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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 11171992 - TC.1 - - - =_ Contra Costa County TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS -FROM. TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE DATE: October 26, 1992 SUBJECT: Authorize Submittal of Comments on Draft BAAQMD Employer-Based Trip Reduction Rule SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATIONS) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATIONS Authorize the Chair of the Board of submit comments, as listed below, on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's Draft Employer-Based Trip Reduction Rule. FISCAL IMPACT None. BACKGROUND/REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS The Bay Area Air Quality Management District adopted the Bay Area Clean Air Plan in early 1992 , which included a number of "transportation control measures" , or TCM's, which are intended to reduce vehicular trips in order to improve air quality. TCM 2 calls for adoption of an employer-based trip reduction rule by the District, which would require large employers to implement trip reduction programs for their employees. Responsibility for implementation of the rule may be delegated to local jurisdictions if local trip-reduction ordinances meet certain criteria in the Air District rule. Air District staff initiated the rule-making process in December 1991, with the release of a discussion paper. This was followed by workshops, release of a draft rule, more workshops and now, a final draft rule. The Air District will hold a public hearing on the rule on November 18, and hopes to adopt the rule in December, 1992 . CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: X YES SIGNATURE RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR X RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER o�� SIGNATURE(S) : Schroder om To/r?aksosnov\_ ACTION OF BOARD ON November 17 , 1992 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED X OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I 1'EREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A X UNANIMOUS (ABSENT I & II TRUE AND CORRECT COPY OF AN AYES: NOES: ACTION TAKEN AND ENTERED ON THE ABSENT: ABSTAIN: MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. Contact: Ernest Vovakis 646-2131 ATT 'STED November 17, :1992 cc: Public Works PHJJi BATCHELOR, CLERK OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND 7TY MINIS TOR BY , DEPUTY Employer-Based Trip Reduction Rule Page 2 In order to comply with the requirements of Measure C and the Congestion Management Program, Contra Costa County has already adopted a "transportation demand management" ordinance, which is similar in approach to the Air District's draft rule. If adopted in December as planned, the new rule would become effective on January 1, 1994 for those local jurisdictions which have a trip- reduction ordinance in effect. The Air District will be working with those jurisdictions during 1993 on a process for delegation of the administration of the rule. In the event that a local jurisdiction does not request delegation, both the Air District rule and the local ordinance would apply to employers. The draft rule has been modified considerably since the first draft, and many of the County's earlier concerns have been addressed. The effect of these changes will be to bring the rule closer to the County's existing TDM ordinance and to facilitate local administration of the rule, should the County later decide to request delegation of the administrative responsibility for the rule. Several concerns remain however, and these will be discussed below. MAJOR CHANGES TO THE DRAFT RULE Major revisions which have been made to the rule are summarized as follows: 1. Applicability. The rule applies to all public and private employers with 100 or more employees at a single work site. Employment is considered to be the maximum number of employees reporting to the work site on any single week day during the current calender or fiscal year. In addition, 50 or more employees have to report to .work at the site between 6 and 10 a.m. Contract employees are no longer included unless they work for the employer for at least 90 days. Temporary and seasonal employees are no longer counted. However, ,part-time employees who work 20 or more hours per week will continue to be counted. The rule continues to apply to retail employers since their employees drive to work and contribute to vehicular emissions. However, as indicated above, retail sites with less than 50 employeer starting work between 6 and 10 a.m. would be exempt. 2 . Performance standards. The rule retains "average vehicle ridership" or AVR as a performance standard for measuring the performance of individual employers. AVR is determined by the annual employee transportation survey. A new, optional performance standard has been added, the "vehicle to employee" ratio. VER is simply the reciprocal of AVR and it uses the same data as AVR. The difference is that VER is conceptually easier to understand. VER decreases as the number of vehicles per employee decreases. The revised rule allows employers to select which performance standard they prefer to use. 3 . Analysis zones. The performance standards are graduated, as before, increasing each year from 1993 to 1999, and varying according to zone. Zone 1 (downtown San Francisco) has the highest standards and Zone 4 (Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma Counties) has the lowest. Contra Costa County is in Zone 3 , with the AVR standard beginning at 1. 10 in 1993 and rising to 1.40 by 1999. This standard has been scaled down from the previous draft, which reached 1. 50 in 1999. In addition, a new zone has been added for rural portions of the County, in which the AVR culminates at 1. 30 in 1999. 4 . Surveys. The rule now requires that surveys be conducted annually unless the employer meets the applicable AVR standard for a future year; in that situation, a new survey will be required after two years. Surveys are only required for work sites with 100 or more employees. (The County has 15 work sites with 100 or more employees, including downtown Martinez . The results of the 1992 County employee survey indicate that 5 of these work sites exceed the performance standard for 1993 . ) The survey response rate that must be achieved to consider the survey valid has been reduced from 75% to 60%. If a 60% response is not achieved, all nonrespondants are assumed to be driving alone to work. (The County achieved a 48% response in its 1992 survey. ) In addition, the revised rule allows random sampling of work sites with 400 or more employees for purposes of conducting the employee survey. Credit is now given for employees working at telecommuting satellite centers as well as those telecommuting at home. However, telecommuting_ must be done on a regular basis at least one day per week. t Employer-Based Trip Reduction Rule Page 3 COMMENTS ON DRAFT RULE The Committee recommends that the Board authorize the Chair to sign a letter to the Executive Director of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, commending the District on all the constructive changes which have been made on the rule and submitting the following comments for consideration at the District's November 18 public hearing: 1. The availability of two performance standards, AVR and VER, may be confusing to employers and difficult to administer. The BAAQMD staff report states that VER is superior both in concept and implementation. In that case, VER should be the adopted performance standard rather than AVR. 2 . The County faces a difficult challenge in meeting the applicable AVR standards for its employees at every work site with 100 or more employees. Many areas are not served by transit; carpools are not practical at other sites because several departments are present or because employees work differing schedules. The County proposes that an exemption process be developed for-employers with multiple work sites when special circumstances prevent one or more of the sites from meeting the applicable AVR standard.