New Anti-Smog Tactic: Bribe Motorists to Not Drive Alone

Carpool advocates may finally have come up with a way to break solo commuters of their drive-alone habit: Pay them.

But don’t expect somebody to be standing on freeway onramps passing out cash--yet.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to offer commuters $2 a day when they bike, walk, carpool or take public transit for three months. But the incentive won’t be cold, hard cash, but gift certificates good for food, gas and merchandise.

Commuters who try Metrolink trains will be given $44 toward their monthly pass or $10 for a 10-trip ticket.

The rewards are a politically safer way to reduce smog and traffic congestion than the long-debated idea of charging motorists a fee based on how far they drive and how much they use freeways during rush hour.

Commuters already have one incentive to carpool--a faster ride. Caltrans is spending millions of dollars to add carpool lanes to virtually every freeway in the Los Angeles region.

Even so, 78% of Los Angeles County commuters last year drove alone, according to a sampling by the Southern California Assn. of Government’s Rideshare program. About 13% of commuters rode in carpools or vanpools and 6% used public transit.

Los Angeles still is not the drive-alone capital of the nation, officials say. That distinction belongs to Detroit--you know, where they still make some of the cars.

Carpool incentives are not new.

Businesses have offered cash, expensive gifts, premium parking spaces and guaranteed rides home to carpoolers. Companies also have subsidized employees’ transit passes.

It is less common for government to offer incentives to the public.

Earlier this year, the MTA began offering $100 checks to 500 first-time vanpoolers.

Ventura County will soon begin to offer free taxi rides or rental cars (no Porsches--”Be happy with a Ford Escort,” said an official) to carpoolers who need to get home for an emergency or get stuck working late. Fear of being stranded at work is the most frequently cited reason that people give for not carpooling, officials say.

This fall, the Orange County Transportation Authority will begin offering free tickets good for two Metrolink round-trips to people commuting from the Inland Empire to Orange County.

Under the new MTA program, expected to begin this fall, the rewards initially will be offered only to commuters who travel the San Bernardino and Pomona freeways in the San Gabriel Valley and the 405 and 605 freeways in southeastern Los Angeles County.

Those corridors were chosen because they have new or soon-to-open carpool lanes.

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The program is patterned after a similar “try it, you’ll like it” program in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Carpoolers there receive scrip good for food, gas and merchandise. Asked why they don’t hand out cash, an official said: “It gets touchy when it comes to public funds.”

Officials there report that 68% of the participants continued to carpool or use public transit one year after they stopped receiving the incentives.

The MTA at first plans to offer the rewards to about 3,200 commuters. Those who want to participate would need to go through their employers.

The program--open only to businesses with fewer than 250 workers--grows out of a state law that took effect Jan. 1, exempting employers with less than 250 workers from requirements to establish ride-sharing programs.

The legislation required the South Coast Air Quality Management District to provide $1.5 million to promote voluntary ride-sharing.

Robert W. Poole Jr., president of the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, a think tank with a basically Libertarian viewpoint, is skeptical that $2-a-day incentives will make a difference.

“It may be worth it at a high enough price, but $2 a day isn’t going to do it for most people,” said Poole. He favors opening up underutilized carpool lanes to solo commuters willing to pay a toll.

Poole said that offering cash to encourage solo commuters into carpools or on public transit would be more cost-effective than providing taxpayer subsidies to build and operate the rail lines. He said:

“They seem to be willing to spend $8, $10, $15, $18 per trip to subsidize people to ride on rail lines, yet they seem to think carpooling is only worth $2 per trip.”

In search of a carpool partner? Dial (800) COMMUTE or call up https://www.scag.ca.gov/commute on the Web.

Richard Simon can be reached on the Internet at richard.simon@latimes.com or the old-fashioned way at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053.