SANTA MARIA (California) TIMES October 22, 2007 Supes to vote on ag worker transports
The rubber may soon meet the road on a much-discussed plan to provide van pools for safely transporting Santa Maria Valley agricultural workers to and from their work in the fields. Santa Barbara County supervisors will be asked Tuesday to authorize spending $85,000 to purchase nine, used vans from Kings County to launch the program. That money would come from a pot of funds previously set aside, including $100,000 from the county, $50,000 from Santa Maria city and a $70,000 state grant. If supervisors authorize the purchase, those 15-passenger vans could in operation within a month, county officials said. The county Public Works Department also would apply for $3 million in Ag Worker Transportation Funding through a Caltrans grant program created by state legislators last year. Statewide, up to $15 million of that grant money will be allocated in December. The pilot program locally would be run with the help of the nonprofit Santa Maria Organization of Transportation Helpers (SMOOTH) and patterned after a program successfully operated by Kings County for about the past five years. Farm workers using the local van pools would be each charged between $3 and $6 per day, depending on how far they ride. Drivers would not have to pay fares, but would otherwise be unpaid. To qualify as drivers, they would have to have valid licenses, be insurable, pass a physical exam and clear a DMV check of their 10-year driving history. Each van's driver will arrange with passengers how and where they will be picked up each day, but there is a built-in incentive to meet at a centralized pickup spot, the report notes. Namely, carrying passengers shorter distances to and from work will reduce the fares they are charged. For instance, traveling 15 miles or less costs $3 and the fare for 50 miles is $6. Drivers will collect the cash fares and mail them to SMOOTH's administrative office. So, what's to keep a driver from pocketing some of the cash? Once a month, a random inspection of each van will be made to “verify the approximate number of participants who are actually riding in the van.'' To ensure the vans are driven safely, and aren't used for anything besides transporting field workers, each will have a GPS tracking device. That will allow its speed and location to monitored at any time from a computer in SMOOTH headquarters. Advocates who have repeatedly urged such a program over the past two years contend it will reduce the number of farm workers being driven to and from work by unlicensed or uninsured drivers, often in unsafe vehicles. Kings County's award-winning program was prompted by several accidents in the Central Valley involving farm workers riding in dangerous vehicles, including a 1999 collision that killed 13 people. Since its program began, there have been no injury accidents involving any of its vans, which now number more than 100 and collectively transport hundreds of farm workers daily, the staff report says. Kings County officials have also offered to help with administrative oversight and procuring vans for the local program. The $3 million grant money the county hopes to receive from the state would pay for operating the program through 2010, as well purchasing new vans to expand the fleet to about 35. The goal, by the end of the three years, is for ridership to be high enough that fares will cover at least half the operating costs. While there appears to be broad community support for such a program, it also has its critics. “We're skeptical about whether this program can work,'' remarked Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business (COLAB) spokesman Andy Caldwell at a recent county supervisors meeting. However, the program is being endorsed by the Santa Barbara County Farm Bureau. Since it “would reduce traffic accidents, unlicensed drivers traveling on the highways, help the environment by reducing emissions, and provide safe and reliable transportation to farm workers, the Farm Bureau offers its support,'' states a Sept. 27 letter to the county. “In addition, this alternative method of transporting farm workers to their worksites benefits growers by reducing absence and increases productivity,'' wrote the group's president, Thomas Gibbons. “This program supports growers, farm workers and communities collectively.''
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