Poster #61 - Five Years After VMT Reform: Project Siting Before and After SB 743

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), the aggregate distance traveled across all vehicle trips, is a new and emerging metric for shaping policies and setting targets aimed at reducing emissions. In 2013, California passed California Senate Bill 743 (SB 743), a landmark bill that transformed the environmental review process by requiring projects to assess their impact to VMT in the context of mitigatable transportation impacts. Although SB 743 rule changes took effect in 2020, a current lack of research exists that has compared pre- and post- implementation conditions to measure its effect. This research provides a comparative analysis of development project siting in the City of San Mateo before and after VMT policies mandated by SB 743 took force in 2020. The purpose of this comparison is to determine whether or not the policy changes have successfully influenced new projects to be located in more VMT-efficient areas, which is a core objective of the policy. This research used archived lists of development projects provided on the City of San Mateo’s website to construct a pair of two-year samples to represent pre- and post-SB 743 projects. The C/CAG VMT Screening Tool was used to test each project to determine if the location was in a Transit Priority Area and/or a Low-VMT Area, two commonly used metrics in VMT analysis. The research found that, following the implementation of SB 743 requirements, the proportion of projects in Transit Priority Areas increased from 69.4% to 80.0%, and among approved projects, increased from 58.8% to 87.5%. However, the proportion of projects located in Low-VMT Areas did not show the same patterns, decreasing from 30.6% to 30.0% among all projects and from 29.4% to 12.5% among approved projects. The results suggest that SB 743 is effectively encouraging development near transit, but falls short in steering projects to the most VMT-efficient areas, potentially limiting its emissions-reduction impact. The steering of projects towards TPAs may be the result of multiple overlapping incentives, such as Transit Oriented Development incentive programs. Overall, the research finds that new development patterns generally shifted more favorably in the wake of SB 743, but not all components have the same level of success.

Author

• Armin Angelo Jorgenson, Not in this list
  Presenting Author