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To the Editor: 

Most of you reading this doubtless consider the San Francisco Bay Area a beautiful place to live. And yet all of us who drive are helping to despoil it. Smog lays like a pall over the whole area and spreads the length of the Great Central Valley, a globally significant source of food. Pollution and ozone were so extreme here on Friday the elderly and children were advised to stay indoors. 

We may think there's nothing we can do, but if each of us will abstain from driving even for just one day a week and commit to walking, biking, or using BART and buses, it will make a difference. 

We need to lobby our municipal and regional governments and especially CalTrans to commit more funds to public transportation and less to planning for ever more cars. The Bay Area Air Quality board must do more than levy small fines on the oil refineries that flout pollution regulations. 

We can do this, and we can teach our children why it is essential for their future that we convert to non-polluting modes of transportation and require Bay Area industries to clean up their smokestacks. 

Will you make one day a car-free day next week? And the next? You can do it. 

Charlene M. Woodcock 

Berkeley