Missing the Bus : Few Accept Offer of Free Ride on Park-In Day

Most Ventura County bus riders didn’t know Tuesday was Park-In Day. They hadn’t even heard of it.

“I always take the bus,” said Eileen McAndrew, 36, as she rode a bus in Thousand Oaks. “I don’t drive because I can’t afford a car.”

Park-In Day was an effort by the Ventura County Transportation Commission to encourage commuters to use alternative means of transportation. But bus drivers countywide reported no more riders than usual.

Bus drivers also said they collected few of the free-ride coupons that the county had printed this week in area newspapers or the ones distributed at Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr. restaurants.

Only about 1% of riders in western Ventura County used the free tickets Tuesday, said Maureen Lopez, director of planning and marketing for South Coast Area Transit.

“We were hoping for more participation since we had agreed” to give free rides for coupons, she said. But, she added, “It’s a step in the right direction.”

Ventura County fails state and federal air quality standards for ozone. Automobiles account for more than 50% of the pollutants that combine to form ozone, the primary component of smog.

Mary Travis, transit operations manager for the commission, said she plans to publicize the bus coupons better and earlier next year. She wants to move up Park-In Day to September to take advantage of the “back-to-school” mood.

“This is the start of a continuous campaign to increase public awareness of the alternatives out there,” Travis said.

She said she was pleased with “a lot of participation” among county employees, but could not say how many employees had left their cars at home. Some car-pooled to work for the first time Tuesday and told her that it wasn’t as troublesome as expected, she said.

County Supervisors Susan K. Lacey and Maggie Erickson Kildee both took buses to work. Lacey, who sits on the South Coast transit and air pollution control boards, said that if she is going to suggest that others use the bus service, “I need to avail myself to the same means of transportation.”

Simi Valley bus driver Carol Davis said the only people using the free tickets were her usual customers.

“I didn’t have any new ridership, just my regulars,” Davis said. “I’m not surprised. If your car was available all the time, would you take a bus?”

Some commuters did leave their cars parked Tuesday, but not because of Park-In Day.

Derek Vail, 24, of Ventura has a car, but rides the bus anyway--for three hours round trip from his Ventura home to his art studio in Ojai.

“I believe in a lot of the environmental movements, and it only costs me $1.50 a day to get to and from work,” he said. “It’s really not that much of a bother.”

Joe Garcia, who confessed that he is concerned about his weight as well as the environment, rises before the sun to pedal his bike 11 miles from his home in Oxnard to OCO Tool Co. in Ventura, where he is a valve mechanic.

Garcia makes the 45- to 55-minute morning trip in the dark to arrive at work by 7 a.m.

“I feel great,” he said. “ ‘Cause I feel like I’m pushing myself to the limit. . . . I think I’m doing pretty good for the environment because I’m not burning gas and it’s not polluting the atmosphere. I hope a lot of people realize that . . . they can do it too.”

Alan Holmes, account executive for Commuter Transportation Services, said his office had a fourfold increase in calls in the past two weeks, during Traffic Awareness Month. CTS arranges car pools for people in Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

But Holmes, who said he tries to car-pool to work, acknowledged that persuading people to leave their cars at home will be no easy task.

“I’m sure it’s going to take a while to get the message to the general public,” he said, adding that he made a special effort to car-pool Tuesday.

Employers of more than 50 people report that the average number of people traveling in a car between 6 and 10 a.m. in Ventura County is 1.22, a dramatic increase from 1.12 last year, Holmes said. The Air Pollution and Control District target is 1.35 people per car.

Times staff writers Psyche Pascual and Adrianne Goodman contributed to this story.