Vmt california free#

America’s farmland is shrinking as farmers battle these growing weather challenges. More greenhouse gas means more global warming, less rain, and fiercer climate change. Incorporating VMT into impact studies adds to our understanding of how the environment will be affected. Although other parts of the country may not have the level of environmental emphasis as the West coast, planners everywhere should be aware of project impacts. In California, project managers must pay fees to offset environmental disturbance. How many local species of red legged frogs or tiger salamanders will your project displace? What plants will be affected, and how much water runoff will it create? Honestly, nobody can blame us, when much of our country lacks sidewalks, bike paths, transit hubs, and other infrastructure to promote active transportation. Not surprisingly, we’re also not walking as much as many other developed countries including Canada, Germany, and China.

has a known obesity problem, particularly across the midwest and southeast, known to be linked to a growing body of serious health problems. There is a body of research linking VMT with vehicle-related fatalities, with many Vision Zero advocates supporting a decrease in VMT. has the highest vehicle crash rate in the world, linked to our correspondingly highest driving rate. Lower VMT can contribute to lower traffic crash rates. Incorporating VMT into transportation studies, or replacing LOS completely, has benefits not just for California but for Midwest farmland, Northeast urban centers, Southern sprawl, and everything in between.

Less personal vehicle traffic, lower emissions. Instead, we may have developed techniques to serve the same amount of visitors with less driving (transit options or locating the project in a denser, more walkable part of the city).

Vmt california free#

This is a significant change from estimating how many additional cars the road could hold, to determining how many more trips will be generated.įigure 2: By looking at VMT generated by similar existing locations, practitioners can more accurately forecast the VMT impact of a new development.īut if we had adhered to VMT guidelines instead of LOS, we wouldn’t have been free to build more capacity. In other words, how many vehicles miles traveled will be generated by your project? The California Environmental Equality Act has mandated that the VMT becomes one of the thresholds for assessing environmental impact for any development or any road project. Here’s why VMT impact should inform planning in all states. This is the right way to evaluate transportation projects, and not just for urban or highly populated localities. In other words, measure not the impact on drivers, but the impact that driving has on all of us. SB 743 requires that transportation projects evaluate the effect on vehicle miles traveled (VMT), or how much more traffic the project will cause. Formerly projects were measured by Level of Service (LOS), or the capacity of infrastructure to handle the increased traffic flow. By passing State Bill 743 (SB743), California is shifting how it measures the impact of transportation projects. The question is, how can we create infrastructure and incentives to keep emissions low as people begin to travel again and the economy recovers?Ĭalifornia shows us a progressive option. Transportation experts across the country are studying the effects of record low transportation greenhouse gas emissions this spring, and finding an unexpected potential takeaway from the COVID-19 pandemic.