OC/IE AEP Lunch Program – August 20, 2025
The Development of the City of Riverside’s Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)
Mitigation Bank Pilot Program
Speaker: Philip Nitollama
Topic Overview:
 
In 2013, Senate Bill (SB) 743 was signed into law which requires local agencies implementing the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines to establish a new metric for determining the significance of transportation impacts. In 2018, the CEQA guidelines required all local agencies to adopt Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) as the new measure to evaluate transportation impacts under CEQA with an effective implementation date of July 1, 2020.
 
Since the State mandate to transition to VMT as the Transportation Metric in July 2020, hear about the City of Riverside’s (City) perspective on the administration of the VMT methodology and associated challenges in the past 5 years.
 
The challenges in administering the VMT methodology led the City to pursue the VMT Mitigation Bank Pilot Program as a solution. During the development of the VMT Mitigation Program, there were many obstacles, lessons learned and innovation such as: 

• What type of Community Engagement Efforts were conducted to establish the VMT Mitgation Bank Pilot Program?
• What VMT reducing projects were analyzed and ultimately included in the VMT Mitigation Bank Pilot Program?
• How did the City innovatively use the Safe Streets For All (SS4A) Grant Funds to significantly reduce the costs of the VMT Mitigation Bank Pilot Program?
• How does the City’s VMT Mitigation Bank Pilot Program compare to other agencies’ VMT Mitigation Programs?
• How does the City’s new online VMT Evaluation Tool (TREDLite) produce a VMT analysis report within minutes? 

The development of the City’s VMT Mitigation Bank Pilot Program provides a blueprint for any agency interested in establishing a similar program and provides transportation planners and CEQA practitioners with solutions to mitigate VMT impacts.
 

 
About Our Speaker:

 Philip Nitollama is currently the City Traffic Engineer for the City of Riverside and has over 20 years of traffic engineering, transportation planning, and traffic operations experience with a history of working in both the private and public sectors. As the City Traffic Engineer for the City of Riverside, he oversees the Traffic Engineering Division and Traffic Signal Shop Division, providing leadership to ensure high performance and a customer service-oriented work environment. He oversees division objectives such as the completion of the Local Roadway Safety Plan (LRSP), establishment of a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Mitigation Bank Pilot Program, and the Safe Routes To School Program. Philip is dually licensed as a Traffic Engineer (TR 2410) and a Civil Engineer (C96907) in the state of California. Philip has a Master of Public Administration from the California State University in Long Beach. His day-to-day responsibilities include direct engagement with City Council Members, residents, consultants, and other stakeholders to identify and evaluate traffic and transportation related solutions and develop a plan to deliver community requests. Philip loves spending time with his family by going on bike rides, traveling, and visiting beaches.