SB 743 Implementation Tools for Local Agencies (RFP# 2018-0026)

SB 743 is the state law requiring a change in transportation impact analysis performed for the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The law replaces vehicle delay (often measured with level of service, or LOS) with vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as the primary metric for measuring transportation impacts of most projects. The law passed in 2013, and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) has led the revisions to the CEQA Guidelines consistent with the law, as well as authored the technical advice on implementing the revised CEQA Guidelines. It will go into effect on July 1, 2020. The purpose of this project is to provide SACOG local agencies the technical assistance and tools to implement SB 743. Technical assistance will include collection of data sources that local agencies can use to set significance thresholds, inventory and assessment of various models and tools to estimate project-specific VMT, inventory of VMT mitigation strategies, and evaluation of the appropriateness for different mitigation strategies given the range of land use settings throughout the region. Documentation of these data, models, tools, and strategies will provide local agencies with substantial evidence for future CEQA analyses.