Abstract

Application of a Parcel-Based Sustainability Tool to Reduce GHG Emissions
Track: Climate Change
Authors: Jung Seo, Hsi-Hwa Hu, Cheol-Ho Lee, Simon Choi, Frank Wen

The California's Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act (a.k.a. SB 375) requires Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) to provide local planners with the information and tools necessary to understand the relationship between different land use scenarios and vehicle use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. SCAG developed a parcel-based sustainability tool (PST), a sketch planning tool, through which local planners can analyze the impact of different land use scenarios on vehicle ownership, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and GHG emissions. As input data for PST, SCAG processed the geo-coded 2009 National Household Travel Survey ( NHTS) to create a ¼ mile buffer for each household in the travel survey using the ArcGIS. SCAG used ArcGIS to process household density, employment density, mixed use, street density and transit access, etc., within the buffer. PST was effectively used for SCAG's 2012 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) as one important statistical model and analysis tool.