ACTIVIST CAMPAIGNS FOR SOCIETY WITHOUT CARS.

Byline: Martha Irvine Associated Press 

There was a time when Jan Lundberg was the crown prince of gas price surveyors, living large in Los Angeles with his Mercedes, yacht and servants.

Those who knew him then might not recognize him now - a 44-year-old vegan with a ponytail, clogs and a pant leg perpetually stuffed in his sock to keep his bike chain from eating it.

Once in the business of helping oil companies increase market share, Lundberg no longer compiles gas station surveys, including the respected North Hollywood-based Lundberg Letter, which his late father, Dan Lundberg, founded in 1955.

``L.A.,'' he said, ``was killing me.''

Instead, Lundberg defected to Arcata, a small Northern California college town and environmentalist haven where he and a staff of scruffy volunteers publish the Auto-Free Times, a journal of ``revolutionary ecology and economics'' and ``road-fighting news.''

It's all part of his work to rid the earth of cars and the pavement they roll on. And he has a battle cry that would pain most commuters in car-loving California and beyond.

``Our message is not, hand over your car keys. It's, we want to rip up this road,'' said Lundberg, who heads the feisty Alliance for a Paving Moratorium, a coalition of more than 130 anti-highway groups worldwide.

Lundberg lives the life he advocates. He hasn't been in a car since 1989, opting instead to walk, ride a bike or, on longer trips, use public transportation.

``Jan has a wonderful, wide-eyed and radical view,'' said Ernest Callenbach, a Berkeley-based lecturer and author. In 1975, Callenbach published ``Ecotopia,'' one of the first books to advocate a life where autos play a minor role.

Since that time, cars worldwide have increased 60 percent, while the population has increased 30 percent, environmentalists say.

That has led to more cars than people in the United States - a major reason why Lundberg predicts the world will be out of oil in 25 years.

``Where are those anti-war protesters from the '60s?'' Lundberg asks. ``Many of them are in their homes, consuming.''

Though he was an activist at UCLA in the early 1970s, Lundberg is the first to admit he set aside his radical ways in large part to please his father and join the family business.

``I was probably the highest-paid 21-year-old in town,'' said Lundberg, who had become the Lundberg Letter's editor at the time of his father's death in 1986.

It was a tough act to follow, since Dan Lundberg, a former CBS reporter, was a media fixture during the U.S. energy crises of the 1970s.

``It started to get pretty interesting when we predicted the second oil shock of 1979,'' Lundberg said. ``That really put us on the map.''

Through it all, Lundberg said, his father was an environmentalist, too, who raised his family on an organic ranch in Canoga Park and took his five children on extended sailing trips.

But his father's death, he said, let him admit something to himself as he was driving from gas station to gas station tabulating half-cent changes in fuel prices.

``I decided, I hate this,'' Lundberg said. ``I'm not going to pay people to do something I hate.''

His sister, Trilby, still runs what is now known as the Lundberg Survey.

But Jan, who hasn't spoken to his sister in years, split from the family after his father died.

``She's in a different world. She lives in the past,'' said Lundberg, who insists sibling rivalry didn't cause them to publish competing publications until Jan quit altogether.

``What is a family feud if I'm just minding my own business?'' Lundberg asks.

Trilby Lundberg did not return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Jan Lundberg said his father probably wouldn't think much of his work as an activist, or of his dreams - a moratorium on roads and parking lots, turning pavement into parks and adding bike lanes to major freeways.

His activism even led to his arrest this year during a mass bike ride on state Highway 101 to save ancient redwoods in the nearby Headwaters Forest. A judge in Eureka dropped most of the charges against him this month.

During his short jail stint, Lundberg happened to meet 31-year-old Steve Palmer, a former wholesale auto parts salesman who recently left Los Angeles.

He, too, has permanently parked his car.

``But I have misgivings about selling it because I don't want it back on the road,'' said Palmer, who lives in a tent in nearby McKinleyville and has become one of Lundberg's volunteers.

Even Lundberg's daughter, Vernell - unlike most 16-year-olds - has no interest in getting a driver's license. She's following in her father's environmentalist footsteps, including illegally perching in Headwaters Forest redwoods to protest Pacific Lumber's logging of dead and dying timber.

Vernell also is embarking on a cross-country trip to environmental rallies to sing ``ecomusic'' she and her father compose.

Soon, Jan hopes to pursue his music full time and hand over the Alliance, which is funded by grants and donations, to his volunteers.

Asked how they make a living, Lundberg, Palmer and many others in Arcata refer often to ``helping each other out.''

They get their bikes fixed for free at the Anarchy Bike shop. And many people have more than one job and share or trade whatever skills and goods they have. A local newspaper columnist, for example, plays the banjo on the street to subsidize his income.

``Even though we don't always live up to our own values, sometimes we return,'' Lundberg said.

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Photo

Photo: Jan Lundberg, head of the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium, rides his bike around Arcata, Calif., since he opposes the use of cars.

Associated Press