Many Antelope Valley Drivers Still Going Solo : Transit: Census data shows that travel time has increased for workers in Palmdale and Lancaster. Officials blame a refusal to change commuting habits.

Despite significant increases in the amount of time it took them to get to work during the 1980s, Antelope Valley residents are as likely as ever to make the trip solo, according to an analysis of data from the 1990 U.S. Census.

Palmdale workers, for example, spent an average of 41 minutes getting to work in 1990, contrasted with only 25 minutes in 1980. But the percentage of Palmdale residents who commuted alone has remained about the same--70%, according to the data.

In Lancaster, the percentage of solo commuters increased from 65% in 1980 to 73% in 1990 even though the time spent going from home to work grew during the decade from an average of 24 minutes to 28 minutes each way.

In contrast, the average amount of time to get to work for all of Los Angeles County was 26 minutes in 1990, up only slightly from 24 minutes in 1980.

The time spent getting to work also increased--but to a lesser degree--in the San Fernando Valley, where workers spent between 25 and 31 minutes in each direction depending on where they lived, the data shows.

The new data is drawn from so-called long-form responses to the 1990 Census, which were released in May.

Because the data for the average travel time to work includes people who work at home or in their neighborhoods, as well as those who travel long distances, the commute times are thought to be slightly low. The data also combines the small percentage of workers who take public transportation to their jobs with workers who drive.

Regional transportation officials attribute the longer average home-to-work travel time countywide to freeway congestion that continues to worsen. They place the blame on commuters who refuse to change their habit of driving alone.

“We have a finite amount of road space and it seems like an infinite amount of growth,” said Cheryl Collier, director of research and development for the Commuter Transportation Services Inc., a nonprofit group that runs Commuter Computer and other traffic-reduction programs for local governments and businesses.

Collier warned that as traffic increases and commute times grow, government agencies will turn to harsher penalties--including higher parking costs, road tolls and registration fees--to persuade solo commuters to use car pools, van pools, buses or other mass transit systems.

Such penalties could hit particularly hard in the San Fernando, Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys, where 71% of workers drove alone to work in 1990, the census data shows. That percentage is slightly higher than in 1980, despite an expanding network of shuttle buses and car - pool programs.

Countywide, 70% of commuters drove alone in 1990, contrasted with 69% in 1980.

Even in communities where getting to work is taking far longer than it did 10 years ago, the percentage of people driving alone has remained roughly the same.

Transportation officials say commuters who live in bedroom communities near the outskirts of the county usually have the longest commute times because they live farthest from work.

“The majority of people here are still driving out of the area to get to work,” said Al Rangel, a Commuter Transportation Services representative who organizes car pools and van pools in the Antelope Valley.

He said commute times will grow as long as people who work in downtown Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley continue to buy homes in Palmdale, Santa Clarita and Lancaster.

In Palmdale, 70% of the residents worked somewhere outside that city. Nearly 80% of Santa Clarita residents are employed outside the city.

According to the 1990 data, the percentage of workers who spent an hour or more getting to their jobs was 17% in Lancaster, 36% in Palmdale and 12% in Santa Clarita; countywide, by contrast, the figure was 8.4%.

Residents of Burbank, Glendale and communities in the eastern San Fernando Valley were less likely than those who lived elsewhere to have home-to-work travel times of an hour or more. Residents of communities in the western San Fernando Valley were more likely to have lengthy commute times.

For regional planners and business associations, part of the solution to the increasing traffic gridlock and the extended commute times is the development of more communities where the number of houses and jobs are balanced.

Bonny Matheson, president of the San Fernando Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., said the group was founded in 1949 to bring business in the Valley so that it would not become primarily a bedroom community.

“The good news is the Valley has a good jobs-housing balance,” she said. Matheson said about 60% of residents do not travel to jobs out of the San Fernando Valley.

When workers from the San Fernando, Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys do decide to abandon their solo commute, they usually turn to car-pooling.

Lake Los Angeles and the city of San Fernando ranked at the top of communities relying on car pools, with about 18% of workers joining others to drive to work. In other areas of the San Fernando Valley, the car-pooling percentage was about 10% to 12%.

Rangel said the emotional stress caused by long-distance commutes is the main reason behind many car pools.

He said he gets calls daily from commuters frazzled by getting to work.

“They’re frustrated with the time, they are frustrated with the distance and what gets worse is the stress,” he said. “They are just getting tired of it.”

Rick Hall, a security supervisor at Lockheed Corp. in Burbank, gave up his 55-minute drive alone from his house in Palmdale because he said the drive had taken a toll on his car and his tolerance.

He organized a van pool in September with 12 other Lockheed employees. The company subsidizes the cost of the van, and now, he said, getting to work is almost a pleasure.

Hall said he alternates the driving duties with two others.

“What is nice about it is having the van with 12 other people to talk to,” he said. “I’ve got my backup driver who drives home and I get to snore a little bit on the way.”

Efforts are under way throughout the San Fernando, Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys to improve the traffic picture of the future.

The Southern California Regional Rail Authority is a few months away from starting a commuter railroad system that will link Los Angeles’ Union Station and Moorpark in Ventura County, Santa Clarita, and ultimately, San Bernardino. The lines are expected to carry about 10,600 one-way passengers daily. Eventually, the system will expand to become the nation’s sixth-largest commuter rail system and will connect Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.

By September, the California Department of Transportation is expected to complete a 2 1/2-year, $40-million widening project on the Ventura Freeway, one of the nation’s busiest.

Among the efforts are projects paid for by government agencies throughout the San Fernando Valley to reroute buses to better serve riders, install high-tech computer systems to synchronize traffic signals and add car-pool lanes on just about every freeway in the county.

Collier said such projects can help reduce traffic congestion and slow the increase in home-to-work travel times.

But she predicted that commute times will continue to increase until motorists reach a “point of saturation--when they say enough is enough.”

No one can predict how long commute times will get before that point is reached, but she said that when it is, even the hard-core commuters who swore they would never join a car pool will change their habits.

“We are talking about changing habitual behavior and it’s going to be a very slow process,” she said.

Solo Drivers

Percentage of residents driving alone to work.

1980 1990 Acton NA* 78.2 Agoura Hills NA* 82.2 Burbank 73.5 76.8 Glendale 71.4 73.2 Hidden Hills 80.8 78.6 Lake Los Angeles NA* 67.0 Lancaster 65.3 73.4 Littlerock NA* 53.3 Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Toluca Lake 75.7 80.2 North Hollywood 70.4 69.8 Arleta, Pacioma 67.9 62.0 Van Nuys, North Sherman Oaks 71.2 70.6 Mission Hills, Panorama City, Sepulveda 72.1 66.7 Sun Valley 72.9 66.8 Sylmar 72.8 72.4 Granada Hills, Knollwood 75.5 80.9 Canoga Park, Winnetka, Woodland Hills 75.2 77.5 Chatsworth, Porter Ranch 75.3 78.7 Northridge 74.7 77.4 Reseda, West Van Nuys 73.5 73.4 Encino, Tarzana 77.4 79.0 Sunland, Tujunga 72.3 75.3 Palmdale 70.8 70.4 Palmdale East 63.9 76.1 Quartz Hill 72.8 80.7 San Fernando 62.8 58.8 Santa Clarita NA* 80.2 Val Verde NA* 79.1 Westlake Village NA* 84.4

* Figure not available.

Source: 1990 U.S. Census

Data compiled by Richard O’Reilly, Times director of computer analysis, and Maureen Lyons, statistical analyst

Long Commutes

Percentage of residents driving 60 minutes or more to work

1980 1990 Acton NA* 34.7 Agoura Hills NA* 14.9 Burbank 3.3 5.0 Glendale 3.6 6.2 Hidden Hills 15.4 9.1 Lake Los Angeles NA* 45.9 Lancaster 10.3 17.1 Littlerock NA* 36.4 Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Toluca Lake 4.8 4.6 North Hollywood 4.7 7.6 Arleta, Pacoima 5.9 6.4 Van Nuys, North Sherman Oaks 5.7 6.9 Mission Hills, Panorama City, Sepulveda 5.5 9.7 Sun Valley 5.1 7.3 Sylmar 6.6 8.1 Granada Hills, Knollwood 7.0 9.7 Canoga Park, Winnetka, Woodland Hills 12.3 10.4 Chatsworth, Porter Ranch 11.8 10.1 Northridge 8.3 9.6 Reseda, West Van Nuys 9.0 8.9 Encino, Tarzana 9.0 8.2 Sunland, Tujunga 6.2 7.5 Palmdale 14.8 36.2 Palmdale East 15.6 24.8 Quartz Hill 10.9 19.1 San Fernando 4.2 6.3 Santa Clarita NA* 11.8 Val Verde NA* 19.4 Westlake Village NA* 16.4

* Figure not available.

Source: 1990 U.S. Census

Data compiled by Richard O’Reilly, Times director of computer analysis, and Maureen Lyons, statistical analyst