Search title image

TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE


January/February 2004

Transportation 2030 Plan
Phase 1 Wraps Up With Key Decisions

MTC Reaches Out to Region’s Low-Income and Minority Communities

Children
At the Transportation 2030 workshop in Concord, MTC encouraged community participation by providing free child care.
(Photo: Joyce Benna)

Guided by recommendations from thousands of Bay Area residents, Phase 1 in the development of the Transportation 2030 Plan came to an end in December as the Commission adopted six new goals for the plan, a five-point platform for transportation and land-use integration, and an investment strategy that balances the region’s enormous transportation needs with severely limited resources.

After kicking off the planning process with a regional summit in June 2003 that drew an overflow crowd of nearly 500, MTC waged a multifaceted public involvement campaign that included:

  • a telephone poll of 3,600 residents — both voting and non-voting — from throughout the Bay Area;
  • some 30 public workshops, with a special focus on input from lower-income and minority communities;
  • focus groups with a cross section of the public held around the region to allow more in-depth discussion of the major choices and tradeoffs;
  • an interactive online Budget Challenge, taken by over 530 visitors to the MTC Web site.
“The outreach was carefully aimed to hear in particular from lower-income residents and members of minority groups, both of which tend to be bypassed by the traditional planning process,” said MTC Deputy Executive Director Therese McMillan. MTC enlisted community-based organizations to cosponsor meetings in targeted neighborhoods, providing grants to cover meeting costs as well as child care and translators for participants.

At the heart of the package adopted by the Commission in December is a strategy for divvying up nearly $4 billion in uncommitted funding set aside for regional projects over the next 25 years (see Commission Actions for details). In Phase 2, which launches in early 2004, MTC will work with county congestion management agencies to assign another $5 billion to locally determined projects. At the same time, MTC will look at ways of expanding the funding envelope to keep pace with the burgeoning demand for new services and facilities.
— John Goodwin
Contents