 10-hour days and have them take Fridays off. The plan eliminates one-fifth of employee commutes to City Hall and makes it a cinch for the city to meet the new anti-smog rules.

Other cities and businesses, some of them critical of Thousand Oaks’ plans, see it as infeasible to shut their doors one day a week. Instead, they seek more conventional ways to reduce single-occupancy vehicles, such as car-pooling, providing commuter vans or other incentives to get employees who live nearby to ride a bike, jog or walk.

However it is done, the new rules to reduce Ventura County’s smog levels will affect nearly everyone who makes the morning commute to workplaces with 50 or more employees.

For those employees, the restrictions will challenge what some Southern Californians consider their birthright: the freedom to drive anywhere they want alone in their cars.

“The fact of the matter is that Ventura County has the fourth worst air quality in the country,” said Marc Chytilo, chief counsel with the Environmental Defense Center. “Everybody is going to have to give a little bit.”

Chytilo’s public interest law firm, based in Santa Barbara, led a three-year lawsuit in federal court to reduce Ventura County’s smog levels. The county now exceeds both federal and state air pollution standards, with smog at times reaching levels considered hazardous to human health.

As part of its strategy to reduce smog, the county’s Air Pollution Control District has begun to target exhaust from cars and trucks, which contributes about half the pollutants that form smog in the county.

Beginning in eastern Ventura County, air quality managers have instructed all employers with 100 or more workers to devise plans that would encourage employees to share rides in the morning or otherwise get to work without driving alone. Later, the county will extend the requirements to employers with 50 employees or more.

The first plans were due March 1, and county officials are reviewing them.

Angela Dukes, the county’s transportation programs coordinator, said the initial batch of about 35 trip reduction plans includes a number of innovative approaches. Many businesses, she said, are joining cooperative ventures to match employees who live in the same neighborhood so they can share rides to work.

So far, only Thousand Oaks has proposed shutting its doors to the public as a way to reduce pollution from the commutes of its 360 City Hall workers. Council members said they adopted the program because it would not cost the city any money. It is far more expensive, they said, to encourage employees to share rides or take the bus.

Switching to a four-day workweek is acceptable to the county as long as the city meets the requirements to reduce employee car trips, said William Mount, the county’s manager of air quality planning and evaluation. “As long as the math works out, it’s OK with us,” he said.

But other public officials have reservations about reducing government services in the name of cleaner air. “It was certainly a rather drastic move on the part of Thousand Oaks,” said Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn.

Flynn said he has new misgivings about the entire program and wants to propose that his colleagues consider another approach that would charge people for the “privilege” of driving alone. He suggests that single drivers be assessed special parking fees or have to pay road tolls.

“Unless the Board of Supervisors is willing to look at other alternatives, the board needs to begin enforcing this plan before the end of the year,” he said. He predicted that Southern Californians will not give up their cars until the county begins to fine employers up to $25,000 a day.

So far, Simi Valley is the only other city that has submitted a trip reduction plan. Beginning July 1, the city will offer employees $3 a day to make the morning commute by walking, jogging, riding a bike, taking the bus or forming a car-pool.

Simi Valley also plans a compressed workweek for some city employees, but one that staggers the shifts so City Hall does not close on a weekday. “We felt that this plan would meet public need and still meet clean-air requirements,” said Paul Thornquist, an analyst in the city’s general services department.

Ventura has until July 2 to submit its plan to the county, but started employee incentives to encourage car-pooling nine months ago, said Mike Solomon, a management analyst in the city manager’s office.

Solomon said the city gives preferential parking to car-pools and has installed showers with shampoo and hair dryers to encourage riding bikes and jogging to work.

Those who share rides or get to work without driving solo also qualify for a $250 drawing held every two weeks. “That’s really gotten people involved,” Solomon said.

Solomon said Ventura has no plans to reduce its workweek. “We are not convinced that the four-day workweek is the answer,” he said. “Most people run errands on their day off. We want to make a difference to the air, not just meet a number imposed by the county.”

For most of the 185 public and private employers with more than 100 workers, developing a plan to reduce commuter trips has just begun.

Oxnard is considering a wide range of options, said Lino Corona, the city’s assistant director of personnel. “We’ve outlined 14 different strategies,” he said.

Corona said the city recently surveyed its 1,200 employees and determined that about 700 fall under the new rules because they arrive at work between 6 and 10 a.m. Other employees are exempt from the requirements.

The cities of Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Ojai, Port Hueneme and Santa Paula have too few employees to make the first round of targeted employers.

The Navy, the largest employer in the county, also just started to coordinate its commuter plan for the about 20,000 military and civilian workers attached to bases at Port Hueneme and Point Mugu.

“We’re Californians, we’re independent and we have no real public transportation,” said Mike Flynn, disaster preparedness officer for the Port Hueneme base, who is helping tackle the project. “It all makes it a challenge.”

Private businesses fear that it will be difficult to meet county air pollution requirements and remain competitive.

For instance, Thousand Oaks-based Amgen is putting the final touches on a plan to encourage ride-sharing and provide vans for the 972 of its 1,044 employees who fall under the rules.

But coordinator Marcia Brandt said that company’s top officer does not want rigid schedules to detract from the flexibility and creativity that has contributed to Amgen’s success as one of the fastest-growing biotechnology firms in the nation.

The company’s scientists, she said, often work atypical schedules.

“These employees are dedicated to the company and will come to work at any time and stay for as long as needed,” she said.

In the first phase, the county is asking for trip reduction plans from the 185 businesses and public agencies that employ 100 or more people. Beginning in August, the county will target those employers with 75 to 99 workers and then in January those with 50 to 75 employees.

After receiving official notice, employers have four months to survey their employees and come up with a strategy to show how they will meet 1.35 riders for every car within a year. That standard will increase to 1.5 riders for every vehicle on Jan. 1, 1997.

To set an example, the county government established a trip reduction plan last November for 3,000 county workers who make the morning commute. The county provides preferential parking for car-pools and offers a $200 annual bonus to those employees who share rides twice a week and $300 for those who do so three times a week.

Next month, the county expects to have the results of its first follow-up survey to see if county employees meet the required 1.35 riders for every vehicle.

“It will be the first test of the system,” said Jim Pickens, the county employees’ transportation coordinator.