The concept of measuring the carrying capacity and flow rate of transportation systems was  established in the first edition of the Highway Capacity Manual published in 1950. Dubbed automobile “level of service” in 1965, LOS has dominated transportation impact analysis at every level of government ever since. Transportation impact studies, and thus LOS, now pervade land use and transportation planning throughout the United States and are engrained in project-level environmental review required for the National Environmental Policy Act and many state-level equivalents. But planning and developing for unimpeded automobility is antithetical to the burgeoning shift toward planning for multimodal accessibility, housing supply and affordability, and energy efficiency. And with that shift, LOS may be on its way out. Recent policies have aimed to reduce driving itself in order to curb greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, and California is currently taking the bold step to replace LOS with vehicle miles traveled (VMT) when transportation impacts are studied for the statewide environmental review law. What might be the effects of the practical and philosophical shift from LOS to VMT? Amy Lee will present results from several relevant studies and encourage the audience to think critically about this question.

About the Presenter

Amy Lee is a doctoral student in the Transportation Technology & Policy Graduate Group at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on the relationship between transportation and land use, particularly the impacts of policy on planning, travel behavior, and climate change. Prior to pursuing a PhD she was a regional planner at the metropolitan planning organization for
the Sacramento region (SACOG) and the advocacy manager for Sacramento’s bicycle coalition.