LPDD Model Law: Prioritizing Funding of Clean Transportation Alternatives

This model law requires state governments to devote a larger share of transportation funding to providing meaningful alternatives to driving. The model lays out a roadmap for a more transparent, objective, and quantifiable funding prioritization process that prioritizes environmental impact factors in the assessment of transportation projects. The model provides two versions of a model state law, both for states that have, and have not, adopted a statewide transportation funding process. For states that have not adopted a funding process, the model addresses a wider range of prioritization issues, including potential measures to be used as selection criteria, the uses of a benchmark study assessing different modes of transportation, the adoption of a standardized weighted formula to score and rank different transportation options, and other factors. For states that have adopted a funding process, the model proposes a more streamlined roadmap, considering how to assess carbon emissions and other environmental metrics.

This model was drafted by lawyers from the Goodwin Procter firm, including Wenqing Zhao, Suzanne Nguyen and Mulon Luo, with oversight by Robert Fitzgerald.  Peer reviewing was contributed by the LPDD chapter author, Trip Pollard (Senior Attorney, Southern Environmental Law Center).