Transportation is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in California. To achieve its ambitious agenda to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate pollution, the state will need to build out the infrastructure to make walking, biking and riding transit the default ways to get around. Senate Bill 288 provides an exemption that make it faster to build commonsense sustainable transportation projects. The law went into effect in January 2021 and sunsets in December 2022.
Now, the California State Legislature has the opportunity to extend the many benefits of SB 288 by passing SB 922, a bill that would make the exemption permanent and fine-tune the law for ease of implementation. SPUR encourages the California Legislature and the governor to pass SB 922, including changes to SB 288 that we recommend in this policy brief. We provide background on SB 288 and describe the impact of the law, including case studies on projects that have used the exemption.