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Blueprint Overview

The California Regional Blueprints Program is a vital source of planning funding for regions throughout California. Nearly twenty-two million dollars in federal regional transportation planning funds has been awarded by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) since the program was initiated in 2005. For fiscal year 2010-2011, over $600,000 was granted to eight rural Regional Transportation Planning Agencies (RTPAs) to support transportation planning activities across rural California. Since the genesis of the Blueprints Program, there have been a total of seventeen Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and fifteen RTPAs who have participated in the grant program and have enhanced or initiated a blueprint in their regions.

Regional Blueprint grants help MPOs and rural RTPAs engage in public outreach to select community preferred growth scenarios for the future. Through Regional Blueprints, local transportation agencies attempt to balance transportation planning with land use planning, housing needs, resource protection and other planning issues in order to achieve more sustainable regional growth patterns and improve the quality of life for Californians. Regional Blueprints are tools that will help communities reduce greenhouse gases and will assist transportation agencies in creating enduring communities for residents throughout the entire State.

The funds support regions’ outreach to local government officials, encouraging them to consider a regional context as they exercise their authority to make local land use decisions. The Blueprint Program aids local transportation agencies and their decision makers by providing support through improved modeling capacity, therefore enhancing their ability to perform integrated transportation/land use planning.