South San Francisco’s newest monitoring tool found that half of the city’s participating developments are not compliant with its transportation management program, which manages the number of single-occupancy vehicle trips to their sites.
Such programs, known as transportation demand management, are in place throughout the Peninsula and aim to mitigate traffic congestion and incentivize carpooling and public transit. About 46 sites participate in South San Francisco’s program, most of them located east of Highway 101, with annual reporting and tracking requirements demonstrating compliance.
The program has been in place for over 20 years, but monitoring and enforcement has historically been difficult. The city was the first one in the county to use a new tool, OneCommute, to better track and report trips, Senior Planner Victoria Kim said.
“The platform tracks development projects to make sure they are compliant with TDM policy and improve monitoring reliability,” she said during a June commission meeting.
In 2025, the city found that half of the sites were noncompliant and 18 were fully compliant. A few of the sites are either vacant or have different reporting requirements. While the city has the ability to issue fines for continued noncompliance, it hasn’t relied on using them, instead issuing more warnings, according to staff.
Recommended for you
Now, it’s creating an updated framework for fines and updated trip caps east of Highway 101.
“We proposed six locations east of 101 area to implement measures in the future when the traffic congestion exceeds more than 70% during peak hours, and this tool can be used to reduce trip volumes,” she said.
The area east of Highway 101 in South City largely comprises life science firms and has limited entry and exit points, making shuttle buses and carpooling particularly impactful on congestion levels — especially as the area is poised to see even more growth in the coming years.
“You want to make sure that eventually there is some bite, because then if there are no consequences … it’ll be futile,” Commissioner Norm Faria said.
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.