Press Releases

For Immediate Release

Santa Clara County Supervisor to Present Testimony on Transportation at U.S. Senate Committee Hearing

High-tech help for transportation touted

CONTACT:

Randy Rentschler, MTC
510.817.5780

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 7, 2001...Taming Bay Area traffic will take all the tools Silicon Valley can offer, according to James T. Beall Jr., chair of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, and commissioner on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). "Our region is making great strides in applying the latest advances in technology to manage congestion and provide commuters with travel options," he said, "and we urge the federal government to continue to fund and promote the use of these‘intelligent transportation systems'."

Beall made the statement as he was preparing to testify before the Subcommittee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Nuclear Safety on Monday, Sept. 10, 2001, at the request of Sen. James Jeffords, chair of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees the subcommittee.

Beall is the only representative of a metropolitan planning organization in the country and the only speaker from California asked to testify at the hearing, which will kick off the Environment and Public Works Committee's work on the reauthorization of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, or TEA 21, which is due to expire in 2003. California's Sen. Barbara Boxer is a member of the committee.

Beall will be describing some of the ways in which the Bay Area has used the flexible funding features of TEA 21 to manage traffic and expand commute options. They include the Santa Clara County "smart corridor" that links freeways, expressways and local streets into a single network, allowing for real-time traffic monitoring and response to accidents and congestion. Other Bay Area projects that use new transportation technology to keep traffic flowing are the FasTrak® electronic toll collection system on the region's bridges, and the TravInfo® telephone information number (817-1717) that gives callers up-to-the-minute status reports on traffic, permitting them to change their travel plans as needed.

MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

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Note to editors: The complete text of Beall's testimony is available In PDF format (1.1 MB) on MTC's Web site.

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