STREET WISE: / New Directions : Steering Drivers Away From the Solo Commute

The age of the Jetsons is drawing nearer, with its computerized smart cars and smart streets that will supposedly make congestion, rumpled fenders and rush hour profanity as obsolete as buggies.

But for North County, the ride from 1992 to that science fiction-like future could have some bumps along the way, especially for anyone not ready to change attitudes and lifestyles in the name of better transportation and less smog.

As the northland approaches 1 million population, a massive program is under way to build and improve freeways, upgrade surface streets, begin commuter train and light rail service, install more freeway ramp meters and increase highway express lanes, bicycle trails and car pooling.

There’ll be some pain along with driving pleasure as the years ahead bring more pressure on steering wheel-clutching North County commuters to sacrifice their independence for the common good of mass transit.

In fact, someday the penalty for failing to ride-share or take the bus or commuter train likely will be that employers force workers to pay to park at their own jobs, part of government’s effort to involve employers in the fight against smog and gridlock.

That’s just the tip of trends to come.

Even more radical for tradition-minded workers may be staggered shifts to avoid clogging freeways during peak commute hours. And some workers won’t commute at all--they’ll do their jobs from computers at home. As for housing, if regional planners have their way, new developments will have both homes and job centers so people can virtually work where they live.

Quite simply, with North County so spread out and growing so fast, it’ll take far more than merely building new highways and roads to keep congestion and air quality from getting worse.

“We know we can’t build ourselves out of congestion,” said Kyle Nelson, a spokesman for Caltrans and former director of the San Diego Downtown Transportation Management Assn.

There’s just too much traffic for road builders to keep up with, and more is on the way.

San Diego County is expected to reach 3.1 million people by year 2010, nearly 1 million more than today, and two-thirds of the growth will happen north of Interstate 8, according to the San Diego Assn. of Governments, a regional planning agency.

While North County will get 138,000 new jobs, more than 400,000 other new jobs will be located elsewhere in the county--meaning that most of North County’s work force will continue having lengthy commutes to work.

That’s a lot more cars on local freeways that are already crowded by a big jump in vehicle travel. Why the increase? Not only are more people moving to North County, but more households have two members working outside the home and, as families mature, more are adding cars for driving-aged children.

The freeway system is straining, and Bill Tuomi, manager of transportation planning for SANDAG, said, “we’re near the break point in many cases where it won’t take much more to start causing problems.”

True, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area are far worse, but long-spoiled San Diego drivers are finding themselves poking along the freeways, late for work and laying on the horn.

For anybody who doesn’t already know how bad it’s getting, consider this:

Interstate 5 just north of the Interstate 805 junction is already a strong candidate for worst place to be stuck in a car. It now carries an average of more than 200,000 vehicles each weekday, a volume that will increase to 380,000 by year 2010.

SANDAG predicts this slow-moving part of I-5 in the Sorrento Valley-North City West area will become the most heavily traveled freeway in the region, a grim forecast for any North County commuter trying to reach work on time.

Going east to west in North County, the ever unpopular California 78 saw traffic volumes double during the 1980s, and trips have been increasing at 12% annually over the last several years.

More than 111,000 vehicles a day use the freeway, which is notoriously inclined to virtually shut down in either direction at the slightest provocation, such as a minor accident.

But there is reason to have faith about the future.

A long-term, $15.8-billion countywide transportation improvement plan is laden with projects for North County, including highway construction, commuter rail service, surface street work, bicycle lanes and much more.

Officials say $10.9 billion in federal, state, local and private funding will be available toward that ambitious 20-year effort, but more revenue must be found. Local voters have signified their willingness to pay for transportation improvements by approving an additional half-cent on the sales tax in 1987.

And statewide, voters in 1990 passed Proposition 111, which will double the state gasoline tax to 18 cents per gallon over the next several years, according to SANDAG. Gas tax revenue helps pay for freeway improvements.

A number of projects are being considered or are already under way to address transportation issues in North County.

Caltrans is pondering alternative proposals to widen the bottleneck along I-5 from Genesee Avenue to Del Mar Heights Road to reduce congestion at the I-5/I-805 junction and along local streets during commute hours. Daily traffic volume has more than doubled there, and North County’s growth threatens to extend the peak traffic period by several hours.

On California 78, construction crews have been laboring on a $43-million widening project that will bring the four-lane freeway up to six lanes between I-5 in Oceanside and I-15 in Escondido. The widening project will be finished later this year. The project includes improving key freeway ramps, surface streets and over-crossings that feed the freeway.

Partly to relieve pressure on California 78, lesser-known California 76 between I-5 in Oceanside and I-15 in Bonsall is being converted from a narrow, winding road to a four-lane expressway along its 17-mile path. Traffic has more than doubled over the last decade from surrounding housing and commercial development. Work on the $156-million, phased project has begun, but won’t be completed for 15 years.

One of North County’s worst transportation problems is the inability to get from inland to the coast, or vise vera, at any point below California 78 (except the narrow and limited Del Dios Highway.)

Demands to open another east-west freeway--the proposed California 56--has gotten considerable attention, but it’s uncertain when funding will be available to widen the entire 9-mile stretch between I-5 at North City West and I-15 inland.

However, there are signs of progress along California 56. Two-mile sections at the east and west ends are being widened so travelers can more speedily go from their communities near the highway to either I-5 or I-15.

To improve freeway traffic flow, North County drivers can expect to see many more metered on-ramps, more High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and greater use of highway warning signs to advise motorists of peril ahead.

Unlike the old days when the freeways were venerated and the car was king, the bulk of transportation funding will no longer pay for wide swaths of concrete.

Instead, more money will go improve surface streets, so drivers won’t rely so heavily on freeways, and for other means of transportation.

Over the next seven years, $5 billion will be spent on transportation improvements: $1.8 billion for state highways, $562 million for streets and roads, $2.6 billion for mass transit, and $41 million for bikeways.

“There’s more building going on now than anytime in the recent past,” said Caltrans’ Nelson. He credits the public’s willingness to raise gasoline and sales taxes to pay for transit improvements.

Trends also portend greater use of commuter flights from San Diego County to Los Angeles, and North County executives are already taking advantage of four commuter flights daily from Palomar Airport in Carlsbad.

Perhaps the most unusual private sector transportation venture comes from a San Diego shipbuilder who is exploring high-speed ocean ferry service that would operate from Oceanside Harbor and spirit commuters south to downtown San Diego or north to ports in Orange County and Los Angeles.

Transportation officials don’t scoff at any alternative to the car--even the simple bicycle gets respect. Anticipating 500,000 daily bicycle trips by 2010, officials are urging that the county’s 400-mile bicycle system be enlarged by about 30 miles a year, many of the additional routes in North County.

But it’ll take much more than a bicycle in every garage to rid the county of it’s great transportation evil--single rider vehicle trips.

The San Diego Air Pollution Control District gladly notes that cars are 90% less polluting than they were 30 years ago. Yet, the number of miles driven has increased, and the district conservatively estimates that by year 2000, there’ll be a 30% increase in traffic and 500,000 more vehicles.

“The number of trips generated over the years has been growing at twice the population rate,” said Richard Sommerville, air pollution control officer. “The lowest vehicle occupancy is during commute trips. If we can deal with the commute trips, we can make a tremendous improvement.”

Regional officials hope to reduce the percentage of workers commuting alone by car at peak hours to 50% of the labor force by year 2000, according to SANDAG.

For North County residents, a major part of meeting that goal will involve use rail service and ride-sharing programs.

Within just a few years, the North County Transit District, currently known for its fleet of white buses, will preside over an Oceanside-to-San Diego commuter rail, and an Oceanside-to-Escondido light rail project.

Carried on bi-level coaches running five times daily, suburban North County commuters will comfortably ride the rails to jobs in urban San Diego. The commute rail will have 10 stations along the coastal route and carry about 5,000 passengers by 2000.

Pete Aadland, transportation marketing officer for NCTD, believes the commuter rail will win people away from their cars and reduce traffic on I-5 and the Old Highway 101.

“We want to be able to have this service so reliable that people won’t question it,” Aadland said. “We’re competing with the car for reliability, comfort, and how efficiently we get (riders) from the stations to their work places.” Although geared for peak commute hour ridership, eventually the rail service will probably add a mid-day and weekend trips.

“We’ll have to come up with some kind of guaranteed trip home in the middle of the day so people don’t think they’re stranded,” Aadland said.

A different ridership will be served on the 17-station, Oceanside-to-Escondido light rail. Riders, estimated at 14,000 a day, will zip back and forth to places like Cal State San Marcos and North County Fair along the 22-mile route, with trains running at 30-minute intervals.

Construction of the commuter rail and light rail projects will start soon after an agreement is reached with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway over use of its right of way.

Meanwhile, North County’s larger employers are being sweet-talked into voluntarily establishing ride-sharing programs for workers, an effort that’s likely to become a government-ordered requirement before long.

In late 1990, a private, nonprofit group was created to work with government agencies in spreading the gospel about ride-sharing with employers.

The group is North San Diego County Transportation Management Assn., which serves Vista, Carlsbad, Oceanside, San Marcos and Escondido. A similar organization, Mid County TMA, serves the Rancho Bernardo, Scripps Ranch area.

When Ed Van Doorne, the transit marketing manager for the North County TMA, began making the rounds of local employers, the welcome was less than ecstatic.

“I simply called these companies and introduced myself, it was like selling Fuller brushes,” he said. “It wasn’t easy, there was lack of understanding of the issues.”

But over time, some North County firms have become receptive to organizing ride-sharing programs, but it’ll take time to get more corporate involvement on transportation issues.

“Our mission is to improve mobility, and we’d like them to work with us,” Van Doorne said.

One company that has embraced ride sharing is Hughes Aircraft Co. Industrial Products Division in Carlsbad, which has 500 workers and expects more from an expected merger.

Carol Sharp, the ride-share coordinator for Hughes, said workers are slowly beginning to realize the virtues of abandoning their solo commutes for cooperative transit with other employees. So far, 60 are sharing rides.

“It’s amazing, they find out it really is very painless,” Sharp said. “We have a guaranteed ride home program. If any employee has a problem, we can get them out of here.” Hughes works with a local cab company for occasions when an employee has a problem and must leave work early.

Hughes is using gentle persuasion to persuade workers to ride share, and Sharp said, “we didn’t want to scare the employees or poison their minds. We wanted to go into it gradually.”

Currently, there’s no requirement that large employers craft ride-sharing programs. But government agencies are considering regulations that would increasingly pressure companies to develop marketing plans to encourage workers to use transit, car-pool, van-pool or bicycle to work.

Commute traffic, the Air Pollution Control District is quick to remind, generates nearly 40% of daily air pollution from vehicles.

Ultimately, say transit officials, it’s highly likely that workers would be made to pay for parking on the job, an obvious measure to discourage lone commuting. There’s a flip side: some companies have shown a willingness to pay employees to take mass transit.

Beyond such practical steps as ride sharing and commute rail, the future of transportation in North County is bound to reach a new age in other respects. When Caltrans’ Nelson fantasizes, he sees high-tech freeways with surveillance camera to watch traffic conditions, and roadway sensors that will communicate with car computers about trouble ahead. Someday, he believes, computers may almost let cars pick the best trip route and virtually drive themselves.

New developments will include both homes and job centers to avoid repeating the commute sins of the past. And employers, as an incentive to attract top notch talent, will actually offer to let people work out of their homes thanks to the telecommunications revolution.

“They won’t be sitting in traffic for three hours a day and showing up for work all stressed out,” Nelson said.