The YMPO has the responsibility to ensure that the transportation plans and programs within the YMPO planning boundaries, generally the greater Yuma area, conform to the state and national air quality plans and standards. Specifically, the emissions generated from proposed projects in the YMPO’s five-year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for 2011-2014 and the twenty-three year Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) for 2011-2033 must be consistent with and conform to national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
The YMPO is required to undertake an air quality conformity analysis for two specific reasons: (1) to ensure that transportation investments (projects), strategies and programs, taken as a whole, have
air quality impacts consistent with and conforming to state and national air quality plans and standards; and (2) to ensure that neither the transportation system as a whole nor individual transportation projects cause new air quality violations or worsen existing conditions.