In the spirit of attaining a "greener" Valley College campus, the Rideshare Incentive Program provides motivation for Valley employees to find fuel-efficient ways of getting to work. Employees can receive a dollar for every workday they use one of the fuel-efficient modes of transportation, including carpooling, walking, biking, taking the bus, or driving an alternative fuel vehicle to get to work.
The program is part of the Southern California Air Quality Management, District Associate Vice President Raul Gonzalez explains.
"The goal of that [the program] is to decrease the number of vehicles on the road, or at least coming to work," he said. "The more people we can get to participate in those types of activities to get to work the better it will be for the environment."
The Rideshare program also provides an extra $15 a month to employees, this includes professors using public transportation.
According to the American Lung Association statistics, Los Angeles failed its annual particle pollution grade, receiving the fourth highest weighted average of particle pollution this year. Other counties in the run for the worst annual grade were Fresno, Kern, and Riverside. An article in the Los Angeles Times reported that the largest contributors to air pollution in areas like Bakersfield, Kern County are heavy-duty trucks and farm equipment.
The pool of employees able to receive incentives cannot be broadened to student workers simply because Valley cannot afford to provide the extra incentives. Meredith Leonard, an environmental science professor at Valley College explained L.A.'s specific smog problem.
"Photochemical smog is literally our own L.A. smog," caused by our automobiles as opposed to agricultural smog produced in Bakersfield, Calif. She does not use the Valley Rideshare program since she travels from "across the hill" to the valley and arranging an employee carpool is more difficult than it seems.
By law any establishment that employs more than 250 people, must participate in the Rideshare program. There is an annual survey that determines what modes of transportation used by Valley employees that will be turned into the SCAQMD by Dec. 2. The date of the survey is undisclosed to employees, as Gonzalez said, "Only I'm allowed to know."
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