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City of San Leandro City Council Meeting Date: February 5, 2024 Agenda Number: 10.a. Agenda Section: PUBLIC HEARINGS File Number: 23-606 File Type: Staff Report Adopt a Resolution to Consider and Approve Text Amendments to the Transportation Element of the General Plan to Replace Level of Service (LOS) with Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) as the Criteria to be used for Transportation Analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), in Compliance with Senate Bill (SB) 743 and CEQA Guidelines Section 15064.3 COUNCIL PRIORITY ·Infrastructure ·Community & Business Development SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATIONS Senate Bill (SB) 743, signed into law in 2013, required a shift in the focus of transportation analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to better align with the State’s sustainability and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals. SB 743 requires lead agencies, which started on July 1, 2020, to change the primary metric utilized to evaluate a project’s transportation impacts from Level of Service (LOS), as measured by roadway capacity and vehicle delay, to Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), which is an estimate of the amount and distance people drive by vehicle to reach a destination. Staff recommends that the City Council adopt a Resolution that amends the Transportation Element of the General Plan to formalize the replacement of LOS with VMT as the criteria to be used for transportation analysis under CEQA and to establish the appropriate context for LOS based analyses outside of the CEQA process. On January 4 , 2024, the Planning Commission, by a vote of 6-0-1 (Commissioner Rich was absent), recommended that the City Council adopt a resolution to adopt the proposed General Plan text amendments . BACKGROUND CEQA requires public agencies to identify, disclose, and mitigate environmental impacts of projects by comparing potential impacts against adopted significance thresholds. Historically, lead agencies have used LOS to identify significant transportation impacts under CEQA. LOS prioritizes moving the largest number of automobiles as fast as possible and does not account for impacts to other travel modes, such as biking and walking. Rather than moving automobiles faster, the focus on LOS has often created traffic congestion over large areas and encouraged sprawling development patterns. Senate Bill 743, codified in Public Resources Code Section 21099 prohibited the use of LOS as a CEQA threshold of significance after July 1, 2020 and directed the Governor’s Office of Page 1 City of San Leandro Printed on 2/23/2024