Smart Growth

Transportation consultants and planners associated with the San Francisco Transportation Authority's (TA) ATG working group sent excited bursts of email to each other earlier this month about a new development coming from the state Office of Planning and Research (OPR), the body responsible for writing and amending the CEQA guidelines related to transportation and traffic.  The OPR had adopted much of the spirit of the working group's recommendations and proposed an amendment (PDF) to CEQA guidelines that de-emphasized LOS and indicated that it would be much better to use measures for vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reductions such as ATG.

The idea that the speed and free-flow of cars is the proxy that is being used across the state of California to measure whether a project is [environmentally] impactful is in the long run undermining the very quality of life [we] are working to protect.

What are this society's transportation priorities? As Twin Cities Streets for People points out, the stimulus package is forcing governments and citizens across the country to confront that question. We've got their most recent post on the subject today on the Streetsblog Network.