VMT analysis under SB 743: traffic studies without LOS

Senate Bill 743 rewired the CEQA traffic study: under CEQA Guidelines § 15064.3, a project's transportation impact is measured by the vehicle miles traveled it generates, and congestion is out — automobile delay and level of service no longer constitute a significant impact under CEQA. For infill housing this was structural relief: dense projects near jobs and transit produce low VMT even where they worsen intersection delay.

A practice layer sits on top of the regulation: agencies screen projects by size, location and transit proximity, set significance thresholds (most borrowed from OPR's technical advisory — guidance, not regulation), and reserve modeling for projects that don't screen out. LOS didn't vanish from planning, either — it survives as non-CEQA policy in general plans, where it can shape conditions and fees but cannot force an EIR.

Adopted under SB 743's mandate, § 15064.3 makes VMT the metric of a land-use project's transportation impact and expressly removes congestion from CEQA: a project's effect on automobile delay is not a significant environmental impact. Lead agencies keep discretion over methodology — per-capita versus per-employee metrics, model choice, baselines, thresholds — which is why the same building can screen clean in one city and trigger a full analysis next door.

• Underwriting watch-outs:
• Old-guard staff still ask for LOS runs; scope them as general-plan consistency work if genuinely required, but keep LOS out of the CEQA significance discussion.
• Congestion sneaks back in dressed as "safety" or roadway-design comments — answer those as design issues, not CEQA impacts.
• Check what the jurisdiction formally adopted: cities without adopted VMT thresholds improvise, and improvisation is what gets appealed.

The strongest tool is § 15064.3(b)(1)'s transit presumption: residential and mixed-use projects within ½ mile of an existing major transit stop, or a stop along an existing high-quality transit corridor, should generally be presumed to have a less-than-significant transportation impact. Around it sits the screening architecture from OPR's technical advisory — guidance, not binding regulation, but widely adopted: small projects screen out by size, projects in mapped low-VMT areas screen out by location, and for projects that do get modeled, the advisory's suggested significance threshold is roughly 15% below the regional or city average VMT per capita.

• Underwriting watch-outs:
• "Generally presumed" is rebuttable — oversized parking or an unusually auto-oriented profile can undercut the transit presumption, so keep the project consistent with the screen it relies on.
• The baseline choice (regional vs. citywide average) can flip a marginal project's significance; pin it in writing with staff before the model runs.
• Confirm the stop actually qualifies as a major transit stop or high-quality corridor — the presumption keys off existing service, and the record should show it.

When a project can't screen out, mitigation runs through three levers: project design (land-use mix, density, direct transit access — the things that lower trip generation at the source), transportation demand management programs (transit passes, unbundled parking, car share, monitoring), and parking strategy. Parking supply is a VMT input, and AB 2097 (Gov. Code § 65863.2) bars minimum parking requirements near major transit — so cutting parking is simultaneously an entitlement right and a mitigation measure. Where on-site measures can't close the gap, VMT fee, bank and exchange programs are emerging in larger jurisdictions to let projects fund reductions elsewhere.

• Underwriting watch-outs:
• TDM commitments become enforceable mitigation in the monitoring program — price the annual reporting and penalty structure, not just the transit passes.
• VMT banks and exchanges are new and unevenly available; confirm the program exists and is funded before an underwrite depends on it.
• A residual significant VMT impact means a statement of overriding considerations and full EIR exposure — reprice the schedule the moment mitigation stops penciling.
• Parking cuts stack with density-bonus parking ratios — run the AB 2097 and concession analyses together, not sequentially.