Air Panel Drops Fee Plan to Give Firms a Chance to Clean Up Acts

Solo commuters are still in the bull’s-eye of the county’s Air Pollution Control District’s traffic reduction target, but the clean-air agency has decided to use incentives rather than penalties to lure lonesome riders off the road.

APCD hearings this week in the northern, central, southern and eastern sectors of San Diego County will detail the kinder, gentler approach to cleaning up the atmosphere by reducing the number of cars on the road.

Originally, the APCD plan called for mandatory parking fees to be levied on all solo commuters by their employers when the program goes into effect in 1992. Those employee parking fees, ranging from $30 to $100 a month, have been delayed until 1994 and have been modified so that employees of firms closer to their traffic-reduction goals will pay lower fees.

The easing of regulations came after a series of APCD workshops in May showed that employers bridled at the prospect of being required to prepare and submit lengthy plans on how they proposed to reduce the number of employees who commute to work alone.

Under the relaxed conditions, employers don’t have to submit anything to the pollution control agency, nor will they have to pay proposed fees of up to $800 a year to have their plans reviewed by APCD.

“We figure that, if they can do it themselves, that’s fine with us,” APCD spokesman Bob Goggin explained. It also will save the county clean-air agency about $500,000 a year if it can avoid the bureaucratic paperwork that has mired pollution control agencies in other areas, he added.

One downtown bank already has surpassed its goal of getting employees off the road simply by subsidizing the cost of their employees’ bus and trolley passes, Goggin said.

Under the new rules, employers can fashion their own methods of bringing their work force up to a 1.5-person-per-car ridership from the current 1.2-person average, giving subsidies to bus and trolley riders, organizing van pools and encouraging employees to walk or bicycle to work.

Allowing employees to work at home via computers and changing to a 10-hour, four-day work week also pay off in bonus points by reducing commuter mileage.

Firms will remain under the watchful eye of the APCD, which will conduct a yearly survey at each business, checking that attempts are being made to meet the goals and measuring the results of the efforts.

And, for the few who decide to ignore the program, the county agency has a hefty system of fines to be levied for violating state air-quality regulations, fines that can range from $1,000 a day to $25,000 a day, depending on the severity of the offenses.

The traffic reduction plan will go into effect next year for businesses with 50 or more employees; in 1993 for employers of 25 to 49 workers, and in 1994 for employers of 11 to 24 workers.

R. J. Sommerville, county air pollution control officer, says solo commuters are one of the major sources of air pollution.

“Home-to-work trips account for one-third of all trips made in the county each day, more than half of the miles traveled and about 40% of daily vehicle pollution,” Sommerville said.

“About 80% of home-to-work commute trips are made by persons driving alone,” Sommerville said. “With this regulation, more than half a million trips a day will be eliminated by the year 2000, reducing air pollutants by 60 to 70 tons a day, a significant reduction.”

After the employment-based trip reduction plan is in place and working, the APCD plans to turn its attention to other major traffic generators: truck traffic, especially during commuting hours; traffic generated by shopping centers, major sports and entertainment events; student traffic at colleges and universities.

The county program is being funded by a $2 auto registration fee levy that went into effect April 1. The fee, imposed on all vehicles registered in San Diego County, is expected to raise nearly $4 million by mid-1992.

Traffic in the county is now increasing at twice the rate of population growth, according to the APCD. By the year 2000, the agency estimates, the county will have a population of 3 million driving 80 million miles each weekday.

The object of the reduction plan is to cut the miles driven by half.

The APCD workshops on the reduction plan will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at National University in Vista and at 2 p.m. at Town and Country Convention Center in Mission Valley; on Thursday at 9 a.m. in the El Cajon City Council chambers, and at 2 p.m. in the Chula Vista City Council chambers.