Executive Director's Report

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ANN FLEMER’S REPORT TO THE
COMMISSION MEETING OF JULY 25, 2007

SUMMARY OF EVENTS:

World Conference on Transport Research
U.C. Berkeley, June 25

The 11th World Conference on Transport Research was the first held in the United States. The opening session featured welcoming remarks by Commissioner and Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates. Steve Heminger participated in the opening session on Transport 2007 along with Frannie Léautier, World Bank, and Randy Iwasaki, California Department of Transportation. Participants enjoyed technical tours of the Bay Bridge construction project, San Francisco's multimodal transportation programs, the Bay Area ferry systems, the Port of Oakland, BART's transit-oriented development, new technologies at PATH, and walking and biking tours of the City of Berkeley.

Goods Movement
Port of Oakland, June 29

Steve Heminger and Therese McMillan met with Omar Benjamin, Executive Director of the Port of Oakland, and Jim Wunderman, President of the Bay Area Council, to discuss ongoing efforts to build a business coalition to support goods movement initiatives in Northern California. MTC is working with the San Joaquin, Sacramento and Stanislaus Councils of Governments to develop a Northern California goods movement strategy. Over the past six months, the Bay Area Council, with private-sector partner Safeway, has been working with the regional agencies and the Port of Oakland to organize the business community around goods movement issues and prepare to advocate for Northern California interests as the State moves forward with the $2 billion Trade Corridor Improvement Fund. The Bay Area Council is putting together a scope of work to quantify the importance of goods movement to the Northern California economy, and is working closely with the Port of Oakland and the East Bay Economic Development Alliance to continue to build the business coalition.

Bay Area Partnership
Oakland, June 29

The Partnership Board met to discuss the key transportation elements of the FY 2007-08 State Budget, the development of the Transportation 2035 Plan, and a presentation of the Local Streets and Roads Strategic Plan. For the Transportation 2035 Plan, staff reviewed and solicited comments on the Draft Three E Principles and Goals and the Scenario Performance Assessment.

2007 Federal Planning Certification Review
Oakland, July 24-25

Representatives of the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration are holding a series of meetings here this week to gather input for their certification review of MTC’s transportation planning process. Per the requirements of SAFETEA, this review is performed for each transportation management area once every four years. Federal staff is hosting separate meetings with members of the Bay Area Partnership, MTC Commissioners, and MTC staff, and held a public listening session in the Auditorium last evening. The certification report is expected to be issued later this fall.

Urban Partnership Agreement
U.S. DOT

As reported last month, MTC’s application on behalf of the San Francisco Bay Area has been selected as one of nine finalists by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for funding in the newly created Urban Partnership Program (UPP). The program was established by Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters to encourage the implementation of congestion pricing and other innovative approaches to tackling traffic congestion in the nation’s urban areas. Following interviews with Secretary Peters and her senior staff, we have responded to a request for further clarification on our proposal. DOT intends to announce final selections for Urban Partners by August 8.

State Budget Deliberations
Sacramento

As has been widely reported, last Friday the Assembly passed a state budget and accompanying trailer bills needed to implement the bond measures passed last November. The Senate was unable to complete action and is back in session today. Transit funding was affected significantly in the Assembly action where a total of $1.3 billion in public transit funds were transferred to the General Fund. Senate approval of a budget and a signature or a line-item veto by the Governor are two hurdles that remain before the final picture will be known. Randy Rentschler will provide additional information under the Legislation Committee report on today’s agenda.

Map of the Month

This month’s map depicts the distribution of employment by sector within the employment centers of the San Francisco Bay Area. Employment centers are defined using the number of jobs per square mile; areas with greater than 5,000 jobs per square mile are generally considered to be employment centers. The six employment sectors are those used in ABAG’s Projections 2007, and are defined using North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) codes. The data comes from the California Employment Development Department (EDD), and describes the number of full-time and part-time jobs for which employers pay workers wages or salaries. This employment data excludes business owners, self-employed persons, unpaid volunteers, family workers and private household workers.

• Regional Employment Center Characteristics (PDF 1.7 MB)
  

MTC Operational Statistics (PDF)