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Plan Bay Area

Plan Bay Area: Building on a Legacy of Leadership
March 2011


See also:

Plan By Area

March 2011
MTC and its sister agency, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), have unveiled a new name for their collaborative long-range planning efforts: Plan Bay Area. This joint, long-range planning effort will culminate in the adoption of a 25-year plan in 2013. Also participating in this exercise are the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. The Plan Bay Area name builds on the One Bay Area brand launched in April 2010 to address climate change on a regional scale in the Bay Area.

Plan Bay Area is the successor to Transportation 2035, the long-range plan adopted by MTC in 2009. As such, it is the next step in a progression of decades of regional planning. With the region's population expected to grow from about 7 million in 2011 to approximately 9 million in 2040, we need to start making transportation, housing and land use decisions now to sustain the Bay Area’s high quality of life for current and future generations.

Plan Bay Area will address new requirements flowing from California’s 2008 Senate Bill 375 (Steinberg), which calls on each of the state’s 18 metropolitan areas to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cars and light trucks. This is important because the transportation sector represents about 40 percent of the GHG pollution that scientists say is causing climate change.

The mechanism for achieving these reductions will be a Sustainable Communities Strategy that promotes compact, mixed-use commercial and residential development that is walkable and bikable and close to mass transit, jobs, schools, shopping, parks, recreation and other amenities. If successful, Plan Bay Area will give people more transportation choices, create more livable communities and reduce the pollution that causes climate change. In March 2011, MTC and ABAG took the first step in crafting the Sustainable Communities Strategy when they introduced their Initial Vision Scenario showing where and how the region might grow so as to be able to sustainably accommodate 2 million more residents by 2035.