PURPOSE:

The purpose of this study session is to provide an opportunity for the City Council to discuss and provide direction to staff on the City�s Transportation Demand Management Program, as contained in the Media District Specific Plan and Burbank Center Plan, and the role of the Burbank Transportation Management Organization in the program.      

BACKGROUND

In 1991, the Media District Specific Plan (MDSP) was created in response to increasing traffic congestion in the Media District and spillover impacts to the surrounding residential neighborhoods.  With the adoption of the MDSP, a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) ordinance was created (Sec. 31-2132) to require the larger companies in the area to progressively work toward a thirty-eight percent reduction in expected traffic generation in the peak hour period, 4:00 to 6:00 PM, at the end of the twenty year planning period.    

The MDSP required the employers located within the Media District having more than 1,000 employees to establish a transportation management organization to assist all employers having 25 or more employees to complete an annual trip generation report documenting their individual level of success in achieving the required trip reduction goal.  The goal for the initial year was 1.9 percent less than the number of trips expected based upon the type and size of the individual business.  For each of the successive years since, the goal has been increased by 1.9 percent and is currently at 28.5 percent in the fifteenth year of operation.    

Since its inception in 1991, the Burbank Transportation Management Organization (BTMO) has worked with its member companies in the Media District to assist them in completing the City�s trip reduction requirements.  In 1997, based upon the prior success of the MDSP trip reduction program, the City adopted the Burbank Center Plan (BCP) with a near identical requirement.  Employers of at least 25 employees located within the BCP area, which includes the City Center and South San Fernando Redevelopment Project Areas, are required to work with the BTMO to reduce their employees� peak-hour trips by 2.2 percent annually until the year 2015, which will result in 38 percent trip reduction. 

In each of the years that the annual trip reduction reports have been required in the Media District and City Center areas, the cumulative result for each separate area has met the mandated goal for that year.  While the combined goal of all companies has been met, individual companies often have had difficulties reaching the annual goal.  This is typically due to the type and size of the business (smaller businesses and business types that typically have a high percentage of non-commute trips during the PM peak period), employee turnover and/or the absence of an individual to which this responsibility is assigned, or lack of available time to devote to the trip reduction program requirements.  Occasionally, the employer refuses to comply, either in principle or for reason of inadequate knowledge.  The role of the BTMO is to work with the employers in each of those cases to provide information on trip reduction techniques and transit opportunities that will enable them to achieve the mandated goal, and to otherwise assist them to keep in compliance with the City program.  If the BTMO is unable to get an individual employer to participate, City staff steps in to initially provide information and assistance, and to ultimately initiate a code compliance process if necessary.    

NREL REPORT

The National Energy Renewable Laboratory (NREL) is the nation's primary laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development.  Established in 1974, NREL began operating in 1977 as the Solar Energy Research Institute. It was designated a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in September 1991, and consequently changed its name to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.  NREL develops renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies and practices, advances related science and engineering, and transfers knowledge and innovations to address the nation's energy and environmental goals.  Their major program concentrations are Advanced Vehicle Technology and Fuels, Basic Energy Science, Biomass, Building Technologies, Electronic Infrastructure Systems, Energy Analysis, Geothermal Energy, Hydrogen and Fuel Cells, Solar Energy and Wind Energy.

For the past two years, the BTMO has been working with NREL to study the operation of the City�s trip reduction program as administered by the BTMO.  On May 23, 2006, the NREL representatives presented a preliminary report to the Council, and subsequently returned on July 18^th to present a revised draft.  NREL is currently finalizing the report (final draft attached as Exhibit 1) and anticipates releasing the Final report within a month.  The recommendations included in the report are discussed below. 

   Study recommendations:

1)      Extend the sunset dates of the MDSP and BCP trip reduction requirement beyond the current 2011 and 2015 years.

When those years arrive, the member companies will have been required to achieve 38% trip reductions from their otherwise expected trip generation levels.  If the ordinances were allowed to sunset that that point, the mandated trip reduction levels would no longer need to be maintained.  While many companies would no doubt voluntarily choose to continue their programs, the lack of any requirement to do so would likely result over time in a significant erosion of the gains that had been achieved. The Draft Mobility Element recommends that the TDM ordinances be amended to extend the trip reduction requirements to the year 2025, such that member companies are required to maintain the cumulative 38% reductions that will have been achieved by the current sunset dates of 2011 and 2015. 

2)      Expand the program into other geographic areas of the city. 

The member companies that the BTMO provides service to are only those within the MDSP or BCP geographic areas.  NREL has suggested expanding the program to other employment centers (such as the Golden State Area) or even to require that all companies within the City of Burbank with 25 or more employees participate in the trip reduction program.  This will not only be helpful in reducing trip generation throughout the entire city, but will allow staff to collect citywide commute data to analyze employee travel patterns.  The data could then used to reveal opportunities for car-pools, van-pools, or other alternative forms of transportation. 

3)      Increase the number and frequency of the required employer surveys. 

As stated in both specific plan TDM ordinances, every year member companies located within the specific plan boundaries are required to participate in a trip reduction survey.  Each company has a designated representative that collects all of the forms, tallies the results and reports the information to the BTMO. The BTMO compiles all of the data received from member companies and submits the final results to City staff.  The results of the annual survey are reported as part of the yearly Work Program.  NREL has suggested that the City broadens the requirements by administering periodic surveys throughout the year, not just one week in the month of May. 

While the information that more frequent surveys would provide would be helpful in determining seasonal and daily traffic patterns, and may assist in transit planning efforts, staff believes that this would create undue administrative burdens and costs for member businesses.  Furthermore, mandating additional surveys would potentially require the BTMO to increase their service levels which could result in the need to raise membership costs (which is currently $18/employee annually�capped at $20,000).  Staff believes that instead of increasing the number of surveys throughout the year, a better solution would be to develop refined data collection methods to increase the utility and usefulness of the data.  This could be done with minimal impact to the member companies, merely by modifying the manner in which the data is tabulated and reported.  Additionally, staff believes that more rigorous reporting requirements may be implemented as an option for companies wishing to use TDM reductions as an alternative traffic impact mitigation strategy for new development (see discussion of TMO and transportation planning below). 

4)      Update the measurement and methodology process.

One of the NREL recommendations suggests that the TMO trip reduction reporting be adjusted to reflect reductions taken from historical data measured from each company, rather than taken from a predicted trip generation derived from Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) trip generation rates, business use, and building square footage.  The study asserts that by using actual survey data taken from a company, and requiring reductions to be taken from a baseline derived from survey data, more reliable information can be collected about the amount of trip reductions that are actually occurring.  Staff does not recommend using this type of data as a trip reduction baseline for two reasons. 

First, in setting the baseline to actual trip generation, this method would in effect penalize companies who currently exhibit good ridesharing and alternative transportation ratios.  Companies whose workers already use alterative transportation would be required to further reduce their trips; in effect, they would be penalized for already exhibiting good alternative transportation use. Companies with extremely high single-occupancy-vehicle use would conversely have a much higher baseline from which to reduce from.  This would create an inequity between businesses depending on their current rideshare efforts and would discourage companies to exceed trip reduction goals because it would set their baseline lower for the following year. 

Second, this methodology would not be consistent with the methods used to estimate trip generation for the purposes of traffic studies and long-range planning.  The City uses ITE rates as a basis for much of the transportation planning work performed, including calibration of the Travel Demand Model used for long-range forecasting.  If staff were to use this alternative methodology, it would be difficult to reconcile the reductions based upon survey data with reductions from standard ITE rates.  It should be noted that there could be value in evaluating published ITE rates in terms of City of Burbank traffic conditions and trip generation rates to determine if ITE rates mimic Burbank conditions.  This effort is a broader issue that is being addressed through the Mobility Element Update and the rates used for traffic studies under the proposed trip-based land use standards.  Findings from this process could easily be used in calculating and refining trip reduction baselines for TMO reporting.

5)      Modify the data that collected to supplement understanding of current traffic generation patterns.

When member companies gather their employee data sheets, as stated by Sec. 31-2133, only PM peak hour (4pm-6pm) trip generation is used to tabulate final trip reduction results.  All trips that are taken out of the PM peak hour are not collected by the City or the BTMO, but are kept by the member companies for their own records. NREL suggests that the City require that all survey information be provided by the employer so as to enable a better understanding of commute trips and traffic patterns in the area. 

Although this would be helpful in acquiring air quality statistics and actual trip miles reduced, it would not effect peak hour traffic reduction.  The purpose of TDM standards is to reduce PM peak hour traffic by either diverting trips to alternate forms of transportation (such as public transit) or moving trips out of the PM peak hour period.  If trips are moved out of the PM peak hour period without being reported, the purpose of TDM has been achieved.  Furthermore, several of the member companies are reluctant to share the survey data of individual employees for security reasons.  Staff will continue to work through the BTMO to explore ways in which additional cumulative information can be provided to the City without impairing legitimate security protections.   

FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS � TMO PROGRAMS AND TRANSPORTATION PLANNING

Both the Media District Specific Plan and Burbank Center Plan areas stipulate a 38% reduction in commute trips shall occur by the sunset date for both areas.  As such, the City�s long-range traffic forecasting assumes that these reductions in commute trips will have occurred for the various long-term horizon years that are studied for the purposes of programming street improvements.  The growth forecasts studied as part of the Mobility Element Update, including both the Reduced Growth Forecast and Strategic Growth Forecast, assume that land uses in the Media District and Downtown areas generate less commuter trips as prescribed by the two TDM ordinances.  These assumptions are then used to generate future traffic conditions on the street network, and roadway improvements planned for the street network take into account that reductions have occurred. 

Thus, it is important that businesses in these areas continue to make effort to reduce commute trips as the year-by-year reduction requirements approach the full 38%.  Because the City�s long-range forecast relies on the assumption that these reductions will occur, it is also important that the efforts made to survey, track and measure actual trip reductions are refined and improved to ensure that the actual reductions observed for businesses match the assumptions made in the City�s long-range forecasts.  Staff recommends that improvements to the data collection and survey process be considered to ensure accuracy in the tracking of trip reductions.

At the other end of the transportation planning spectrum, TDM policies and BTMO programs must also be considered in the evaluation of short-term traffic impacts caused by new development projects.  While the City has taken commute-trip reductions into account when forecasting long-range traffic conditions, current City policy stipulates that these reductions are not assumed when conducting traffic studies for individual development projects.  When calculating trip generation for new development projects in the Media District or Downtown areas, no reductions are taken for the effect that TDM programs may have on the number of vehicle trips generated by a given project, even though city ordinance stipulates that these reductions shall be achieved. 

Thus, when evaluating for impacts, the conservative approach is taken whereby no credit is given for these reduced trips even though participation in the TMO is compulsory.  While this conservative approach has been effective in years past, as street capacity continues to be reduced over time, it becomes increasingly hard for projects to mitigate their projected street impacts.  This is made more difficult if the trip generation in the areas affected by the TDM ordinances does not take into account that some reductions are occurring in these areas. 

To date, Council has not supported any credit being given to development projects that must achieve commute trip reductions through participation in the BTMO.  However, as street capacity is reduced and the margins that trigger traffic impacts are narrowed, it becomes increasingly important to more accurately gauge the actual trip generation caused by new projects.  Staff recommends that the traffic study review process be evaluated to determine how TDM trip reductions can be accurately accounted for in the evaluation of new development projects.

The City is currently considering implementation of a new commercial development standard that would define the amount of allowed development in terms of trip generation. Implementation of this new standard has implications on TDM policies and could affect how the BTMO and TDM programs are implemented in the future.  Under the proposed development standard, trips generated by future development are allocated to parcels within the city based on land use category to develop a trip budget for each parcel.  This allocation of trips already accounts for the 38% TDM reduction, thus, the number of allocated trips has been reduced citywide to account for the expected trip reductions from participation in the TMO. 

When a property owner wishes to redevelop his site and is developing land use scenarios, a mechanism must be in place such that the trip rates used to create development scenarios include some sort of credit for the TDM reductions already assumed in the citywide model.  Again, as consideration of actual TDM reductions and BTMO performance becomes more critical with these proposed standards (that rely on a certain trip reduction occurring), it becomes even more important that the BTMO programs and procedures be refined to increase accuracy and compliance.

In all of the above examples, increased reliance on the assumptions made in the TDM ordinances for both the Media District and the Burbank Center Plan mean that the BTMO programs and processes may need to be refined and improved to ensure continued compliance with the TDM ordinances.  Further, improved reporting and measuring of actual trip reductions may need to be implemented; especially where trip reduction credits are requested by a developer or property owner to support a proposed new development.

RECOMMENDATION:

Staff recommends that Council receive the report and direct staff on recommendations made.

LIST OF EXHIBITS

Exhibit 1:          The Burbank Transportation Management Organization: An Analysis of Impacts (Final Draft),    By J. Aabakken and E. Brown

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