Plan to Cut Vehicle Use Moves Ahead : Environment: The county decides to submit an employee ride-reduction plan including car pools and discount transit tickets to the Air Pollution Control District.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday decided to submit a plan to reduce its employees’ use of cars to the Air Pollution Control District.

By launching the county plan, board members overrode a staff recommendation to delay filing the plan with the district for 60 days.

The plan, to be submitted today, is designed to fight air pollution by reducing the number of cars driven to work by the county’s more than 6,000 employees. The district is expected to take two months to review the proposal.

The plan includes guaranteed rides home in case of emergency for those who commute by bus or car pool, discounted transit tickets, subsidized van pools and preferential parking for car-pool members.

Some county agencies already are taking part in early stages of the program, such as a “9-80” compressed schedule that allows employees to work 80 hours over nine days every two weeks.

In choosing to turn down Chief Administrative Officer Richard Wittenberg’s request for the postponement, the supervisors at least partially reversed their July 17 position to give businesses with 100 or more employees another three months to develop trip-reduction strategies.

That delay, the second for private industry this year, was sought by APCD Manager Richard H. Baldwin on the grounds that his office needed more time to inform business executives of their responsibilities under the district’s Rule 210.

Originally, large businesses were scheduled to begin taking part in the program Jan. 1. That date was first set back to Aug. 1, then to Nov. 1.

Rule 210, adopted to bring the county into compliance with state and federal clean-air laws, sets a first-year goal of 1.35 employees per car for vehicles arriving at work between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. By 1997, the goal is to be raised to 1.5 employees per car.

“These will be difficult goals to achieve,” Air Pollution Control District Planning Manager William Mount said. “According to a California Department of Transportation study, average ridership in the county is about 1.12 or 1.14 persons per car. It won’t be easy to reach the higher standards.”

In answer to Wittenberg’s warning that county department heads, as well as officials at private firms, need more time to finalize plans, Supervisor James R. Dougherty asked: “Why not adopt it today? You’re going to have problems today or any other time you get started.”

Supervisor Susan K. Lacey, who along with fellow Supervisor Maggie H. Erickson was named to a committee to oversee the county’s ride-reduction efforts, said the program should be launched immediately so it could serve as a model to other employers.

Board members voted 4 to 0 to launch the plan, with Chairwoman Madge L. Schaefer voting yes despite reservations about the first year’s cost of at least $900,000.

The district will review the county’s strategies at seven work sites in Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo.

At the largest of these, County Government Center in Ventura, only 20 of the 2,398 employees now get to work by bus and only 167 by car pool, according to a county survey.

The trip-reduction plan calls for bus riders to increase to 48 and car poolers to 337. It also calls for more people to walk, ride bicycles or join partially subsidized van pools.

County government is the second-largest employer in the county. It ranks behind the Navy’s Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, where 9,700 civilians and military personnel are on the payroll.