Transportation 2030 Plan

Phase One Public Involvement Results

MTC conducted an extensive public involvement program to solicit input on the shape and substance of a new, long-term transportation plan, known as Transportation 2030. The dialogue began in June 2003 with a widely attended summit in San Francisco. The first phase of the Transportation 2030 planning process addressed three main topics that corresponded to the major decisions made by MTC in December 2003.

• Developing Goals:  adopt new transportation goals and determine how the goals will be used to guide programs and investments;
• Prior Commitments and New Investments:  determine amount of available new funding, and how to distribute uncommitted funds among regional and county investments; and
• Transportation and Land Use:  determine MTC’s approach to linking transportation and land use.

Phase One December 2003 Actions:
New Goals, Land-Use Strategy and Breakthrough Investment Choices

Phase One of the Transportation 2030 process came to a close in December 2003 as the Commission voted to adopt six goals for the new plan, approved a five-point platform for transportation and land-use integration, and authorized a regional investment strategy for an estimated $9 billion in new investments, with specific financial targets for rehabilitation, regional programs and discretionary investments to be determined at the county level during Phase Two of the Transportation 2030 process.

(See Phase One December 2003 Actions)

MTC conducted an extensive public involvement program to solicit input in the first phase of the Transportation 2030 planning process, which began in June 2003 with a widely attended Summit in San Francisco. MTC used five primary methods to engage the public in focused input and discussion to inform the Commission’s Phase One decisions:

• A day-long regional summit held in San Francisco and attended by more than 450 people from throughout the Bay Area nine counties and beyond kicked off the Phase One dialogue to update the regional transportation plan;
• A telephone poll of 2,700 voters and 900 residents (both voters and non-voters), providing a representative sample of opinion, and county and regional results;
• Six focus groups held around the region to allow more in-depth discussion of the major choices and tradeoffs;
• Some 30 targeted workshops held with specific groups and organizations with interests in transportation issues (including eight meetings held in low-income neighborhoods in cooperation with community based organizations selected through a competitive process); and
• An interactive Web survey, taken by over 530 individuals, that included a budget allocation exercise that was open to the public and widely publicized.

These four methods and the June Summit, in combination with public attendance at Planning and Operations Committee and full Commission meetings, and hundreds of letters, received electronically or via the postal service, allowed MTC to gather input on regional priorities in a focused, even-handed way that balanced open public input with statistically valid and representative measures of public opinion.

Public Opinion Poll

MTC commissioned a public opinion poll of 2,700 Bay Area voters and 900 Bay Area residents as part of an effort to broaden outreach for development of the Transportation 2030 Plan, identify transportation programs of greatest interest to voters and residents, explore attitudes related to transportation and land use and measure support for county half-cent transportation sales taxes and a possible regional gasoline tax. Results of the telephone poll, which was conducted from Sept. 5, 2003 to Sept. 21, 2003 by Godbe Research, were presented to the Commission on Oct. 29, 2003. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.87 percent for the voter sample and plus or minus 3.27 percent for the resident sample.

Overall, the telephone poll identified these top three priorities for on-going programs:

• Bus service to link low-income communities with jobs
• Local streets and roads maintenance
• Improving connections between transit agencies

The poll results showed these top three priorities for system expansion:

• Expand BART
• Expand other rail services
• Expand local bus services

Polling of Bay Area voters and Bay Area residents yielded similar results. The documents linked here are based on the voter poll.