September 24, 2008

The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger
Governor of California
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

The League of Women Voters of California requests your signature on SB 375 (Steinberg), a landmark bill that requires metropolitan planning organizations to include sustainable communities strategies in their regional transportation plans and aligns planning for transportation, land use, and housing.
 
The League supports land use development patterns that facilitate the use of transit and other alternatives to single occupant vehicles. We have consistently favored the integration of transportation planning with sound land use policies, particularly those that encourage infill development using existing infrastructure, that meet the need for affordable housing, and that protect vital natural resources and agricultural lands.

This bill integrates and aligns planning for housing, land use, and transportation with targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions in the 17 Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in the state. SB 375:

1. Requires the California Air Resources Board (ARB) to set targets for greenhouse gas emissions, based on travel demand models, for these MPOs
2. Requires regional entities to establish sustainable communities strategies that identify areas to sufficiently house all the population of the region, identify a transportation network to serve regional needs, take into consideration the impacts of development of important resource lands and farmlands, and meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets set by the ARB
3. Requires the Regional Housing Needs Allocation process to be coordinated with, and on the same time frame as, the Regional Transportation Plans
4. Provides incentives for implementing the sustainable communities strategies and certain CEQA relief for transit priority projects and other affordable in-fill housing.

We believe the use of travel demand models and the measures for integrating transportation, housing, and air quality planning will have a major effect in meeting the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets contained in AB 32. We urge your signature on SB 375.

Sincerely,

Janis R. Hirohama
President

cc:  Senator Darrell Steinberg