COMMUTE WORSENING, DRIVERS SAY.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

Forty-three percent of Southern California motorists believe traffic congestion got worse in the past year - the first time in a decade that commuter complaints have risen, according to a survey released Thursday.

The annual survey by the Southern California Association of Governments estimated that motorists waste 1.8 million ``vehicle'' hours in traffic each day locally.

Among the most surprising findings of the regional planning agency's survey was that drivers felt less satisfied with their commute in 1999, after their level of satisfaction had risen steadily since 1991. SCAG serves a six-county area that includes Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside and Imperial.

``We're starting to see the strain,'' said Cheryl Collier, manager for Southern California Rideshare, a service of SCAG that promotes alternative transportation services. ``It mystified us why people were more and more satisfied with their commute each year.''

House painter Mike Weber of West Hills sees no mystery in worsening traffic, which he said has cost him thousands of dollars in income over the past three years.

``It took me 50 minutes just to get from here to Sherman Oaks the other day on the 101,'' said Weber, 35, as he was getting into his truck at a Woodland Hills parking lot.

``They gotta do something with mass transit here. They need a monorail or something. I'd rather lose the job than sit in traffic.''

The telephone survey of 2,925 randomly chosen commuters in the six Southern California counties, found 43 percent said freeway congestion is worse than it was a year ago, while 33 percent said the same of surface street traffic.

The survey also found a 1 percent drop in carpooling, meaning that about 40,000 additional vehicles are on the already crowded freeways.

``It's horrid,'' said Jessica Tolsky, 38, a Woodland Hills mother of two who spends more than two hours nearly every weekday on the Ventura Freeway between her home and Universal City, where she works as a marketing researcher. ``Just to get from here to Universal City, it's insane.''

In perhaps the most telling part of the survey, consumers were asked to rank their satisfaction with their commute on a scale of 1 to 9. From 1991 to 1998, the consensus has steadily risen from an average of 5.8 to 6.7.

That dipped to 6.4 in the 1999 survey, surprising the researchers.

``They'd report the traffic was getting worse but hadn't yet felt the full impact of the commuting until now,'' said Rongsheng Luo, project manager for the survey.

The survey gauges people's travel patterns and attitudes about congestion, routes, travel options and employer-provided services. It was not conducted in 1995 and 1997 due to lack of funding.

Overall, the average commute is slightly longer - 32.4 miles round trip in 1999, compared with 32.2 miles the year before. Naturally, drive time is also up some.

What hasn't changed much is the way people get to work. Those who drive alone accounted for 78.5 percent in 1999, a slight increase over last year, while 13.9 percent carpooled and 4.7 percent took the bus.

People who walk to work, 1.1 percent, outnumber those who van pool (0.9 percent) and those who take rail (0.7 percent) or bikes (0.5 percent).

In a comparison among the six counties, Los Angeles County had the lowest drive-alone rate (77 percent), while Riverside and Imperial counties have the highest (83 percent and 85 percent, respectively). Residents in San Bernardino and Riverside counties spend the most time commuting (about 75 minutes) and travel the farthest (43 miles round trip).

The survey also found that of people with access to high occupancy vehicle lanes, 18 percent use the so-called ``diamond'' lanes at least once a week, while 71 percent of ridesharers used the lanes.

One thing the survey does not answer is why people are suddenly dissatisfied, or why they were satisfied with their commutes in years past whether traffic was getting better or worse.

Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for the Automobile Club of Southern California, said worsening traffic might be a downside of the region's strong economy.

``We would expect shorter commutes and less traffic during a recession,'' Spring said. ``Now that we have a boom here in Southern California, part of that is getting to work. More people are commuting.''

Indeed, in the recession years of the early 1990s, people who said their commute was getting better grew from 11 percent in 1991 to 31 percent in 1994.

Those rates reversed in the second half of the '90s, reflecting the economic turnaround.

``The farmer tills the rocky soil last and employers or industry, when it's really looking for locations and people, will go to the center they've been leaving all these years,'' said James Moore, a professor at USC's School of Policy, Planning and Development.

Staff Writer Jason Kandel contributed to this story.

CAPTION(S):

chart

Chart: COMMUTER TRAFFIC

Ratings of current freeway traffic.

SOURCE: Southern California Association of Governments