Car-Poolers Counted in Ride-Share Assessment : Transportation: Study will determine how many government employees car-pool, walk, bus or bike to work.

Ventura County employees arriving at work in twos and threes at the Government Center and 140 other county offices will be tallied next week as the county takes its semi-annual survey to learn how many share rides to their jobs.

The survey is intended to determine whether the county government is meeting its goals for reducing air pollution by cutting down on the number of people who drive alone to work. Officials will count how many of the county’s 5,063 eligible employees share rides, walk, bus or bike to work.

The county’s trip-reduction regulation, known as Rule 210, requires all public and private employers with more than 100 workers to provide incentives to car-pool.

Under Rule 210, large employers must show that their companies have an average ridership of 1.35 people per car. By January, 1996, that requirement will rise to an average of 1.5 people per car.

Dixie Hollingsworth, executive secretary for county Auditor-Controller Thomas O. Mahon, said she has been car-pooling for more than two years.

“I do it for the preferential parking,” she said. Government center employees who car-pool have access to the more convenient spots in a vast parking lot.

“On a rainy day, that’s a real convenience for me,” she said. “And I like the interaction in the morning. It gets me off on the right foot.”

Hollingsworth’s department boasts the best rate of any in the county, with an average of 1.65 people per car. During survey week last year, when employees knew they were being counted, the number of car-poolers shot up to 2.4 people per car, she said.

Kathy Brandl of Oak View shares a ride to and from work every day with her fiance, who works in the assessor’s office.

“It gives you time to talk and visit so when you get home, you don’t have to talk about work anymore,” she said.

County supervisors on Tuesday declared that the survey would be conducted next week, essentially warning employees that they would be counted and possibly skewing results to some extent.

But Richard H. Baldwin, the county’s air pollution control officer, said he has little concern that departments would pad numbers.

“Employees have a tendency to call us when those kinds of things happen,” Baldwin said. Still, to ensure that the count is accurate, Baldwin said the Air Pollution Control District is beginning an audit program.

But overall, he said, the county and its large employers have done well with the regulation, which was implemented to comply with the federal Clean Air Act.

“One reason to comply is that the law requires it,” Baldwin said. “And the reason the law requires it is that motor vehicles are the largest contributor to our smog problem.”

The federal government has designated Ventura County as an area with a severe air quality problem.

Private employers with more than 100 workers must also perform annual or semi-annual surveys.

One such company, Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays in Westlake, is conducting its employee survey this week. Employees there receive incentives ranging from the right to wear casual dress to work to free nights in one of the company’s many hotels and other properties, said Ken Phillips, director of corporate communications.

“They earn points when they do trip reductions,” Phillips said. “It’s a program that works.”

Average vehicle ridership at the company, which has 334 employees at its Westlake office, has exceeded the regulation’s goal for 1996, at 1.54 people per car, he said.

Procter & Gamble in Oxnard uses a different strategy.

The 220 employees affected receive preferential parking, and the company has provided protected bicycle racks and guaranteed rides home for car-poolers. But the real incentive is pollution control, said company spokesman Robert E. Paulger.

Average ridership at the company has averaged 1.42 people per car, he said.

“The whole issue is that it’s the right thing to do, from the standpoint of freeway congestion, and cleaning up the air,” Paulger said. “People have responded well.”