Report to the Commission: February 26, 2020
Workshop sessions: MTC and ABAG
January 30-31
On Thursday January 30th, Chair Scott Haggerty hosted Commissioners in the City of Pleasanton to discuss a number of issues including seamless transportation, transportation revenue initiatives, coordinated transportation and housing investment opportunities and regional governance. On Friday, January 31, MTC Chair Haggerty and ABAG President Jesse Arreguin hosted a successful joint workshop of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the ABAG Executive Board at the Shannon Community Center in Dublin, California. The topics discussed included Plan Bay Area 2050 and AB1487, the Bay Area Housing Finance Act.
Sacramento Meetings
February 6, 2020
I traveled to Sacramento to meet with key state partners Toks Omishakin, Caltrans Director; and David Kim, State Secretary of transportation, both of who were appointed by Governor Newsome to their posts in 2019. The visits presented an opportunity to highlight the complex transportation portfolio of the region, and lay the ground work for continued cooperation going forward on a number of fronts.
Mega Region Working Group
February 22, 2020
Chair Scott Haggerty, Commissioner Jim Spering, myself, Brad Paul and Matt Maloney met with our peer colleagues from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) and the San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG) in Tracy CA. The working group received updates of key planning, infrastructure and legislative issues of shared interest, with the intent of building a more structured forum for advocating investment and policy changes benefitting the tri-regional area. An action plan will be developed for further discussion at a “mega-regional” summit being scheduled at UC Davis in last summer.
State Route (SR) 37 Press Conference
February 22, 2020
Facing growing congestion of 40,000 vehicles per day on Highway 37 and to need to protect the critical North Bay artery from rising sea levels, State Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), held a press conference to announce he was introducing a bill to address these issues. Attending were Commissioners David Rabbitt, Jake Mackenzie (sporting an original toll receipt of 35 cents from 1932) and Damon Connelly.
High Speed Rail Update
The High Speed Rail authority released its latest business plan on February 12, 2020. Key elements included a projected overall base cost of $80 billion, and the announcement that draft environmental reports addressing the segments from Merced to San Jose, and San Jose to San Francisco would be released to the public in April 2020 and June 2020 respectively. We are tracking HSR developments closely as they interface with key projects in the region, ranging from Plan Bay Area 2050 to project development studies for Diridon station, Caltrain’s business plans, and the Caltrain Downtown extension in San Francisco.
Presentations
Carol Kuester and Jason Weinstein, Director and Assistant Director, respectively, of the Electronic Payments Section of MTC, are speakers and panelists at the 2020 Payments Summit being held in Salt Lake City this week. They are sharing their knowledge and opinions about the future of transit payments and mobility-as-a-service. The Payments Summit is a premier event in the payments industry.
Upcoming Events:
MaaS-A-Con
March 11-12, 2020
MaaS America, which is a new organization intended to be a forum for government, industry and academia to cooperate, collaborate and effectively develop the framework, policies and rules to enable shared mobility solutions, and of which MTC is a member, is holding MaaS-A-Con here in the Bay Area Metro Center on March 11th and 12th. Therese will offer welcoming remarks, Deputy Director Andrew Fremier is participating in the conference program, and is Carol Kuester is moderating a session. Maas-a-Con is bringing together innovators, practitioners and advocates to discuss and share the technologies and best practices that can make mobility-as-a-service a reality in our communities.