Can new housing development by Bay Area planners overcome the traffic issue?

Traffic, overburdened transit system, and jaw-dropping housing costs are the main issues in San Francisco. To overcome these issues, bay area planners are planning to build housing with a different way. They are planning to build citywide “transportation demand management” program that cut-down vehicle-miles traveled. Officials from the San Francisco Planning Department, MTA, and County Transportation Authority have developed a 26-item menu of research-backed TDM measures. Each development project contains site-specific point and to reach them developers would choose their blend of VMT-reducing features.

A few TDM measures like bike lockers, showers and parking lot fees were already sprinkled into the city planning code. Now, developers will have to incorporate driving-reduction efforts before their projects get the green light from City Hall.

Some of the measures are a bit more nuanced than hacking down parking spaces. For example, a developer who builds a mixed-use complex with healthy grocery options in an otherwise underserved neighborhood would get awarded a higher TDM score.

The “Transportation Sustainability Program” with three-pronged game-plan is passed by city planning commission and now waiting for the response of San Francisco’s board of supervisors. The first plan is new building fee, the second is change how those very impacts are evaluated and the third is less parking as the future of transportation.

Now the main part of the plan is that how it’ll be evaluated if once put into action. Schwartz says, “Estimating these sorts of impacts has long been an exercise in generalization. San Francisco needs to grow to meet affordability and diversity goals. How do we do it in a way that also leads to better transportation? For the first time, we’re thinking that through in a comprehensive way”.

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