CP comment letter to CARB on mpo submissions v3

June 9, 2010 Mary Nichols, Chairman California Air Resources Board 1001 “I” Street Sacramento, CA 95814 Re: MPO Scenarios and SB 375 targets Dear Chairman Nichols, The undersigned organizations greatly appreciate the extensive work that CARB has done to implement SB 375 and to support the role of the Regional Targets Advisory Committee (RTAC). We also strongly commend the MPOs for their work to quickly develop planning scenarios per the RTAC recommendations. We are pleased that these scenarios offer a wide range of approaches to improved land use and transportation planning that could be employed throughout the state to support sustainable communities. We believe that CARB’s work to partner with regional and local governments in sustainable community planning will have tremendous benefits in improving air quality, public health and housing and transportation choices in California. As CARB moves forward to review and assess the MPO planning scenarios and draft regional GHG targets by the end of June, we urge you to ensure that each region moves away from business as usual and adopts truly ambitious targets. While we have found many good examples of planning tools in the MPO scenarios that will accelerate new transit –oriented development, improve air quality and public health, we also believe that each region can do more. 1. CARB should not rely solely upon the presented MPO scenarios to define the range of ambitious targets. ...