State policies that aim to reduce carbon emissions in California by minimizing driving will impact planned future projects of the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), officials say. OCTA’s Director of Strategic Planning said at an April 12 meeting that state requirements designed to combat climate change aim to decrease the distance drivers travel and will cause difficulties for county transportation projects that seek to increase capacity. “The state is now emphasizing reducing overall demand. What that means is it’ll be more difficult to implement capacity projects … than it has in the past,” Brotcke said. “In the past, the emphasis has been on reducing [traffic] congestion, and specifically reducing hours of delay.” The state has “started to focus the transportation discussion on climate change, and the fact that the transportation sector is a large contributor to emissions, with nearly 40 percent of emissions coming from the transportation sector,” Brotcke said. …