Infra Insight Blog

Pursuant to Senate Bill 743 (passed in 2013), the metric for analyzing transportation impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) officially changed over on July 1, 2020 from level of service to vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Now, VMT is the standard for such analyses in nearly all CEQA documents, requiring agencies to implement sweeping changes in their approach to analyzing transportation impacts from major infrastructure and development projects. The following video excerpt from a recent Nossaman webinar on this topic provides a brief overview of these new CEQA guidelines relating to VMT. ...

In response to a request from the California Department of Transportation, 5,000 California drivers signed up for the state’s nine month pilot program to replace the state’s gas tax with a charge based on vehicle miles traveled.  Starting July 1 of this year, the volunteers will make simulated payments based on how many miles they travel.  Participants include drivers from every part of the state and from every socioeconomic background, according to Malcolm Dougherty, Caltrans executive director.  The opportunity to provide valuable input and evaluate the viability of a ...

On July 6, 2013, Oregon became the first state to establish a voluntary road usage charge system for transportation funding.  Senate Bill 810 authorizes the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to charge up to 5,000 motorists 1.5 cents for every mile they drive rather than the traditional 30-cent gas tax.  The law comes on the heels of two ODOT pilot programs that examined alternative funding mechanisms to the gas tax and tested the vehicles-miles traveled fee (VMT) system.

As reported here, the Executive Director and CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike ...

This morning, members of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission and National Transportation Policy Project of the Bipartisan Policy Center released a joint statement urging Congress to take steps toward several transportation policy principles designed to help guide deliberations over how to extend, fund and improve the federal surface transportation program in the face of dire fiscal realities. Some of the key proposals include the call for Congress to incentivize and remove barriers to increased state and local revenues from direct user ...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) division has weighed in on road user fees based on vehicle miles traveled or VMT. Their latest report Implementable Strategies for Shifting to Direct Usage-Based Charges for Transportation Funding responds to VMT’s critics who say the transportation funding method would be too challenging and require a lengthy implementation period. The report outlines strategies for shifting to direct user-based charges for transportation funding, focusing on incremental VMT mechanisms which can be fully implemented in the ...