The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) Although California’s economy is critically dependent upon transportation, its current transportation system relies primarily upon a street and highway system designed to accommodate far fewer vehicles than are currently using the system.
(b) California’s transportation system is characterized by fragmented planning, both among jurisdictions involved and among the means of available transport.
(c) The lack of an integrated system and the increase in the number of vehicles are causing traffic congestion that each day results in 400,000 hours lost in traffic, 200 tons of pollutants released into the air we breathe, and three million one hundred thousand dollars ($3,100,000) added costs to the motoring public.
(d) To keep California moving, all methods and means of transport between major destinations must be coordinated to connect our vital economic and population centers.
(e) In order to develop the California economy to its full potential, it is intended that federal, state, and local agencies join with transit districts, business, private and environmental interests to develop and implement comprehensive strategies needed to develop appropriate responses to transportation needs.
(f) In addition to solving California’s traffic congestion crisis, rebuilding California’s cities and suburbs, particularly with affordable housing and more walkable neighborhoods, is an important part of accommodating future increases in the state’s population because homeownership is only now available to most Californians who are on the fringes of metropolitan areas and far from employment centers.
(g) The Legislature intends to do everything within its power to remove regulatory barriers around the development of infill housing, transit-oriented development, and mixed use commercial development in order to reduce regional traffic congestion and provide more housing choices for all Californians.
(h) The removal of regulatory barriers to promote infill housing, transit-oriented development, or mixed use commercial development does not preclude a city or county from holding a public hearing nor finding that an individual infill project would be adversely impacted by the surrounding environment or transportation patterns.
(Amended by Stats. 2002, Ch. 505, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2003.)