Ride-Sharing Called Key To Clean Air Downtown Winter Campaign Seeks Carbon Monoxide Standard

As wet snow fell Friday morning, Spokane air quality officials kicked off a new winter campaign to reduce carbon monoxide.

The message: Spokane can clean its downtown air if more people will share rides to work.

“We are close to meeting the (federal) carbon monoxide standard, but we aren’t quite there yet. Our future success depends on people and their choices,” said Eric Skelton, Spokane Air Pollution Control Authority director.

The $60,000 media campaign is being paid for with money from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Fewer trips in single-occupancy vehicles could head off federal designation of Spokane as a city with a “serious” rather than a “moderate” carbon monoxide problem.

In July, the EPA announced Spokane could join smoggy Denver and Los Angeles on the short list of the nation’s worst polluters.

Spokane business leaders are fighting the EPA redesignation, which they think will hinder efforts to revitalize the downtown core.

Some 54 percent of carbon monoxide in Spokane’s air comes from vehicle exhaust. The problem intensifies during workday hours and winter air inversions, according to SCAPCA studies.

Only 28 percent of Spokane commuters drive to work with more than one person, according to a recent SCAPCA survey of 605 people.

Although nearly 78 percent of those surveyed admitted their driving habits worsen air pollution, only 22.5 percent said they’d be willing to ride to work with more people, the survey found.

Cleaner-burning cars have dramatically reduced local carbon monoxide levels over the past two decades. In 1974, Spokane flunked the EPA’s nine parts per million standard on 231 of 365 days. At that time, levels often soared to 40 parts per million.

In 1995, the city’s violations shrunk to four. But Spokane still flunked the EPA standard because only one violation a year is allowed under current federal regulations.

The colorless, odorless gas is unhealthy and a deterrent to downtown revitalization, said Jan Monaco, executive director of the Spokane County Medical Society and a SCAPCA board member.

“Workday commuting has got to be reduced,” Monaco said.

Meanwhile, Spokane business leaders are criticizing the downtown monitor along Third Avenue that registered all four of the 1995 violations.

They’ve argued it exaggerates Spokane’s air quality problems because it’s right next to the freeway in a location that’s likely to bias the sample.

Empire Ford recently ended its lease for the monitor site. Its owners said they didn’t appreciate the notoriety.

But state Department of Ecology officials have found another location across the street at 408 W. Third, said Ecology’s Ken Gamble.

“Ecology must look for the worst-case location. You don’t monitor where you don’t expect to see a problem,” Gamble said.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Clean air tips SCAPCA’s new media campaign offers several suggestions for commuters: Ride the bus. Combine errands in one trip. Use a computerized Commute Trip Reduction service to link people willing to share rides.