Title
Resolution recommending that City Council adopt a resolution to update the City of South San Francisco's transportation impact analysis thresholds, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), to comply with state-mandated change from level of service (LOS) to vehicle miles traveled (VMT), pursuant to Senate Bill 743 (2013) and new 2019 CEQA Guidelines.
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WHEREAS, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was enacted in 1970 to ensure the long-term protection of the environment and requires public agencies to analyze and disclose the effects of their action on the environment; and
WHEREAS, Senate Bill 743 (SB 743), enacted in 2013 and codified in Public Resources Code section 21099, required changes to the CEQA Guidelines regarding the criteria for determining the significance of transportation impacts of projects; and
WHEREAS, SB 743 specifically requires the Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to amend CEQA Guidelines by developing alternative criteria for determining the significance of transportation impacts of projects within transit priority areas, and which criteria shall promote "the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the development of multimodal transportation networks, and a diversity of land uses"; and
WHEREAS, for such alternative criteria, the measurements of transportation impacts may include "vehicle miles traveled, vehicle miles traveled per capita, automobile trip generation rates, or automobile trips generated"; and
WHEREAS, in 2018, OPR proposed, and the California Natural Resources Agency certified and adopted, new CEQA Guidelines, including Guidelines section 15064.3 that identifies vehicle miles traveled (VMT) - meaning the amount and distance of automobile travel attributable to a project - as the most appropriate metric to evaluate a project's transportation impacts; and
WHEREAS, as a result, automobile delay, as measured by "level of service" (LOS) and other similar metrics, w...
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