Equitable VMT Mitigation
On October 16, VTA held a virtual community meeting all about one of their (IMO) most exciting new initiatives : Equitable VMT Mitigation! VTA has a few short and excellent explainer videos on their website, but we wanted to summarize it here for you.
Tl;dr
The state now requires cities and counties to analyze VMT under CEQA instead of vehicle delay.
VTA is working with cities and the county to look at ways to reinvest funds from development projects into programs that address transit and transportation equity issues.
VMT + CEQA + VTA
This program was developed because of CA SB743. That bill requires that transportation analyses done under CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) look at vehicle miles travelled (VMT) instead of automobile delay. That change became mandatory in July 2020, and now cities and counties in the state need to consider VMT (and ways to reduce it, or at least not increase it) when they analyze development projects under CEQA.
VMT has a huge impact on our environment and quality of life. The more personal vehicles there are on the road, the higher the VMT. As VMT goes up, so does noise pollution, air pollution , greenhouse gas emissions, and traffic violence. What makes VTA’s project unique is that it also factors in equity. In addition to reducing VMT, it aims to have VTA engage with historically underrepresented communities, who typically experience the worst effects of our car-dominated culture.
Transit & Equity
The details are still being worked out (VTA is still in the first phase of the project and is gathering community feedback), but VTA is looking at ways to have developers pay into something like an exchange or bank. Those funds can then be used to address transit and transportation equity issues, such as providing transit passes to students, or improving street safety around schools.
A concrete example of a transit equity issue can be found in District 5. As San Jose Spotlight has written, D5 has multiple dangerous roads crossing through the district, and has received “inequitable funding for transit infrastructure”. When communities lack transit infrastructure investments, road safety decreases, and pedestrians (and drivers!) are at greater risk. This is one of the reasons why transit is inextricably tied to social equity.
Seeking Community Feedback
I mentioned above that VTA is in the first phase of the project. There are three phases to this initiative:
Gather input: VTA will get input from community members, staff, developers, et al about transportation challenges, and what they think are ways to reduce VMT.
Analyze the feedback: VTA will look at all the information they’ve gathered, use that to come up with improvements and mitigations, and draft a way to prioritize them while factoring in equity.
Confirm: after all the feedback has been analyzed, and solutions have been drafted, VTA will take this back to the community for another round of engagement to make sure those solutions align with what the community wants.
These phases will take place over the next year. We’re currently in phase I; phase II is slated to start in the spring of next year, and phase III will start in the fall of 2024. After that, VTA will create a final program report to bring to its board of directors, and that cities and the county can consider as well.
The meeting went really well! People provided fantastic feedback about what they thought were the biggest challenges, and best solutions, for transit. Some of the challenges that stood out are things like travel time (it can take longer to take transit than to drive), limited transit to recreational areas, and distance to transit stops.
But people also had great ideas about how to improve transit and transportation, and reduce VMT! Things like more dedicated bus lines, more frequent buses and light rail, and more transit oriented development. If you have additional feedback and ideas about reducing VMT, there’s an online survey you can fill out. Respondents are entered for a chance to win one of five $50 Clipper cards!
It was really encouraging to see so many people provide such great feedback to VTA. I’m absolutely thrilled that VTA is one of the leaders in the state in developing such a program!