• When are VMT Impacts from a Project Acceptable?
• VMT Analysis of Auxiliary Lanes
• Mitigation playbook
• Mitigation calculator
• Funding Opportunities
• Staffing announcements

• Has the project development team (PDT) worked thoroughly to identify VMT-reducing or -neutral project alternatives, and provided a compelling reason for not selecting those alternatives?

• Has the PDT described its efforts to revise the preferred alternative to eliminate or minimize induced VMT?

• Has the PDT worked thoroughly to identify VMT-mitigation options including those regarding active transportation, transit, land use, lane management, and transportation demand management? In that effort, has the PDT meaningfully engaged partners and affected communities on anticipated VMT impacts and meaningful mitigation options?

• Has the PDT availed itself of feasible mitigation options, including those that require enforceable agreements with partners?

• Has the PDT documented the facts and rationale used when concluding mitigation options not included were deemed to be infeasible?

• Has the PDT shown that mobility benefits from the project will not be eroded by induced VMT attributable to the project?

• Roadway capacity changes are necessary to reduce fatal and severe injury crashes. Project teams should demonstrate that operational or other non-VMT-generating options would not be effective and should also cite crash histories and locations or other specific data showing the need for the proposed safety improvement. Any crash modification factors (CMFs) or countermeasures cited should relate to effectiveness in reducing fatal and severe injuries. Safety measures should be consistent with a safe-systems approach. Any VMT increases are forecast would likely lead to safety degradation, e.g. at freeway ramps where added traffic from induced VMT poses hazards to active travelers and motorists on surface streets, raising the burden on the project to show a safety benefit.

• Projects that occur in low-congestion conditions and that 1) do not substantially affect travel times, now or in the future, or 2) do not serve as low-density development attractors. In these cases, even where lane-miles-based tools may suggest induced VMT, the context may argue that such effects will be less than significant. Any project that promises to create time-travel savings and attendant economic benefits, as calculated in the CalBC or similar tools, would not qualify for such consideration, by definition.

• Projects that may induce VMT at the project level but can be shown to have a greater downward effect as an element in a system or corridor. A new managed-lane segment may induce VMT, but if it allows for new system-level roadway pricing that provides funding for non-auto travel, it may have a net benefit for VMT. Note the future condition would need to be enforceable and demonstrably effective in lowering VMT, as not all managed-lane strategies would do so.

• Projects envisioned as part of a VMT-neutral corridor plan, even if the projects themselves do induce VMT. Again the corridor plan would need to be enforceable. If the VMT-inducing project comes after the VMT-reducing elements of the corridor plan, a showing that both were conceived as a coherent plan or joint development would be needed. A lengthy time gap between the projects will make that showing more difficult. 

• Projects providing for evacuation routes. Such projects would need to be consistent with one or more of the following: 1) an adopted emergency operations plan, 2) a local general plan safety element that has been updated and adopted pursuant to evacuation route information requirements in Government Code 65302(g)(5) and 65302.15 (see SB 99 [2019] and AB 747 [2019], or 3) recommendations issued by the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, in consultation with the State Fire Marshall and the local agency, to improve safety of a subdivision with more than 30 dwelling units lacking a secondary egress that is determined by the Board and the State Fire Marshall to be at significant risk, pursuant to Public Resources Code 4290.5.

• Projects that Caltrans believes have been mitigated to a level below significance, but where measurements are qualitative or imprecise. A Statement of Overriding Consideration, addressing any “significant and unavoidable” VMT resulting from the imprecision, could be appropriate.