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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE
October/November 1999
Transportation Blueprint for the 21st Century

Transportation Blueprint for the 21st CenturyAs it enters a new millennium, the Bay Area is experiencing both aging and growing pains, nowhere more so than in the realm of transportation. The pains of age stem from the need to maintain the substantial infrastructure that has been built up over the last century in the nine-county region--streets and roads, highways, tracks, railcars, buses and bridges. But just as pressing are the stresses and strains placed on our transportation network by the surging Bay Area economy, as potent a creator of congestion as it is a producer of prosperity.

The requirement to sustain the region's current infrastructure is addressed by MTC's 1998 Regional Transportation Plan, which has a "fix it first" focus and devotes over 80 percent of the $90 billion in transportation revenues expected to flow to the region over the next 20 years to maintaining and operating the Bay Area's existing network.

Maintenance and management can only go so far, however. In recent months, MTC has launched a complementary planning effort, the Bay Area Transportation Blueprint for the 21st Century, to identify, prioritize and build support for projects that will expand the system and enable the region to better cope with its dynamic demographics. In laying the groundwork for the Blueprint, MTC planners have screened hundreds of candidate improvements--everything from major new rail lines, to high-speed ferries, to a regionwide network of express buses--and scanned the political landscape for new funding opportunities.

Visionary, far-reaching, inclusive--the Bay Area Transportation Blueprint for the 21st Century strives to be all these things. While still very much a work in progress, the Blueprint is already helping the region to lift its sights toward a more hopeful--and better-funded--transportation future.
-- Joe Curley

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