This law establishes the Solutions for Congested Corridors Program, designed to address traffic and congestion issues.

This law outlines the allocation of $250 million annually from the State Highway Account to the Solutions for Congested Corridors Program. The California Transportation Commission will distribute these funds to transportation projects aimed at easing congestion in busy travel corridors. Projects must improve transportation options, reduce traffic, and support community and environmental benefits. The focus is on enhancing safety and accessibility without adding general-use lanes, promoting alternatives such as high-occupancy vehicle lanes, managed lanes, or bicycle lanes. Efforts may also involve enhancements to highways, roads, public transit, and preservation of local environmental features.

This law allows regional transportation agencies, county commissions, or the department to suggest projects for funding as long as they align with the program's goals. The commission will not allocate more than half of the funds to projects nominated solely by the department. Projects that involve cooperation between the department and local partners and address congestion and improve quality of life in specific areas will get preference. Evidence of this collaboration can be shown if both the regional agency and the department nominate the project together.

When nominating a project, you need to provide evidence showing how it meets the goals of the program, both in numbers and through other measures. The project should be part of a corridor plan and must also appear in the region’s transportation plan. If the project is in an area covered by a metropolitan planning organization, it needs to be in a plan that aligns with strategies to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets set by the State Air Resources Board.

This section explains that the commission is responsible for distributing funds to projects that align with regional corridor plans. They will review the plans to ensure the projects meet certain goals, and they will assess each project based on specific criteria. The criteria include safety, congestion, accessibility, economic development, environmental standards, land use, matching funds, and whether the project can be successfully delivered.

This section mandates that the commission creates a plan for projects that will be financed with the program's initial funds. This plan can cover several years. After the initial plan, new project plans should be updated and adopted every two years, based on available funding and any needed updates to previous plans.

This law requires the commission, with input from the State Air Resources Board, to create guidelines for a program and exempts them from the usual rule-making procedures. They must hold public hearings in both northern and southern California before finalizing these guidelines. The guidelines can help speed up project delivery by allowing regional agencies to fund their projects upfront and be reimbursed later, as long as funding is identified for them in future budgets.

The reimbursement can only happen when sufficient funds are available, and this process applies to local or regional transportation agencies.

This law requires a commission to deliver yearly project update reports by March 1st. These updates, shared with the Legislature's budget and transportation committees, outline development and execution of specific programs. The reports must cover project progress, spending details, key achievements from the previous year, expected goals for the coming year, and an evaluation of how each project meets set objectives.