BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                     AB 779


                                                                    Page  1





          Date of Hearing:  May 13, 2015


                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS


                                 Jimmy Gomez, Chair


          AB  
          779 (Cristina Garcia) - As Amended April 14, 2015


           ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
          |Policy       |Transportation                 |Vote:|15 - 0       |
          |Committee:   |                               |     |             |
          |             |                               |     |             |
          |             |                               |     |             |
          |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------|
          |             |Natural Resources              |     |9 - 0        |
          |             |                               |     |             |
          |             |                               |     |             |
          |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------|
          |             |                               |     |             |
          |             |                               |     |             |
          |             |                               |     |             |
           ----------------------------------------------------------------- 


          Urgency:  No  State Mandated Local Program:  NoReimbursable:  No


          SUMMARY:


          This bill delays, until July 1, 2017, the effective date of  
          revised CEQA guidelines establishing criteria for determining  
          the significance of transportation impacts of projects within  
          transit priority areas, i.e. within one-half mile of major  








                                                                     AB 779


                                                                    Page  2





          transit stop.


          FISCAL EFFECT:


          The guidelines are to be finalized this year, thus the bill will  
          delay their adoption by at least six months and likely longer.  
          Two staff at OPR are currently working on the guidelines, and  
          delaying implementation will extend this process and create  
          uncertainty, resulting in over $150,000 of additional staff  
          resources toward this effort. In addition, Caltrans, which is  
          gearing up to implement the guidelines, will incur delay-related  
          fiscal impacts.


          COMMENTS:


          1)Background. SB 743 (Steinberg), Chapter 386, Statutes of 2013,  
            among other things, directed OPR to propose revisions to the  
            CEQA Guidelines to establish new criteria for determining the  
            significance of transportation impacts of projects within  
            transit priority areas that are not based on level-of-service  
            (LOS). (LOS is a measure of vehicle delay at intersections and  
            on roadway segments and is expressed with a letter grade  
            ranging from A (free-flowing traffic) to F (congested  
            conditions).) LOS has been criticized as an outdated metric  
            because it does not consider person delay and neglects  
            transit, pedestrians, and bicycles. Many believe that an  
            over-reliance on LOS considerations by planners has led to  
            widening intersections and roadways to move automobile traffic  
            faster at the expense of other modes of transportation.  LOS  
            has also been criticized as a barrier to infill and  
            transit-oriented development.


            In response to SB 743, OPR published a preliminary evaluation  
            of potential alternatives to LOS in December, 2013. Based on  








                                                                     AB 779


                                                                    Page  3





            comments received in response to that document, the office  
            released draft revisions to the CEQA Guidelines in August,  
            2014, and accepted comments on the draft through November,  
            2014.  The draft proposed to replace the LOS analysis with an  
            analysis of the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) generated by a  
            project as a measure of the significance of a project's  
            transportation impacts.


          2)Purpose. This bill delays any revisions to the CEQA Guidelines  
            adopted pursuant to SB 743 from becoming effective prior to  
            July 1, 2017.  The sponsor, the Infill Builders Federation, is  
            concerned that the revisions, as currently drafted, while  
            intended to benefit infill development, may actually put  
            infill at a greater disadvantage by requiring infill projects  
            to undergo an untested VMT analysis that initially will not  
            apply to development projects in non-transit-oriented areas.  
            The sponsor is concerned that this places both an added  
            analysis burden and potentially an added litigation burden on  
            infill rather than making it easier to move these types of  
            projects forward.


            OPR has indicated that it is likely to issue a revised draft  
            of the guidelines, although the timing and extent of changes  
            to the first draft are uncertain. It is also not clear when  
            OPR expects that final revisions will be formally adopted.


          Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)  
          319-2081
















                                                                     AB 779


                                                                    Page  4