LEED GA Practice Questions: Location and Transportation

Location and Transportation is worth 9 of the 100 questions on the LEED Green Associate exam. It covers site selection, transportation demand management and equitable development. It is the domain where LEED's environmental and social goals meet most directly, and where LEED v5 has changed most.

The core idea is simple: where you build determines how much people have to drive for the whole life of the building, and driving is carbon you cannot design out later. A highly efficient building in the wrong place can generate more emissions than an ordinary building in the right one.

What this domain covers

The exam specification lists three areas: site selection, including avoiding sensitive habitat, using existing infrastructure and targeting previously developed land and brownfields; transportation demand management, covering access, active and alternative transport, alternative fuel vehicles, ridesharing, commuting emissions, parking footprint and vehicle miles travelled; and equitable development, covering compact and connected development, equitable access and support for the local economy.

That third area is where candidates working from older study material get caught. Equity is not an add-on in LEED v5 — it is examinable content.

12 Location and Transportation practice questions

Fill in your details, take all 12 questions, and submit once — we'll grade it and email you the score plus a full explanation for every question.

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Welcome to the LEED Green Associate practice quiz. Enter your details, then work through all 12 questions — we'll email you the score and a full explanation for every question.

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1.What is development density?

A. A measure of building floor area or dwelling units per unit of land area

B. The number of people occupying a building at peak times

C. The proportion of a site covered by buildings

D. The number of parking spaces per dwelling

None

2.What is location efficiency?

A. How efficiently a building uses its site area

B. The distance from the site to the nearest highway

C. How quickly a site can be developed

D. How a site's location affects the travel behaviour and emissions of the people who use it

None

3.Rank these strategies from strongest to weakest for reducing transport emissions.

A. Choose a compact, mixed-use, connected site, then support walking and cycling, then transit and sharing, then manage parking, then provide EV charging

B. Provide EV charging, then add bike parking, then choose a connected site

C. Manage parking, then choose a site, then support transit

D. Provide EV charging first, since it eliminates tailpipe emissions

None

4.What does vehicle miles travelled measure?

A. The annual distance driven by vehicles associated with a project's people

B. The distance materials travel to the construction site

C. The fuel efficiency of the vehicles using the site

D. The length of the road network serving the site

None

5.Which of these does not count as alternative transportation?

A. Cycling to work

B. Taking the metro

C. Carpooling with three colleagues

D. Driving alone in an electric car

None

6.What is a brownfield?

A. Undeveloped land on the edge of a city

B. Previously developed land whose reuse may be complicated by contamination

C. Agricultural land of poor quality

D. A site with poor soil drainage

None

7.Which of these would LEED consider sensitive land to avoid developing?

A. A vacant car park in a city centre

B. A former industrial site

C. Wetland, floodplain and prime farmland

D. An infill site between two existing buildings

None

8.What are sensitive receptors, and why do they matter to site selection?

A. Air quality sensors placed at the site boundary

B. Places such as schools, childcare and hospitals whose occupants are more vulnerable to pollution

C. Ecologically fragile parts of a site

D. Devices that detect water leaks

None

9.What are ecosystem services?

A. Maintenance services provided to landscaped areas

B. Consulting services for ecological assessment

C. Services provided by a project's landscape architect

D. The direct and indirect benefits ecosystems provide, such as clean air and water, cooling and flood control

None

10.Why does LEED v5 treat affordable housing and equitable access as part of this domain?

A. Because affordable housing is cheaper to build

B. Because affordable housing projects earn more points

C. Because well-located places tend to become expensive, and the benefits of good location should not be limited to those who can already afford them

D. Because equity is a Minimum Program Requirement

None

11.A project reduces its planned parking provision by a third and adds secure bicycle storage and showers. What is it doing?

A. Improving location efficiency

B. Applying transportation demand management

C. Reducing embodied carbon

D. Meeting a Minimum Program Requirement

None

12.A project team argues that installing EV chargers is enough to address transport emissions. What is the strongest counter-argument?

A. EV chargers are expensive

B. EVs are not available in all markets

C. EV charging serves the trips that still happen; it does not reduce the number or length of trips, which is where the larger gain lies

D. EV charging increases the building's peak electrical demand

None

Time's up

Where candidates lose marks in this domain

• Confusing brownfield with greenfield. Brownfield is previously developed and possibly contaminated.
• Confusing sensitive receptors with environmentally sensitive areas. One is about vulnerable people, the other about vulnerable land.
• Putting electric vehicles at the top of the hierarchy. They are at the bottom.
• Treating an electric car as alternative transportation. It is still a single-occupancy vehicle.
• Skipping the equity content. Older study material does not cover it.

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