Transportation: congestion management.

(1) Existing law requires a congestion management program to be developed, adopted, and updated biennially by a designated agency for every county that includes an urbanized area. The congestion management program is required to contain specified elements and to be submitted to regional agencies, as defined, for determination of whether the program is consistent with regional transportation plans. The designated agency is then directed to monitor the implementation of all elements of the congestion management program. The required elements include, among other things, traffic level of service standards for a system of designated highways and roadways, a performance element that includes performance measures, and a 7-year capital improvement program. A city or county is required to prepare a deficiency plan when highway or roadway level of service standards are not maintained on segments or intersections of the designated system and is required to submit its adopted deficiency plan to the designated agency. This bill would delete the traffic level of service standards as an element of a congestion management program and would delete related requirements, including the requirement that a city or county prepare a deficiency plan when highway or roadway level of service standards are not maintained. The bill would revise and recast the requirements for other elements of a congestion management program by, among other things, requiring performance measures to include vehicle miles traveled, air emissions, and bicycle, transit, and pedestrian mode share and requiring the designated agency, for roadway capacity expansion projects, to include in the 7-year capital improvement program an analysis of the potential for induced vehicle travel. The bill would require the regional agency to evaluate how the congestion management program contributes to achieving a specified greenhouse gas reduction target for the region established by the State Air Resources Board. To the extent that the above-described requirements impose additional duties on designated agencies and regional agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) Existing law makes various legislative findings relative to congestion management programs. This bill would delete those legislative findings and would make new legislative findings relative to congestion management programs. (3) This bill would make other technical and conforming changes to these provisions and would delete an obsolete provision. (4) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.