Executive Director's Report

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

SUMMARY OF EVENTS:

Bay Area Council
San Francisco, January 31

Rebecca Long and I attended the Bay Area Council’s transportation committee meeting to discuss our strategy to advocate for infrastructure bond funds.

Bay Area Assembly Caucus Lunch
Sacramento, January 31

Several commissioners and senior MTC staff were invited to make a presentation on our 2007 legislative program at the regular lunch meeting of the Bay Area Assembly Caucus. We met with several legislators — including former commissioners Jim Beall and Mark DeSaulnier — and the discussion focused on infrastructure bond implementation. Thanks especially to Assemblyman Ira Ruskin for extending the kind invitation.

Transportation Summit
Chicago, February 6

At the invitation of the newly merged metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the greater Chicago area, I made a presentation on the Bay Area’s smart growth efforts featuring the collaborative efforts of MTC, ABAG, and the Air District working through the Joint Policy Committee.

Governor Announces New Transportation Leaders
Sacramento, February 14

Governor Schwarzenegger announced three significant new transportation appointments. First, Dale E. Bonner has been appointed the new secretary of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, the cabinet-level agency that oversees Caltrans. Second and third, the governor appointed two new members to the California Transportation Commission: Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO Carl Guardino and Jim Earp, who serves as executive director of the California Alliance for Jobs. Congratulations to all three gentlemen, whom we look forward to working with closely.

JPC Climate Change Workshop
Oakland, February 16

We had a packed house for the first of two climate change workshops sponsored by the Joint Policy Committee. In addition to numerous local elected officials and interested members of the public, Commissioners Lempert, Rubin and Tissier were in attendance.

SAFETEA Commission Field Hearings
Los Angeles and Las Vegas, February 21-23

I attended two consecutive field hearings sponsored by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, on which I serve as Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s appointee. At the Los Angeles hearing, we heard testimony from many of MTC’s partners in California transportation circles — including Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Alan Lowenthal, Caltrans Director Will Kempton, CTC Executive Director John Barna, and various southern California officials.

CMIA Project Sweepstakes
Sacramento, February 28

At the same time as our commission meeting this morning, the California Transportation Commission (CTC) is meeting in Irvine to vote on the final $4.5 billion list of projects (Excel) to be funded from the Corridor Mobility Improvement Account (CMIA) created by the Proposition 1B transportation bond. CTC staff released an initial draft project list (PDF) on February 16th that was widely criticized throughout the state. A revised CTC staff list (PDF) was released on February 26th. Although the revised list represents an improvement over the prior list, it still falls short of addressing several key bottlenecks in the second most congested region in the nation. Alix Bockelman and Randy Rentschler are in Irvine today and hope to make continued headway for the Bay Area before the final list is adopted, thanks to the leadership of the three CTC commissioners from our region: Vice Chairman Jim Ghielmetti and Commissioners Jerry Hallisey and Bob Alvarado.

Winter Reading

At your places is a report from the Center for Housing Policy that tallies the combined housing and transportation costs borne by working class households in the nation’s major metropolitan areas. As you can see on pages 2-3 of the report, working class families in the Bay Area spend 63% of their household income on transportation and housing costs — the highest percentage in the regions surveyed. Note also that our transportation costs fall in the middle of the pack, so it is the Bay Area’s high housing costs that really determine the outcome.

Map of the Month

Goods movement industries play an important role in the region’s economy. However, they are under significant pressure from land use development trends, which pose a number of potential problems including increased land use conflicts, increased truck travel and tail pipe emissions, and higher costs of goods distribution. The map depicts one of several key goods movement corridors where MTC has identified and mapped existing industrial lands that are used for goods movement related activities. The Oakland corridor is approximately 9,159 acres in size, with about 6,000 acres devoted to existing goods movement related land uses. After examining local planned land use designations for this area, we estimate that about 1,500 acres, or 25 percent of the current goods movement land uses, are “at risk” of being converted to non-goods movement related land uses.

• Goods Movement Land Uses (PDF)

MTC Operational Statistics (PDF)

Upcoming Events

March 12–14 — APTA Legislative Conference, Washington, DC

March 19–22 — SAFETEA Commission Meeting, Washington, DC