Executive Director's Report

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STEVE HEMINGER’S REPORT TO THE
COMMISSION MEETING OF OCTOBER 28, 2009

SUMMARY OF EVENTS:

BART Warm Springs Groundbreaking
Fremont, September 30

Chair Haggerty represented the commission at this event marking the commencement of construction for the BART extension that will eventually reach the largest city in our region and the heart of Silicon Valley.

Supreme Court Victory for Transit
San Francisco, September 30

In what the California Transit Association called “a resounding victory for those who provide and those who depend on public transit in California,” the State Supreme Court rejected the Schwarzenegger Administration’s appeal of a lower court ruling that recent budget raids of the State Transit Assistance (STA) program are illegal and should cease. Our analysis indicates that Bay Area public transit operators and MTC are owed $720 million in “back pay” if the Legislature were to restore the funds that have been illegally diverted over the past several years. Going forward, we estimate that the Bay Area stands to gain about $250 million per year if STA funds are again included in future state budgets.

SAFETEA Rescission
Washington, DC, September 30

SAFETEA included an $8.7 billion rescission of unobligated apportionment to take place on September 30, 2009. For California, the rescission was roughly $790 million, including over $350 million for Surface Transportation Program (STP) and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funds. Thanks to the Bay Area’s delivery policy and the hard work of sponsors throughout the region, the Bay Area had obligated all of its apportionment before the rescission went into effect and will not lose any STP/CMAQ funding as a result of the rescission. Ross McKeown’s work was invaluable in this effort to safeguard regional funds.

California High Speed Rail Stimulus Request
Los Angeles, October 2

Governor Schwarzenegger held a press conference at Union Station in Los Angeles to announce that the State of California was seeking $4.7 billion in discretionary high speed rail funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for engineering, design, and construction of the state’s high speed rail system. The governor also announced that the state is offering to match any federal stimulus funds received on a dollar-for-dollar basis with state bonds and other local funds – a major competitive advantage that California enjoys compared to other states seeking ARRA funds. We expect to receive news on federal project selections early in 2010.

APTA Officers Elected
Orlando, October 5

I am pleased to congratulate SamTrans General Manager Mike Scanlon and MTA Executive Director Nat Ford on their election as first vice chair and secretary/treasurer, respectively, of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). This means that both gentlemen are poised to take the leadership reins at APTA in the coming few years.

Walk 21 Conference
New York, October 7-9

I was invited to speak about California’s landmark greenhouse gas/regional planning law (Senate Bill 375) at this worldwide conference of advocates for the oldest form of transportation – walking on your own two feet.

EPA Announces Fine Particle Designations, Washington, October 8

As required by law, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated dozens of urban regions around the country – including the San Francisco Bay Area – as non-attainment areas for the new federal fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) air quality standard. Our region will be required to submit a plan to attain the PM 2.5 standard to EPA by November 2012.

Labor Day Closure Picnic
Treasure Island, October 16

I joined my Toll Bridge Program Oversight Committee colleagues Randy Iwasaki and Bimla Rhinehart in thanking the workers who made possible the successful roll-in/roll-out Labor Day operation to install the Yerba Buena Island Detour on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Presidio Parkway Groundbreaking
San Francisco, October 17

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, and Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez were among the featured speakers at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Doyle Drive replacement project – now known more alliteratively as the “Presidio Parkway”. Mayor Newsom made a point of thanking Commissioner Bill Dodd for all his work in helping assemble the final funding package that enabled the project to proceed to construction.

UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference
Riverside County, October 18-20

I joined Federal Transit Deputy Administrator Therese McMillan on a panel discussing the prospects for a new authorization of the federal surface transportation program to replace the SAFETEA statute that expired on September 30, 2009.

Commission Workshop
San Francisco, October 21

I would like to thank all the commissioners who participated actively in our one-day workshop on the Transit Sustainability Project at the City Club in San Francisco. I am especially grateful to Ann Flemer and Alix Bockelman for all their hard work in preparing for the workshop, and for their future efforts in carrying out this complex, two-year endeavor which we hope will lead to both reform and new revenue for the region’s public transit systems.

TransLink Management Group
Oakland, October 26

Now that we have hired a new contractor for the TransLink program and achieved “revenue ready” status on the two largest Bay Area transit operators, attention has turned to how to implement a new governance model to replace the existing TransLink Management Group (TMG) that was formed in 2003 to design and build the smart card system that is now largely complete. To kick those discussions into a higher gear, I announced at the meeting this week that MTC intends to withdraw from the TMG on July 1, 2010, as is permitted by the current interagency agreement. As of this writing, it appears that there are two plausible alternative governance mechanisms going forward: (1) a joint powers authority formed by the transit operators that would assume project control and contract ownership for the TransLink program, or (2) a consolidation of contract and project decision-making under MTC. We will keep the commission posted about developments in this area as they occur over the coming months.

ARRA Status Report

This month’s status report for projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) shows that we have obligated nearly 80% of federal stimulus funds available to the Bay Area, but contract awards continue to lag at only 40% of total funding.

• Bay Area ARRA Project Status | October 26, 2009 (PDF)
  
  

Map of the Month

The map of the month focuses on the variation in bus service along major freeways and highways within the Bay Area. By isolating bus route segments along major freeways, and adding up the number of daily trips along those segments, a general overview of the amount of bus transit service along the major freeways and highways was determined. The daily number of trips represents the aggregate total of all bus trips for all transit operators with service along each major freeway or highway segment. Among the most heavily served corridors, Interstate 880 Northbound between the San Jose Diridon Transit Center and the Fremont BART Station has approximately 30 trips per mile segment while I-80 has a daily average of 20 trips per mile segment in both directions between Fairfield Transit Center in Solano County, and El Cerrito Del Norte BART Station in Contra Costa County.

• Express Bus Service Level on Regional Express Lanes (PDF)

MTC Operational Statistics

The monthly report on the performance of MTC’s operating programs:

• MTC Operational Statistics (PDF)

Upcoming Events

October 29 — Commonwealth Club, San Francisco
October 30 – November 1 — Rail-Volution Conference, Boston
November 3 — MPO Workshop on SB 375, Oakland