Planning Land Use and Management consideration of the following:
“On September 27, 2013, Governor Brown signed SB 743 into law, which requires the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to create a process to change the manner in which transportation impacts are analyzed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Currently, the environmental review of traffic impacts focuses on vehicular capacity at intersections and on roadway segments. SB 743 requires that we move away from the auto -centric metric of level of service (LOS) for determining whether there are traffic impacts under CEQA. Instead, impacts to transportation network performance are to be viewed through a filter that focuses on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the development of multimodal transportation networks, and the promotion of a diversity of land uses.
On August 6, 2014, OPR released a “Preliminary Discussion Draft of Updates to the CEQA Guidelines Implementing Senate Bill 743 (Steinberg, 2013)” (“Discussion Draft”). The Discussion Draft recommends that the primary consideration in determining a project’s transportation impacts should be the amount and distance of automobile travel associated with the project, namely, the vehicle miles traveled (VMT). It also recommends considering the effects of the project on transit and non -motorized travel as well as the safety of all travelers. It states that LOS no longer constitutes the basis for finding a significant environmental impact. The Discussion Draft is open for public comment until October 10, 2014, and it will then undergo a certification and adoption process prior to implementation. OPR indicates that the amended Guidelines will be effective by January 2016.
It is critical that the City begin now to develop the necessary metrics and thresholds of significance for updated City guidelines. The impending changes also present an opportunity to take a fresh look at how the City measures, reviews and monitors the performance of recommended project mitigations.”
The City Council instructed the Departments of City Planning and Transportation to begin specific tasks in anticipation of the State’s adoption of the amended CEQA Guidelines implementing SB 743, which will require changes in the way project impacts to the transportation network performance are determined.
