Executive Director's Report

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STEVE HEMINGER’S REPORT TO THE
COMMISSION MEETING OF NOVEMBER 28, 2007

SUMMARY OF EVENTS:

Transportation 2035 Summit/ABAG General Assembly
Oakland, October 26

Chair Dodd and Commissioner Cortese (in his role as ABAG President) presided over a regional get-together of 700 local elected officials, agency staff, and interested stakeholders to discuss MTC’s next regional transportation plan and ABAG’s smart growth plan known as FOCUS. Thanks to all the staff at both agencies for their involvement in planning this extremely successful event, especially MTC Deputy Director Therese McMillan and ABAG Deputy Director Pat Jones. A full record of the proceedings is available here.

Rail-Volution Conference
Miami, October 31-November 3

Commissioners Dodd, Giacopini, Lempert, and Spering joined James Corless and me at this annual conference of transit-oriented development advocates. The event will move to San Francisco in 2008, and MTC will serve as a co-host along with BART, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and the Transportation and Land Use Coalition.

SAFETEA Commission
Washington DC, November 6-8

I attended the next-to-last meeting of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, where we reviewed and commented on the 2nd draft of our report to Congress. We will meet again in early December, and expect to release our report sometime in January 2008 – perhaps at hearings of the relevant policy committees on Capitol Hill.

Proposition 1B Trade Bonds
Sacramento, November 19-20

Therese McMillan, Carolyn Clevenger, and I attended a two-day meeting sponsored by Business, Transportation and Housing Agency Secretary Dale Bonner for purposes of attempting to reach a statewide consensus on regional programming targets for the $2 billion Trade Corridors Improvement Fund approved by California voters as part of Proposition 1B. The meeting appears to have produced a tentative consensus around a strategy that would supplement the bond funds with other state and future federal funds for a total program of roughly $3 billion. This would allow the California Transportation Commission (CTC) to fund most of the high priority projects that had been identified in the three major trade regions: the Bay Area/Central Valley, Los Angeles/Inland Empire, and San Diego. The Bay Area programming target would be approximately $825 million. We expect the CTC to consider adoption of this strategy at a special meeting on November 27th.

ABC’s of MTC

In conjunction with the Transportation 2035 Summit, we released the latest version of our citizens guide to the agency known as The ABC’s of MTC. I am pleased to report that this brand new publication already has won an award from the Transportation Research Board that will be presented at their annual meeting in Washington, DC in January 2008.

Map of the Month

The map of the month was published recently by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR) organization, and it shows the greater Bay Area “megaregion” that now extends beyond the traditional nine counties that touch San Francisco Bay.

• Northern California Megaregion (PDF)

MTC Operational Statistics

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

• MTC Operational Statistics (PDF)

Upcoming Events

November 28 — Transportation 2035 Workshop, Oakland
November 30 — Bay Area Partnership, Oakland
December 3-5 — SAFETEA Commission, Washington DC