Press Releases

For Immediate Release

Transportation Agency Seeks Award Winners to Salute

Three-Year Investment Strategy Includes Streets, Highways, Transit Projects

CONTACT:

Raymond Odunlami
510.464.7717

John Goodwin, MTC
510.817.5862

OAKLAND, Calif., June 11, 2002...The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has rescheduled a public hearing to solicit comment from Bay Area residents on the Draft 2003 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and the air quality conformity finding for the 2003 TIP. The hearing, originally scheduled for Wednesday, June 12, is now scheduled for Wednesday, July 10, 2002 in the Dahms Auditorium in the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter at 101 Eighth Street in Oakland. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. or immediately following MTC’s Bay Area Toll Authority Oversight Committee meeting, whichever occurs later. The public hearing will immediately precede a scheduled meeting of MTC’s Programming and Allocations Committee.

The TIP is a near-term transportation spending plan for the nine Bay Area counties that includes local street and road projects, highway improvements and public transit investments proposed for funding based on anticipated federal, state and local revenues during the three-year period from fiscal year 2002-03 through fiscal year 2004-05. MTC prepares a new TIP every two years with the assistance of its partners in local government and Bay Area transit agencies, as well as Caltrans.

The Draft 2003 TIP is consistent with MTC’s 2001 Regional Transportation Plan, the long-range planning blueprint adopted by the Commission last year. The list of projects in the Draft 2003 TIP reflects no substantial changes from the current 2001 TIP. The air quality conformity finding for the 2003 TIP is based on the air quality finding for the 2001 Regional Transportation Plan [40 CFR 93.122(e)].

The hundreds of investments listed in the Draft 2003 TIP range from the addition of carpool lanes to Interstate 680 over the Sunol Grade and the replacement of Doyle Drive in San Francisco to channel and berth dredging for the Golden Gate ferry service; the acquisition of new buses by Bay Area transit agencies; resurfacing local thoroughfares throughout the region; and track, signal and rolling stock improvements necessary to implement Caltrain’s planned Rapid Rail service.

Copies of the Draft 2003 TIP are available for public review at the MTC/ABAG Library and at 33 major libraries (including libraries in each of the nine Bay Area counties).

Comments on the Draft 2003 TIP will be taken at the public hearing, and also can be submitted to MTC offices through Friday, July 19 at 5 p.m. Send comments by mail to: MTC, 101 Eighth Street, Oakland, CA 94607; fax to 510/817-5848; e-mail to <info@mtc.ca.gov>. All comments should be addressed to the attention of Public Information. For further information about the TIP, contact Raymond Odunlami of MTC at 510.464.7717 or visit MTC’s Web site at <www.mtc.ca.gov>.

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

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