Title
a. Approve a Reimbursement Agreement between the Transportation Agency of Monterey County (TAMC) and the County of Monterey for a proportional share estimated at $24,000 for County to fund County portion of consultant services for development of local thresholds of significance for vehicle miles traveled attributable to new development; and
b. Authorize the Resource Management Agency Director or Designee to execute the Reimbursement Agreement.
Report
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Board of Supervisors:
a. Approve a Reimbursement Agreement between the Transportation Agency of Monterey County (TAMC) and the County of Monterey for a proportional share estimated at $24,000 for County to fund that County portion of consultant services for development of local thresholds of significance for vehicle miles traveled attributable to new development; and
b. Authorize the Resource Management Agency Director or Designee to execute the Reimbursement Agreement.
SUMMARY/DISCUSSION:
In September, 2013, the California Legislature adopted and the Governor approved Senate Bill 743 (SB 743), which, among other things, required the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to identify and develop new metrics for identifying and mitigating the transportation impacts of new development under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
In December, 2018, pursuant to SB 743, OPR officially adopted changes to the CEQA Guidelines that required new metrics for transportation analysis, including Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) on a per capita, per employee, and net VMT basis. These metrics must be used to analyze the transportation impacts of projects during CEQA review. The prior metric utilized to evaluate the transportation impact of projects was whether or not the project increased traffic Levels of Service (LOS) above a locally-set threshold, defined according to a letter grade system of A (no traffic) through F (stop and go). The purpose of this change from LOS t...
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