Commissioners and attendees at the Transportation Commission webinar pressed presenters on whether elasticity‑based tools developed from urban data should be applied to rural corridors, and public commenters offered competing views on the validity of a new rural induced‑demand study.

Commissioner Tanya Tiffany (full name and title given earlier in meeting) said she supports treating rural contexts differently from urban ones and questioned whether elasticities near a one‑to‑one ratio are plausible in sparsely populated corridors. She asked Caltrans whether the department considers mitigation cost relative to project cost when determining feasibility; Jeremy Ketchum said that feasibility and funding constraints are considered during the statement of overriding considerations process.

Commissioner Grisby asked Jamie Volker to describe differences between rural areas inside metropolitan counties and those outside, and about managed/HOT lanes. Volker said exurban parts of MSA counties face stronger development pressure than remote rural counties, and noted examples where roadway expansion preceded or facilitated local development. On managed lanes, Volker and other panelists said limited evidence suggests managed lanes can produce proportional increases in VMT similar to general‑purpose lanes; HOT lanes that allow paid access may increase induced VMT if takeup is high.

Vice Chair Falcone emphasized the need for further coordination among Caltrans, rural agencies and university researchers, and said tools are aids for policymakers rather than substitutes for decision making. Caltrans and task‑force speakers said they are coordinating on CAPTI action items and research partnerships to refine guidance and tools.

Public commenters presented divided views. Colin Fisk of the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities, speaking from a rural region, said many rural places include small towns and local transit options and cautioned against a blanket rural exemption. James Pugh of NextGen California and several academic commenters criticized parts of the rural study for relying on older literature and said recent empirical methods better identify induced‑travel effects; they urged caution about adopting rural exemptions that might undercount long‑term land‑use effects. An academic commenter, Michael Manville of UCLA, said the rural study’s sensitivity analysis conflated total VMT and induced VMT in a way that undercuts its conclusions.

Other public speakers—representatives of local governments and transit advocates—urged use of project examples and suggested side‑by‑side application of both tools for completed rural projects to compare outcomes. Mike Whitman and task‑force members said the group is already sharing data with university teams, participating in a UC Berkeley study of rural capacity projects and intends to coordinate with Caltrans on next steps.

The webcast ended with presenters and commissioners agreeing on continued collaborations, further empirical research and efforts to refine screening criteria and tool interfaces so that CEQA analyses reflect project context across California.