At the time of submittal of formal applications, the City requires a complete traffic study to be prepared by a licensed traffic engineer. The traffic study will be reviewed by the City’s traffic engineer, along with a 3rd party traffic engineer hired by the City.
The traffic study will evaluate the generation, distribution of all vehicular trips and analyze addition of the new trips on nearby roadway segments and intersections. The current standard used for evaluating significance of traffic impacts is Level of Service (LOS) standards, which is the seconds of delay at signalized intersections. The City’s current General Plan identifies LOS standards for both AM (weekdays 7-9am) and PM peak hours (weekdays 4-6pm). The traffic study will also look at traffic safety in relation to pedestrians and bicycles.
Although not yet required by State law, the traffic study will also evaluate the project in terms of Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT), a new methodology established by the State to be used as the metric for evaluating traffic in CEQA documents, starting in July 2020.