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    7.    
TRANSPORTATION, WATER & INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE
Meeting Date: 02/10/2020  
Subject:    RECEIVE update on Senate Bill 743 (“SB-743”) implementation.
Submitted For: TRANSPORTATION, WATER & INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE
Department: Conservation & Development  
Referral No.: 1  
Referral Name: Review legislative matters on transportation, water, and infrastructure.
Presenter: Jamar Stamps, DCD Contact: Jamar Stamps (925)674-7832

Information
Referral History:
n/a
Referral Update:
Background

In 2013, Governor Brown signed Senate Bill (“SB”) 743 (Steinberg), which creates a process to change the way that transportation impacts are analyzed under California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”). Specifically, SB 743 changed the way that transportation impacts are analyzed under CEQA. Automobile delay metrics (i.e. level of service or “LOS”) will no longer be considered a significant impact under CEQA and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (“OPR”) recommends that jurisdictions instead use the Vehicle Miles Traveled (“VMT”) metric. OPR released a “Technical Advisory” containing methodologies and thresholds for VMT, but the Technical Advisory is not regulatory, only advisory.

OPR will allow jurisdictions to retain their congestion-based standards (i.e. LOS) in general plans and for project planning purposes. Developers may therefore be required to perform two different traffic analyses. Staff will consider updated or new General Plan policies to accommodate congestion-based standards. However, staff is uncertain about the possible ramifications of requiring two sets of transportation impact analyses.

County General Plan Update

Currently, the County is undergoing a comprehensive update to the General Plan. The Growth Management Element and Transportation and Circulation Element both contain policies related to transportation evaluation, such as CEQA impact significance criteria. SB 743 implementation will include updates to these policies.

Placeworks (consultant hired to prepare General Plan Update) with their sub-consultant Fehr & Peers (transportation planning and engineering firm) will be assisting County staff in implementing SB 743 parallel with the General Plan Update. Specifically, the consultant and County staff will be conducting the following tasks:
  • Developing VMT metrics for measuring the effects of land use and transportation projects in the County;
  • Developing a screening tool to determine which projects will require quantitative VMT analysis and which projects can be presumed not to cause a VMT impact (i.e. exempt from CEQA VMT analysis);
  • Determining which methods should be used to calculate and forecast VMT;
  • Developing CEQA significance thresholds; and,
  • Developing CEQA mitigation measures.

DCD and Public Works Department (“PWD”) staff will coordinate on SB 743 implementation, which will coincide with the comprehensive General Plan update. However, statewide application of SB 743 will be mandatory by July 2020 and thus, final adoption of the County’s new transportation CEQA standards will likely precede adoption of the updated General Plan.

In the interim, the County will continue using LOS for CEQA review until new VMT significance thresholds are adopted or no later than July 2020, whichever comes first. VMT analysis of land development projects will not be required in the interim, however recently some projects have elected to (and others may) conduct VMT analysis for informational purposes.

Next Steps

DCD and PWD staff will use data provided by the consultant team to inform proposed policies and complete the tasks provided in the previous section. Policy recommendations for VMT analysis will be presented to the TWIC by Spring 2020.
Recommendation(s)/Next Step(s):
CONSIDER the report, provide COMMENT and DIRECT staff as appropriate including.
Fiscal Impact (if any):
None to the General Fund. Measure J funds staff time toward implementation of SB 743.
Attachments
No file(s) attached.

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