Air Quality Program Targets Commuters

With about half of Ventura County’s air pollution coming straight out of the exhaust pipe, the county’s Air Pollution Control District adopted a program Tuesday aimed at cutting automobile emissions.

The district’s board of directors at its monthly meeting formally adopted the Transportation Outreach Program, which will seek to reduce the number of motorists commuting to work alone.

Under the program, employers with 100 or more employees will be asked to register with the district and conduct a short survey every two years to determine how their employees get to and from work each day.

About 300 county employers will be asked to participate beginning in January.

With Ventura County commuters logging more than 18 million miles a day, the program will seek to increase awareness and participation in car-pooling, riding the bus, bicycling or walking to work as a means of slashing emissions.

The Transportation Outreach Program is the first in the nation being submitted under guidelines imposed earlier this year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Ventura County can be a model for the nation of public- and private-sector cooperation to produce measurable air pollution reductions,” said Susan Lacey, county supervisor and chairwoman of the pollution control board, in a written statement.