Mitigating VMT from Highway Expansion Projects: Early Insights from California

Amy PhD Lee, Jamey PhD Volker and Susan PhD Handy

Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series from Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis

Abstract: The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires lead agencies to evaluate the environmental impacts of major projects, including highway expansion projects, and to mitigate those impacts to the extent feasible. In 2013, SB 743 (Steinberg) changed how transportation impacts are evaluated by shifting the performance measure from traffic delay to vehicle miles traveled (VMT), a measure of total driving. This change reflected evidence that the metric of VMT captures the influence that transportation projects have on driving behavior and its related environmental and social impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, safety, and public health. How have lead agencies implemented the requirement to analyze and mitigate VMT induced by highway expansion projects? To better understand how SB 743 has affected highway expansion projects in practice, we reviewed state regulation and guidance and evaluated the Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs) for the six highway expansion projects that have started the environmental review process since the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) adopted guidance in 2020 to implement SB 743. In this brief, we focus on how lead agencies propose to mitigate any increases in VMT from each of the six highway expansion projects, including the measures proposed, the extent to which mitigation reduces VMT, the cost associated with mitigation, and sources of funding for VMT mitigation.

Keywords: Social; and; Behavioral; Sciences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ppm and nep-tre
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/0r61q59c.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt0r61q59c

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series from Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff ().