This is a competitive contract solicitation to support the California Air Resources Board (CARB or Board) research priorities for fiscal year 2021-2022. CARB staff will hold a Pre-Application Workshop on April 8, 2021 for this and related projects. CARB is encouraging proposers to form multidisciplinary teams to fulfill contract requirements. Principle Investigators (PIs) must be affiliated with University of California and California State Universities, however, CARB encourages PIs to recruit non-academic research partners and diversify research efforts and talent.
In accordance with the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act, or SB 375 (Chapter 728, Statutes of 2008), California Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) are required to create and adopt Sustainable Communities Strategies (SCS) that demonstrate how each region will meet greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets from light-duty vehicle travel in support of the state’s climate goals. In 2018, CARB assessed statewide progress toward achieving the goals of SB 375—as mandated by SB 150 (Allen, Chapter 646, Statutes of 2017)—and published a report on its findings. The report revealed that California is not on track to meet the GHG emission reductions needed to achieve the goals set by SB 375. Per this finding, CARB is committed to finding solutions to reverse this trend. Also, illuminated by the SB 150 Report, is the opportunity to shift transportation investments toward more sustainable transportation projects that provide Californians with more and better mobility options. Many MPOs have existing practices, tools, and measures to help them select and prioritize projects and these could inform best practices for other regions. The objective of this project is to identify and analyze the methods, project performance assessments (PPA), and SCS decision-making frameworks that MPOs currently use. Further, the project seeks to recommend methods to assess projects beyond standard, transportation-based metrics for mobility and accessibility, to examine project performance related to climate protection, equity, affordable housing, safety, and other important outcomes. To achieve the project objectives, the researchers will review PPAs, tools, and other practices used by MPOs across the state. This project will also use interviews, focus groups, surveys, or other qualitative methods to develop a deep understanding of project selection and SCS implementation. The project results will provide recommendations on best practices to select, evaluate, and strengthen SCS development. In addition, the results will make recommendations for practices and metrics that effectively evaluate equity and strategies for how MPOs can achieve the most equity and climate co-benefits. The results will be shared publicly and will help accelerate progress toward meeting SB 375 goals with equitable outcomes.
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