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Home My WebLink AboutItem 11d - Adopting Updated Vehicle Miles Traveled DATE: April 16, 2024 TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council FROM: Jason Kruckeberg, Assistant City Manager/Development Services Director Prepared By: Lisa Flores, Deputy Development Services Director SUBJECT: RESOLUTION NO. 7548 ADOPTING UPDATED “VEHICLE MILES TRAVELED” THRESHOLDS OF SIGNIFICANCE FOR PURPOSES OF ANALYZING TRANSPORTATION IMPACTS UNDER THE CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT (“CEQA”) CEQA: Exempt Recommendation: Adopt SUMMARY In 2020, the City of Arcadia, with guidance from the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments (“SGVCOG”), adopted new California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) thresholds of significance for transportation impacts, due to changes in State law pursuant to Senate Bill 743 (“SB 743”). These changes modified how the City evaluates projects for transportation impacts for the purposes of CEQA. Specifically, the City is required to use Vehicle Miles Traveled (“VMT”) instead of Level of Service (“LOS”) as the metric to evaluate transportation impacts in CEQA documents. This report describes the changes in VMT as they impact the City thresholds of significance, discusses the SGVCOG recommendations, and recommends modifying the CEQA transportation thresholds to remain compliant with State guidance and to better align with the City’s policies, goals, and objectives. It is recommended that the City Council find that the proposed update to the VMT Thresholds of Significance will not have a significant environmental impact and is exempt from CEQA pursuant to Section 15308 of the CEQA Guidelines; and adopt Resolution No. 7548 updating the VMT thresholds of significance for purposes of analyzing transportation impacts under CEQA. BACKGROUND In March 2020, the City entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the SGVCOG to participate in the San Gabriel Valley Regional VMT Analysis Model. Arcadia is one of 26 SGVCOG member cities that opted into the SB 743 implementation process. Resolution 7548 – Vehicle Miles Traveled April 16, 2024 Page 2 of 4 On June 16, 2020, the City Council approved Resolution No. 7312 adopting VMT significance thresholds for three different VMT metrics pursuant to guidance provided by the State’s Office of Planning and Research (“OPR”). The three primary thresholds and criteria are: • Project Screening Criteria – Criteria for screening projects that do not have a regional impact. • Baseline VMT Thresholds – Three VMT thresholds, home-based VMT (“VMT/capita”), employment generated VMT (“VMT/employee”), and the total VMT per service population (“VMT/SP”), from which to evaluate three types of development projects: residential, employment, and mixed-use/regional projects. Arcadia selected the thresholds from the COG Northwest Sub-region as the most reasonable for its baseline. • VMT Significant Impact Thresholds – Significant impact thresholds were adopted for four categories, Land Use Plans, Land use Projects, Retail Projects, and Transportation Projects, as recommended by OPR. Following adoption of VMT thresholds by the 26 SGV cities, a SGVCOG VMT Evaluation Tool was developed for the participating cities to use for assessing the potential VMT impacts of proposed projects. The tool is a computer program that operates by entering parcel-specific development parameters to assess the extent of a specific project’s VMT impact. The tool also provides a menu of mitigation measures intended to reduce the project’s impact to an acceptable level, and/or allows the user to select a combination of variables to achieve the desired level. Variables that can be entered include project features like affordable housing units, increasing housing and/or employment densities, improved bicycle, pedestrian, and transit accessibility, and traffic calming measures. Also included in the model are Transportation Demand Management strategies like incentives for alternative travel modes, ridesharing, bike-sharing, vanpools, transit subsidies, and alternative work schedules. The current SGVCOG VMT Evaluation Tool is based on VMT outputs from the 2016 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (“RTP/SCS”) trip- based model that was developed by the Southern California Association of Governments (“SCAG”), and it needs to be updated to be consistent with the 2020 model. As with every RTP update, the regional travel demand model is updated to reflect the latest population, employment, and traffic count information (socioeconomic data) from SCAG. The SGVCOG participating cities were aware that the model would be changing from transportation-based to activity-based and had anticipated that the change may prompt cities to change the adopted baseline for their VMT significance thresholds. In particular, there were significant changes to “low VMT areas” or areas where, generally, there is a mix of uses and urban intensity that reduce vehicle trips or miles traveled as the trips Resolution 7548 – Vehicle Miles Traveled April 16, 2024 Page 3 of 4 are “bundled” between uses. In short, projects in Low VMT areas generally require less environmental screening than other areas, so regularly updating the data will ensure that environmental reviews are conducted with the latest and most relevant information. The proposed action acknowledges and plans for the following: • Every four years the SCAG RTP/SCS will be updated prompting an update to the regional travel demand model. • The City’s low VMT areas are based on the SCAG model. • Low VMT areas under each of the three geographic baselines that Arcadia falls under (Arcadia, SGVCOG Northwest Sub-region, and entire SGVCOG Region) are likely to change when the SCAG model is updated; and • The City intends to use the baselines that maximize the number of “low VMT” screening areas to set the most achievable bar for reaching a given threshold. DISCUSSION The purpose of this action is to consider reevaluation of the City’s three baseline VMT thresholds – VMT per capita, employment generated VMT, and the total VMT per service population – based on the results of periodic RTP/SCS model updates. As a reminder, the City can elect to use the baseline thresholds from either the local (Arcadia), subregional (SGVCOG Northwest Sub-region) or regional (entire SGVCOG) geographic areas. Upon each model update, the City will be able to change any or all the baseline VMT thresholds by selecting the highest threshold of the three geographic areas to best allow the City to maximize the number of “Low VMT” screening areas as mentioned above. All three of Arcadia’s current baseline VMT thresholds are from the SGVCOG Northwest Sub-region. Pursuant to the OPR Guidance, cities can adopt the three baseline VMT thresholds from different geographic areas, but the employment based VMT thresholds should use either sub-regional or regional baselines. Based on the results from the 2020 RTP/SCS activity-based model, the following baseline VMT threshold changes are proposed: • Home-based VMT (VMT/capita): No change from the previous designation of the SGVCOG Northwest Sub-region. • Employment generated VMT (VMT/employee): Change from the previous designation of the SGVCOG Northwest Sub-region to the SGVCOG Region. • Total VMT per service population (VMT/SP): Change from the previous designation of the SGVCOG Northwest Sub-region to the SGVCOG Region. Resolution 7548 – Vehicle Miles Traveled April 16, 2024 Page 4 of 4 Upon future RTP/SCS model updates, the adoption of Resolution No. 7548 will allow for administrative changes to the three geographic baseline VMT thresholds as outlined above from the 2020 update. This will allow the City to select the highest geographic baseline thresholds to continue to maximize the number of “Low VMT” screening areas. This sets the most achievable bar for reaching a given threshold, allowing the City to review and approve projects that both align with the City’s General Plan and meet CEQA requirements in a timely manner. ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS The adoption of new local CEQA thresholds of significance for transportation impacts and the adoption of new Local Transportation Assessment Guidelines will not have a significant environmental impact, and are exempt from CEQA pursuant to Section 15308 of Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations because the two actions are undertaken by the City for the protection of the environment. The revised CEQA thresholds will be compliant with SB 743 and will be used in a regulatory process (CEQA process) that involves procedures for the protection of the environment. Therefore, it is recommended that the project be found exempt from environmental review requirements of CEQA pursuant to Section 15308. FISCAL IMPACT There is no fiscal impact to the City as a result of this action. RECOMMENDATION It is recommended that the City Council find that the proposed update to the VMT Thresholds of Significance will not have a significant environmental impact and are exempt from CEQA pursuant to Section 15308; and adopt Resolution No. 7548 updating the “Vehicle Miles Traveled” thresholds of significance for purposes of analyzing transportation impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”). Attachment: Resolution No. 7548