dMte’ trojan
Volume XCIV, Number 13	University of Southern California	Thursday, September 22, 1983
University official criticizes Olympic Games traffic report
JON SOO HOO/DAILY TROJAN
Southbound traffic on the Harbor Freeway is predicted to increase by 10 percent during the Olympics, according to a California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency report.
Escort Service grows
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JON SOO HOO/DAILY TROJAN
SELWYN ENZER
Senate buys new cars, radios to help drivers meet efficiency level
By Catalina Camia and Susan Rimerman
Staff Writers
Long-awaited improvements in the escort service are being finalized, thanks to an increase in funds and support from the university.
Last year, the Student Senate launched a campaign to research the complaints and concerns lodged by students about escort operations.
The Student Senate's External and Environmental Affairs Committee (EEAC) requested $70,000 for escort improvements. Last year's budget was $32,000.
"There was a major problem with it last year," said R. Davis Taylor, chairman of the EEAC research unit for the senate. "The senate, along with the escort employees, made a big push for improvements."
1 Taylor said, from the senate's point of view, the basic problems were "lack of funds and support from the university."
Of the new funds appropriated to the escort service, approximately $16,000 was spent on two new cars, and another $20,000 was spent on a new radio system, said Carl Levredge, director of parking operations.
The new radio system was purchased to alleviate the problem of sharing the the same frequency with parking operations. The system, which includes six radios and a monitoring console, allows the escorts to have a separate frequency, and be independent of parking operations.
Emphasis has been placed on efficiency in handling calls.
The primary goal of escort services is to respond to a call within 15 minutes. Dennis Archambault, supervisor of escort services, said the average response time for the first 16 days of this year has been nine minutes. The longest average response time was 13.5 minutes
on the second day of classes.
Escort transported 1,540 people during the first 16 days of this year, compared to 1,079 people transported last year at this time, which is a 29.9 percent increase.
To help battle the increase of calls, the escort staff will be increased to 28 people, an addition of three from last year. Twenty staff members are designated as drivers, four as dispatchers, one supervisor, two assistant supervisors and one record keeper.
The analysis of in-coming calls is very important to the escort service operation, said Archambault.
"We want to know our peak periods so we can be more responsive," he said. "We need to know the specifics of where and when people call, so we can project where to have our cars, bicycles and people.
Also added this year is a training program for escort workers.
All workers receive a complete overview of the operation and a training manual. The manual includes rules and regulations regarding employee conduct, how the security department is run and campus geography.
All employees must take written exams on the training material, said Archambault.
"The manual is basically a self-study guide, but we like to supplement it with tests," he said.
Drivers are now also carefully screened, he said.
The Student Senate passed a resolution last semester to include the improvement of escort services as one of the 10 major concerns for the school year.
"It's too early to see the effects of the new improvements. By October or November, the committee will thoroughly look at the situation," Taylor said.
Escort services is located in parking structure A, in a new office apart from parking services and operations. The office was constructed as part of the general expansion plan for parking services.
By Scott Howard-Cooper
Assistant Sports Editor
A report released last week by the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency predicted that next summer's Olympic Games will increase traffic in the Los Angeles basin by only 10 percent, but the report is not without a critic.
Selwyn Enzer, associate director of the Center for Futures Research at the Graduate School of Business Administration, says he thinks of himself as a planning expert who can tell if a report is accurate or if it's a whitewash.
Regarding the recent report, which deals with one of the most closely w atched topics in the area, Enzer says he smells a whitewash.
Enzer dismisses the study, which was announced at a Los Angeles press conference last week, as "very general" and is quick to point out that the findings were gathered from simulation only.
Enzer, whose 1982 study looked 20 years into the future of Los Angeles, including the Olympics' impact on the dty, said planners for the department of transportation for the dty and state realize the potential traffic mess in the summer of 1984, but are offering few solutions to solve the problem.
Kirk West, the secretary of the agency and the chairman of the State Olympic Coordinating Committee, said in a press statement that the study showed "the Games would add only about 10 percent more traffic ordinarily experienced in the Los Angeles basin." He added, however, that some streets
around the Coliseum would come to a halt unless approximately 65 percent of the Olympic spectators arrived by bus.
The Exposition Park area will be one of the focal points during the Olympics with the opening and closing ceremonies, and track and field competition at the Coliseum, boxing at the Sports Arena and swimming and diving at the Olympic Swim Stadium and the Olympic Village on campus. This area, along with UCLA, which will have a separate Olympic Village as well as the gymnastics competition, figures to have major problems with parking and traffic.
"What that means is that anybody who wants to go to an Olympic event at the Coliseum would be wise to consider riding the bus," West said. "If that is
unacceptable for some reason, they had better plan to be there
early."
That’s one good example of making a statement without any plans to back it up, Enzer said.
"Does he say how he's going to get people to go by the bus?" Enzer asked rhetorically. "He’s just gonna say, 'please go by the
bus'?"
West was unavailable for further comment Wednesday.
Additional plans to reduce traffic congestion during the two weeks of the Olympics call for channeling private automobiles heading for the events off the freeway and onto surface streets, away from the avenues to leave stretches of freeway for buses, VIPs and regular traffic.
(Continued on page 5)
Trustee receiving cancer treatment
J. Robert Fluor, a university trustee and chairman and chief executive of the engineering and construction company that bears his name, announced Monday he is undergoing radiation treatment for cancer.
Fluor, 61, said a malignant tumor was found in his chest last month when he went to his doctor for treatment of a months-long bout with severe bronchitis.
But the corporate president said neither his corporate workload nor the operations of his firm have been affected by his illness.
"It has meant some cutting on extracurricular corporate activities such as the United Fund, but it hasn't affected my work at the company," he said.
No statement was made concerning his functions as a member of the university Board of Trustees, and the university has received no official statement from Fluor on this point, said George Abdo, executive assistant to the president.
Fluor was formerly a heavy smoker, but reportedly has quit
now and is undergoing a six-week program of radiation treatment five days a week. It is not known whether this is on an inpatient or out-patient basis.
The Irvine-based company, founded by Floor's grandfather 72 years ago, is the nation's sec-ond-largest engineering and construction company behind the San Frandsco-based Bechtel Group. Fluor's $159 million in profits and $7.34 billion in revenues last fiscal year made it California's sixth largest publicly held company.
Fluor has been chief executive of the corporation since 1962, and was once chairman of the university Board of Trustees.
"I wasn't planning to retire before and I’m not planning to retire now," Fluor said. "Nobody knows at this time what will happen.
"I could be here three years from now and I could be here 10 years from now," he said. "It all depends upon how the treatment goes."
The company's directors were notified of Fluor's illness at a board meeting last week. But
J. ROBERT FLUOR
shareholders were not notified because company attorneys did not consider the information "material" to the firm's operations, a company spokesman said.