Ride Sharing May Be On Way Out

A key provision in a federal clean-air law that has bedeviled Ventura County officials for years has been dropped, a change that could affect everything from the county government’s four-day workweek to compulsory car pools for major businesses.

An amendment to the Clean Air Act signed by President Clinton two days before Christmas eliminates the principal reason that most of Ventura County government and Thousand Oaks City Hall shut down on Fridays--something officials are now reconsidering.

It also removes the underpinnings for Point Mugu’s compressed work schedule, which allows 8,700 employees to take off every other Friday. The idea is to keep employees home and thus reduce pollution from commuters during rush hour.

For the past six years, all employers in Ventura County with 100 or more workers have been required to encourage employees to walk, ride a bike, set up car pools or anything other than arrive at work alone in their cars.

About 210 public and private employers, encompassing more than 75,000 workers across the county, have promoted ride sharing by offering company-run van pools, rebates for bus fare and other incentives that cost on average about $110 per worker per year.

All that could change now that Congress and Clinton have eliminated the unpopular federal mandate that requires an average of 1.5 employees per commuter vehicle or, more simply, three people for every two cars that show up to work.

“This gives us tremendous flexibility,” said Richard H. Baldwin, the county’s air pollution control officer. “Businesses will still be responsible for reducing vehicle emissions, but they won’t have to force their employees into ride sharing.”

Baldwin’s staff has already drafted alternative ways for employers to reduce car pollution, such as buying old, smog-spewing junkers to get them off the streets, buying pollution credits from other companies or converting a fleet of company cars to cleaner-burning fuels.

Another proposal is to require businesses to pay an annual fee per employee--a plan recently adopted in the Los Angeles Basin--so that the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District could pool the money for projects to reduce vehicle emissions.

Baldwin and his staff believe that some employers may find it easier and cheaper to voluntarily keep their ride-sharing programs. And such programs, they said, will remain an option for businesses as air quality officials rework local air pollution guidelines to conform with the change in federal law.

But district officials also acknowledge that the rule to cut down on commuter cars has been the most controversial in their effort to clean Ventura County’s smoggy skies.

The county, which has some of the dirtiest air in the nation, has until the year 2005 to meet federal health standards for ozone, a key component of smog.

Although ride-sharing provisions only account for about 1% of the needed reductions in smog, the regulations have raised a ruckus by forcing employers to attempt to change human behavior.

For some Southern Californians, it has challenged what they consider their birthright: the freedom to drive anywhere they want alone in their cars.

Chuck Byrne, manager of the 650-employee 3M plant in Camarillo, said he was delighted by the change in federal law. Few businesses, he said, have relished the role of trying to alter their employees’ habits before they get to work.

“We need to do things and not try to force businesses to play the role of enforcer of individual behavior,” he said. “We are looking forward to working with the Air Pollution Control District and getting back to doing what we actually do as a manufacturer.”

Marcia Brandt, transportation coordinator for the 3,000 Amgen employees in Thousand Oaks, said her company finds it is difficult to arrange ride-sharing programs for its scientists, who work long, irregular hours.

Instead, the company would prefer to pay for scrapping old, heavily polluting cars and bank those as credits against its required reductions, she said. “Amgen has been in favor of getting flexibility for everybody.”

Before Congress and the president dropped the ride-sharing provisions of the Clean Air Act, county air pollution authorities were trying to join a pilot program instituted by their counterparts in Los Angeles to give businesses options other than forcing commuters into car pools.

But Baldwin said there is no need to spend time and money to join the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency-sanctioned pilot project now that Ventura County can do the same thing on its own under the new law.

Written by Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.), the law removes the federal mandate for ride sharing, but insists that local officials continue to reduce air pollutants as earlier required.

One key environmentalist said he had no trouble with the change in the Clean Air Act as long as county officials and businesses continue toward of the goal of smog-free skies.

“I don’t have a problem of reaching goals by whatever is the most cost-effective method,” said Stan Greene, president of Citizens to Protect the Ojai. “It’s better to get the cooperation with the various factions and make some progress.”

Greene’s environmental group has repeatedly gone to federal court to force tighter anti-smog rules so that the county can meet health standards spelled out in the Clean Air Act.