Transactions Newsletter

Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways

Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways

You're cruising along the freeway, mentally rehashing the day's events, when suddenly you find yourself on the highway shoulder, staring at a flat tire, a smoking engine or a gasoline gauge reading "empty." In the San Francisco Bay Area, two programs operated by the MTC Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways are ready to come to your rescue: a network of approximately 3,500 bright yellow call boxes with a direct line to the California Highway Patrol, and the Freeway Service Patrol's roving tow trucks that operate on the Bay Area's most congested highways.

Keeping Roadways SAFE
Created by state legislation enacted in 1987, the MTC Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways (SAFE) launched the roadside motorist-aid call box program in mid-1988. Four years later, SAFE kicked off its second program, the Freeway Service Patrol (FSP). Both the call boxes and the FSP are funded by a $1 per year fee on motor vehicle registrations in participating counties, with the FSP also receiving state and federal moneys. By expediting the clearing of accidents and other incidents -- the cause of more than 50 percent of traffic congestion -- the SAFE programs help in the region's fight against traffic gridlock and smog.

- Réka Goode

Bay Area Freeway Service Patrol and Call Box Network

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Annual Report Contents

BATA

Status report on bridge expansion program

Vehicle counts on Bay Area Bridges (With photos!)

Summary of Regional Measure One projects

BATA Revenues & Expenditures

MTC

Bullish year for transportation funding

Citizens applaud Regional Transportation Plan

TLC program aims to turn neighborhoods around

Transit and traffic info is just a
mouse click or phone call away

MTC pursues TransLink^® universal ticket

View and download MTC statistics

SAFE

Keeping roadways SAFE

SAFE services

SAFE statistics for 1997-98

Facts and Figures

Bay Area's 10 worst traffic hot spots

In Print & Online

New: Transportation funding, paratransit resources,
transit operator statistics

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Metropolitan Transportation Commission

Executive Director
Lawrence D. Dahms

Deputy Executive Director
Steve Heminger

Manager of Legislation & Public Affairs
Therese McMillan

Editor
Brenda Kahn

Staff Writers
Catalina Alvarado, Marjorie Blackwell, Joe Curley, Réka Goode

Graphic Design & Production
Ethan Michaels

Art Direction
Finger & Smith Design Associates, S.F.

Printing
Dharma Enterprises, Oakland

Conversion, Electronic Transfer & WWW
Ethan Michaels