The Road Less Traveled
The Road Less Traveled
Working with rural communities, we understand the need for cost-effective approaches to address transportation analysis requirements while complying with legal and technical expectations, such as the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Recent CEQA changes have expanded expectations for transportation analysis related to wildfire evacuation and vehicle miles of travel (VMT). These are challenging subjects to analyze for any agency, and even more so, for those without advanced data, the models needed, or the specialized expertise to apply them.
So, how can rural agencies close the gap between the new transportation planning expectations and their resource reality?
Fehr & Peers aims to remove the anxiety and complexity from the analysis, and instead offer simple, effective, and scalable solutions for practitioners working in rural communities. As such, we have prepared the following cost-effective web resources for rural planning.
Evacuation Analysis
Wildfire Evacuation Impact Checklist
| Description | Beginning with a straightforward checklist, this resource hones in on the most critical questions and evidence needed for an evacuation analysis. |
| Cost | Free |
| Set Up Time | Ready for immediate use |
| Agency Investment | Typically 2-4 hours of staff time |
VMT Analysis
VMTIndex
| Description | This ArcGIS map-based tool finds VMT for community or project scale impact screenings and assessments using big data from Fehr & Peers/StreetLight. |
| Cost | Free |
| Set Up Time | Ready for immediate use |
| Agency Investment | Typically 2-4 hours of staff time |
To get started, reach out to our experts below.
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Contributors
Ian Barnes
Principal
PE
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Jason Pack
Principal
TE
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Ron Milam
Forecasting Practice Leader
AICP, PTP
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Chelsea Richer
Principal
AICP
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Evacuation Impact Assessment Checklist
Recent California decisions and the Attorney General’s 2022 guidance have raised expectations for how CEQA documents address evacuation. Our Evacuation Impact Assessment Checklist is a qualitative analysis tool that helps teams organize evidence, screen for potential impacts, and reach a defensible conclusion faster, so time and effort can shift from extensive quantification to identifying mitigation and evacuation improvements.










