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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

January-February 2009

Drumbeat for Change Reverberates in Draft Transportation 2035 Plan

Bold $226 Billion Investment Package Confronts Global Warming and Traffic Congestion

Fasten your seatbelt. With the just-released Draft Transportation 2035 Plan, MTC is taking you on an exhilarating ride into the future, where solo drivers in a hurry can fly past traffic — so long as they’re willing to pay for the privilege of traveling in special toll lanes. Where residents can just as easily get where they’re going by two wheels and personal steam as by four wheels and an engine, sailing on a new interconnected network of bicycle paths and bike- and pedestrian-friendly streets. Where freeway traffic flows considerably faster thanks to the latest technological advances. Where public transit is frequent, plentiful and nearby, and transit stations become beehives of activity, serving as magnets for housing, jobs and commerce. Where you, by means of your travel and lifestyle choices, play a vital role in cooling the planet and protecting the region’s scenic natural environment.

After two years of interagency collaboration and intensive outreach — involving dozens of public meetings and focus groups as well as telephone polls and Web surveys — along with rigorous computer analysis and number crunching, and collective soul-searching on the part of the MTC staff and commissioners, the Draft Transportation 2035 Plan is ready for public viewing. With “Change in Motion” as its title, the plan signals several bold new directions for MTC and the Bay Area, and a whole new way of looking at transportation and its relationship to the surrounding built and natural environment.

The plan’s title also alludes to escalating concerns over climate change, and the important role that Bay Area institutions and residents can play in reducing the region’s carbon footprint. With the Draft Transportation 2035 Plan, MTC embraces the opportunity for this region — the nation’s fifth largest in terms of population — to serve as a role model of sustainability.

Although “Change in Motion” was coined at the outset of the planning process, the theme resonates with the call for change that pulsed through the recent presidential campaign and that the country has embraced as its national mantra. Emerging as Congress is considering a major overhaul of the legislative framework guiding the development and financing of the nation’s transportation infrastructure, the plan will both help inform the discussion and guide the expenditure of new funding flowing to the Bay Area from Washington. Projects in the plan also stand to benefit from a massive national infrastructure investment program that surely will be part of the economic stimulus package now being shaped by Congress.

In short, the time is right for the Transportation 2035 Plan.

Between now and the year 2035, the plan calls for $226 billion in expenditures to restore and maintain the health of the region’s roadways, shore up aging public transit infrastructure and replace worn-out buses and rail cars, strategically invest in new facilities, and deploy the next genera- tion of technological innovations. But even this massive $226 billion investment will only go partway toward realizing the vision of a smooth-flowing, well-maintained, low-carbon transportation network.

Going the next mile will require even bolder actions on the part of MTC, other Bay Area regional agencies, local governments and the state Legislature, and a personal commitment on the part of residents to alter their travel patterns and lifestyle choices. The Draft Transportation 2035 Plan is not the end of the process, but the beginning of a dialogue on how much we are willing to do — individually and collectively — to ensure a vibrant, livable Bay Area and a solid transportation legacy for generations to come.

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