Press Releases

For Immediate Release

MTC, ABAG Expand Web Site to Deliver Fuller View of Bay Area Life

Contacts:

Julie Tunnell, MTC
510.817.5835

John Goodwin, MTC
510.817.5862

OAKLAND, Calif., November 1, 2004...How many Oakland residents commuted to work in Fairfield in 2000? Which Bay Area county has aged the most since 1970? Which of the region’s counties has the fewest immigrants? The answers, respectively, are 140, Marin County (where the median age climbed from 29.8 years in 1970 to 41.3 years in 2000) and Sonoma County (where 85.7 percent of residents in 2000 were born in the United States).

These are just a few of the facts now available with a few quick keystrokes at the Bay Area Census Web site hosted by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). New additions to the Web site ( www.bayareacensus.ca.gov) include the Census Transportation Planning Package — which provides detailed place-to-place commute data from the 2000 U.S. Census — and demographic comparisons from the 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000 Censuses for each of the nine Bay Area counties and for 19 of the region’s largest cities. Together, these additions provide a more detailed look at commute patterns and demographic shifts in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

“The demographic comparisons put four decades of data at your fingertips,” explained MTC/ABAG Librarian Julie Tunnell. “It’s an easy and fascinating way for researchers or anyone else to see how much the Bay Area has changed over the years.”

MTC and ABAG launched the Bay Area Census site in 2001 to make the research process easier for those interested specifically in the Bay Area. The site’s regional aggregation of data sets it apart from other census Web sites (such as the Census Bureau’s American FactFinder, www.factfinder.census.gov), which present figures for the region piecemeal.

MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. For further information about Bay Area census data, please contact the MTC-ABAG Library via e-mail at library@mtc.ca.gov or by phone at 510.817.5836.

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