Pasadena Ditches 'Level of Service' Review for Multi-Modal Measurements

"On November 3, Pasadena’s City Council voted unanimously to ditch the car-centric measure of mobility called 'level of service,' or LOS," according to a post on the Boyonabike! blog.

The change at the local level occurs as the state is working to revise its Level of Service requirements as a part of the California Environmental Quality Act.

The Pasadena Department of Transportation staff report to the Pasadena City Council [pdf] explains the policy change, which would replace "two existing Transportation Performance Measures with five new Transportation Performance Measures and Set Thresholds of Significance for CEQA for the new measures." Those five new measures, as listed by the staff report: "Vehicle Miles Traveled Per Capita," "Proximity and Quality of the Transit," "Pedestrian Accessibility," Vehicle Trips Per Capita," and "Proximity and Quality of the Bicycle Network."

Boyonabike! also adds this commentary on how and why LOS was shown the door: "The policy change was developed and proposed by the staff at Pasadena DOT and is a critical element of Pasadena’s efforts to become a more environmentally-friendly city by encouraging multi-modal transportation, and denser, mixed-use development downtown."