Plan Bay Area

Spring 2013

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) released the Draft Plan Bay Area in late March, 2013. Nearly three years in the making, Plan Bay Area is an integrated long-range transportation and land-use/housing plan that will support a growing economy, provide more housing and transportation choices, and reduce transportation-related pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area when adopted later this year.

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, it is critical 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.