Looking to cut down on pollution, Mountain View approved a citywide policy Tuesday that seeks to reduce the number of vehicles on the road.
In a unanimous vote, the City Council backed major updates to a policy that requires developers to encourage sustainable forms of transportation, such as offering transit subsidies, bicycle facilities and carshare services.
“I hope that it will help bring our car trips down as a community and in return give us better clean air and a better environment,” Mayor Emily Ann Ramos said at the May 12 council meeting.
Mountain View first adopted a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) policy in 1994 to comply with regional and state requirements. The goal was to reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality, according to the city staff report.
The approach however was piecemeal and not always clear to the developers and employers who were tasked with meeting the requirements. Specific rules were also added for certain parts of the city, like North Bayshore, East Whisman and El Camino Real, according to the staff report.
The new policy approved this week aims to implement the TDM program consistently citywide, with the goal of cutting down on drive-alone trips, according to Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer.
The policy will apply to all new residential, commercial and mixed-use developments in Mountain View that are expected to generate at least 200 net new average daily trips, Boyer said. Certain projects will be exempt, including all-affordable housing developments and certain “patron-driven uses,” like childcare centers, retail and restaurants, where trips are mostly generated by customers and not employees.
To get a project approved, a developer will need to create a plan to reduce average daily trips by between 20% and 50%, depending on the project’s size, type and proximity to a major transit stop or corridor, Boyer said. Developers also will need to show how they plan to manage the program, which includes maintaining records and annual reporting requirements.
“Non-compliance may result in corrective action and or fines assessed by the city,” Boyer said.
The city has come up with a toolkit of 33 different strategies that developers can use to reduce drive-alone vehicle trips. Core strategies include options like making enhancements to pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, as well as having cafes and retail spaces on the ground floor. Developers also can limit parking spots while offering carpool services or public transit subsidies.
The toolkit also includes “auxiliary” strategies, like helping residents or employees learn about and use public transit or providing dedicated parking for carpools, vanpools and carshares near building entrances.
“(The toolkit) is designed to offer a menu of strategies that vary in scale and cost, allowing projects to create site specific TDM plans fit for their purpose,” Boyer said.
Developers will be required to utilize a certain number of core and auxiliary strategies, based on their project’s size.
Officials and residents weigh in on new policy
People board a MVgo bus on Shoreline Boulevard in Mountain View on March 19, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
The city council voiced support for the new policy, describing the toolkit as a realistic approach for developers to incentivize sustainable forms of transportation.
“It’s just a much more robust program than what we’ve been able to deploy on a case-by-case or site-by-site circumstance,” Councilmember Lucas Ramirez said. “This is, I think, a very strong foundation for future work, and I’m very happy with where it’s landed.”
Ramirez also praised the toolkit’s flexibility, describing it as a “living document” that could be modified and revised as travel patterns change over time.
However, Councilmember John McAlister voiced concern about how the policy would be enforced, noting that nobody has been fined for not adhering to TDM goals in the past.
“Unless you have somebody to enforce it, analyze it and put some meat into this plan, it’s not going to work,” McAlister said.
Councilmember Pat Showalter took a more positive view, expressing appreciation that program monitoring would focus on learning how the system works and improving it, rather than merely “monitoring for monitoring’s sake.”
Public commenters generally praised the policy, although a few residents expressed some concerns that it could potentially disincentivize new residential development if the requirements are too stringent or costly.
“We do want to be careful going forward about the exact required (average daily trip) thresholds because we are concerned that they will end up being unrealistic for a residential project to meet while given a toolkit and given the budgets they have,” said Mountain View Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee member James Kuszmaul, who noted he was speaking on behalf of MV YIMBY, a local housing advocacy group.
A few public comments also shared worries about potential impacts to street parking, if developers opt to limit parking spaces on their properties.
Robert Cox, a Livable Mountain View member and city council candidate, urged the city to consider impacts to the downtown area if parking for new developments is restricted.
“Somebody could just decide, ‘Well, I don’t want to pay for an expensive parking space inside my development. I’m just going to park it on the street,’” Cox said. “It hasn’t done anything to reduce greenhouse gasses, but it has had a negative side effect when that happens.”
The TDM policy is expected to come before the council again for a second and final vote on May 26 and will go into effect 30 days later. As part of implementing the policy, city staff plan to further refine the program standards and toolkit, according to the staff report.
This story originally appeared in the Mountain View Voice. Emily Margaretten joined the Mountain View Voice in 2023 as a reporter covering City Hall.