Comments to Caltrans on SB 743 implementation

With the new SB 743 requirement to use VMT as the metric for evaluating transportation impacts under CEQA, Caltrans has reached out for comments on its draft documents. Those documents imply that Caltrans pretty much expects life after SB 743 to be similar to life before it. Caltrans expects to keep on widening highways, which will increase VMT due, in part, to the phenomenon of induced demand. TRANSDEF’s comments stress a broader perspective: the entire mission of Caltrans must change in response to the recognition that the State’s largest obstacle to achieving its climate change targets is the ever-increasing amount…

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Caltrans Leaps into the Present

Caltrans Leaps into the Present 04/07/15 Filed in: Transportation Planning | Climate Change Caltrans has released its draft California Transportation Plan, or CTP 2040. The draft plan is a dramatic change from decades of status quo thinking. The plan is specifically designed to answer a question posed by the Legislature in 2009’s SB 391: What is needed for California to reduce emissions from motor vehicles to meet the AB 32 and Executive Order GHG emissions reduction targets. TRANSDEF wrote a series of letters praising the Plan and suggesting improvements. They include overview comments, detailed comments, and their attachments. Streetsblog wrote…

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Caltrans Introduces Smart Mobility

Caltrans Introduces Smart Mobility 06/22/09 Filed in: Climate Change | Transportation Planning Caltrans offered a workshop last week in Sacramento on their new Smart Mobility Framework.  This is a program that Caltrans has developed in association with EPA.  It takes Smart Growth principles and integrates them into transportation in a manner that environmental activists will find both familiar and heartening.   There is a draft document available on the website below that is open for comment through June 30.  This document is good enough to serve as the rallying point for future activism.  It discusses induced demand and reducing vehicle miles–we never thought we would see that coming from Caltrans.  Check it out on Caltrans…

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