TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

April/May 2005

Transportation 2030 Plan Charts New Course for the Bay Area

Vision Calls for "HOT" Lanes and Transit-Oriented Development

In keeping with the theme of "Mobility for the Next Generation," the plan features images of tomorrow's customers today, in school and at play.

When MTC commissioners and staff sat down in mid-2003 to begin developing a long-range transportation plan for the nine-county region, they faced some daunting challenges: chronic underfunding, aging infrastructure and marathon commutes. And with the region's population predicted to grow by 30 percent over the next 25 years, the strain on the Bay Area's already overburdened bus, rail and roadway network will only increase. Some 20 months and many community meetings later, the Transportation 2030 Plan adopted by MTC in late February meets these challenges head-on through a carefully crafted combination of high-tech innovation, bold policy initiatives, creative financing and careful management of scarce resources.

In a letter to MTC, Stuart Cohen, executive director of the Oakland-based Transportation and Land Use Coalition, wrote that the Transportation 2030 Plan "does an excellent job of articulating the complicated world of transportation policy and funding, and the emerging, more holistic philosophy of MTC in confronting these issues."

Developed through an unprecedented public participation effort that began in June 2003 and involved thousands of Bay Area residents, the final Transportation 2030 Plan is a comprehensive roadmap for maintaining, fine-tuning and expanding the Bay Area's transportation network to accommodate more than 1 million new residents and 1 million-plus additional jobs in the nine-county region by 2030.

Transportation 2030 Plan - Mobility for the Next Generation A total of $118 billion in local, state and federal money is expected to flow to the Bay Area transportation network over the next 25 years. Yet, while impressive, that level of investment is not nearly enough to fulfill the Transportation 2030 vision. So the plan includes dozens of "calls to action" that envision how MTC — in concert with voters and local, state and federal agencies — can meet the Transportation 2030 goals by raising more money and by enacting new laws or rethinking old policies. Recognizing that some of these ideas would be controversial, MTC followed up its November 2004 release of a draft version of the Transportation 2030 Plan with a new round of public involvement that focused on gauging residents' support for the calls to action and prioritizing the various proposals. The result was a cascade of comments from private citizens, public agencies, business groups and nonprofits that helped refine the plan before its final adoption by the Commission.

The final Transportation 2030 Plan establishes several new funding programs, including a Regional Bicycle/Pedestrian Program and a new Lifeline Mobility Program to improve low-income communities' access to transportation services. The public expressed support for consolidating some Bay Area transit agencies; pressing the state Legislature to strengthen Proposition 42 (the measure dedicating gasoline sales tax revenues to transportation) so it cannot routinely be suspended; and linking transit investments with local land-use planning decisions.

Bay Area residents also expressed strong opinions both for and against the Transportation 2030 Plan's proposed high-occupancy/ toll (HOT) lane network, whereby solo drivers could buy their way into free-flowing carpool lanes, with the revenues going toward constructing more carpool lanes.

So while plans are moving forward to test the HOT lane concept on Interstate 680 over the Sunol Grade, issues that still must be addressed include the impact on lower- and middle-income drivers and enforcement. MTC already has begun a thorough study of these issues and is working closely with Caltrans to identify funding sources to advance the study.
— John Goodwin

To order a copy of the final Transportation 2030 Plan, e-mail your name and address to library@mtc.ca.gov or call 510.817.5836.

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