Staggered Work Hours Sought to Ease Traffic

Eager to head off the growing traffic congestion in North County, officials in the region’s cities are considering a plan to encourage major employers to stagger work hours.

Under the proposal, which backers hope will ultimately be embraced throughout San Diego County, large businesses would be asked to shift their operating schedules so workers hit the road at different times during peak traffic periods.

The idea, which was used successfully by the City of Los Angeles during the 1984 Olympic Games, is being championed by County Supervisor John MacDonald and San Marcos Mayor Lee Thibadeau, whose city has already undertaken such a traffic management plan.

Last Thursday, MacDonald met to discuss the proposal with Thibadeau and the mayors of half a dozen other North County cities, as well as officials from Camp Pendleton and County Supervisors Susan Golding and George Bailey, whose districts include portions of the region.

Everyone at the meeting expressed interest in the plan and promised to discuss the topic with their colleagues, according to Nancy Allen, executive assistant to MacDonald.

“There seems to be a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea,” Allen said. “It could be great. It could create a situation where a lot of people breeze along roads and freeways where they just inch along now.”

That would be good news in fast-growing North County, where traffic congestion has become an increasing problem for both motorists and politicos. And as houses and condominiums continue to sprout, Thibadeau said, the traffic headaches will only get worse unless something is done.

“San Diego County is growing so rapidly, and we’re not going to stop it,” he said. “Even with the controls every city is trying to initiate to (help soften the effects of) . . . growth, we’re finding that road improvements themselves are not going to solve the traffic problem. Somehow, we have to spread out peak-hour traffic to get better use of these streets and highways.”

Although the idea is still in its formative stages, Allen said she anticipates having every city in North County participating in the traffic-management program by fall.

Backers of the traffic-management plan estimate that the concept, if widely embraced, could reduce rush-hour traffic by as much as 45%. According to Allen, even a small shift in the operating hours of a business could pay big dividends on the roadways.

For example, at an industrial park near the Oceanside Municipal Airport, several manufacturing firms let out employees at almost precisely the same time, creating a massive traffic jam most weekdays, Allen said.

The problem could be remedied relatively easily, she said, if the firms agreed to shift their operating hours so that employees go home 15 minutes apart.

Faced with that sort of reasoning, officials from various North County cities have already begun lining up in support of the proposal.

“I think it’s an excellent idea,” said Encinitas Mayor Marjorie Gaines. “It’s a recognition of a problem that is getting worse all the time. It’s also a relatively inexpensive method of dealing with the problem.”

But Oceanside Mayor Larry Bagley said the idea would fly only “if you get the cooperation of manufacturers and do it on a regionwide basis.”

“Doing it city by city won’t accomplish anything,” Bagley said. “If we adopted a traffic-management program here and Vista and Carlsbad didn’t, it wouldn’t do us much good.”

Carlsbad Mayor Claude (Buddy) Lewis agreed, but noted that the success of the effort will ultimately depend on whether companies actually go along with the program.

“We are certainly going to look into it,” Lewis said. “The companies must agree to it, and I don’t know if that will become a problem. We’re going to have to discuss the idea with the Chamber (of Commerce) and the businesses.”

Allen said officials anticipate some initial skepticism among employers, but they stressed that the idea is not anti-business. Under the concept, area firms would be given incentives for participating in the program, she said.

“We’d much prefer to use the carrot approach to the stick,” she said.

For example, business license fees could be reduced for those firms involved in the program. And employees might be persuaded to participate in the program by being offered preferential parking spaces if they car-pool.

Thibadeau said each city would have to draw up a large menu of incentives because “each employer has problems and personalities that are different” and “what would work for one might not work for another.”

Each city would be expected to draw up its own individualized plan, Allen said. While there would undoubtedly be differences, the various plans should be able to accomplish the ultimate goal of reducing traffic along major roads and highways, she said.

According to Allen, traffic managers in the cities would first be expected to draw up a list of the “hot spots” most affected by traffic congestion. Among those already spotlighted by backers of the program are California 78 between Oceanside and Escondido, Interstate 5, California 76 in Oceanside and El Camino Real.

Next, officials would have to determine which industries to target for the program. In San Marcos, which has modeled its traffic-management program on a successful plan in effect since 1984 in Pleasanton, Calif., officials agreed to ask only those firms with 100 or more employees to take part.

Finally, business leaders would be queried as to what incentives would help get them to participate in the program. Allen said some cities might ultimately decide to incorporate penalties into the program, but MacDonald and other backers of the idea hope “the emphasis remains on incentives.”

As Thibadeau sees it, a regional traffic-management program in North County would serve as the perfect pilot project to prove that the concept would work countywide.

“If we show the rest of San Diego County what I think we can show then, they’ll be eager to start it by next year,” Thibadeau said. “There isn’t an elected official in this county who isn’t concerned about the congestion problem and isn’t being inundated with calls from residents angry about it.”

Allen said Supervisor Golding has promised to take up the proposal with officials in San Diego sometime in the future. But no one expects San Diego to incorporate the proposal until it is proven elsewhere, she said.

“It would be a major undertaking for them,” Allen said. “While San Marcos has maybe seven or eight employers with 100 or more workers, San Diego must have about 1,000 firms like that.”