Road to Commuter Hell is Paved With Good Intentions

So I’m sitting there in my easy chair Sunday morning, new day dawning and birdies chirping outside my window, sipping my orange juice and scanning the front-page headlines.

U.S. Mayors Want More Aid . . . Good luck.

Suspected Libyan Terrorists May Be Returned to U.S . . . Believe it when I see it.

Heavy Gun Sales in L.A. . . . Civilization Doomed.

Free Parking at the Workplace May Be on the Way Out in Orange County.

I spit my orange juice halfway across the living room.

Wha------???!!!

The article said the South Coast Air Quality Management District is requiring cities and counties by year’s end to ban most employer-provided free parking and to slap a surcharge on employees who drive to work alone.

The rules are part of a grand design to improve air quality by discouraging solo drivers.

We have free employee parking here at The Times. It’s without question one of the finest parking lots in the country, with excellent striping and outstanding asphalt. There’s plenty of room for everyone--unless it’s midafternoon, and then it can get ugly when two people try to get into the last available space--but so far we’ve never had any gunplay.

Because The Times is a big company, it would fall under the proscription on free on-site parking.

Sigh. This is why people join the Libertarian Party. It’s why the citizens of Boston threw the tea into the harbor.

Sure, sure, I have a bias. I drive by myself back and forth to work every day. It wouldn’t matter whether the parking fee was 10 cents a day or $10 a day--I’d still drive alone. So, for me, the workplace parking fee would be punishment, not mere disincentive.

Orange County is a place with a huge adult singles population. For the countless obvious reasons, such as errands to run after work, people need their cars. You can’t ask the bus driver to pull over and wait a couple minutes while you run in and pick up your dry cleaning.

A car culture has been dictated to us in Southern California, and now, in the perfect squelch, we’re going to be required to pay to live in it. The beauty of mass transit in other parts of the country is that you can sit down next to a stranger on the train or bus and strike up a conversation. It can add some texture to your life.

Who wants to ride to work with people you already see all day long?

We may get cleaner air, but at what expense?

Consider the possibilities of the dangers in extorting people into car-pooling:

* What if you have an argument at the office with your car-pool person and then you’re stuck with them for the rest of your life? What if they get the job you wanted and you have to listen to them talk about it in your car?

* What if you hate the way they drive?

* How do you suddenly explain to your new car-pool pal that, although you’ve been telling them you like to listen to jazz on the way to work, you’re really a closet Howard Stern listener?

* How do you keep the illusion alive that you’re a sweetie-pie around the office if someone discovers that you’re constantly yelling “Yeah, same to you, buddy!” to other drivers?

* How can you sing along with the radio?

* What if you like to ride with the windows down and they don’t want to get their hair messed up?

* What if you want to listen to the Dodgers game on the way home and they want to hear oldies?

* What if you’re not a morning person and you don’t want to hear somebody yakking all the way to the office?

You get the idea. Come to think of it, we should sponsor a contest and give a prize to the person who comes up with the Worst Car-Pool Nightmare Scenario.

In short, I hate this SCAQMD idea. I hate the acronym, too. How do you pronounce SCAQMD, anyway?

It smacks of over-legislating. It’s not like banning smoking in restaurants--nobody has to smoke while they’re eating. But you have to get to work. Charging parking fees at work sounds more like confiscation than conservation.

Give us cleaner cars. Give us mass transit. Give us car-pool incentives.

But in the name of a better environment, don’t punish people for the right to hang out by themselves.

Workers of the world, unite.