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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VMT Mitigation Through Fees, Banks, and Exchanges
On September 27, 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 743 into law and started a process intended to fundamentally change transportation impact analysis as part of CEQA compliance. These changes include elimination of auto delay, level of service (LOS), and other similar measures of vehicular capacity or traffic congestion as a basis for determining significant impacts. Instead, transportation impacts will be determined based on changes to vehicle miles of travel (VMT).
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