July 23, Oakland
Along with Commissioners Haggerty, Sartipi and Spering, I attended this series of panel discussions jointly hosted by MTC and the Alameda County Transportation Commission.
I attended the regular biannual meeting of the Transportation Research Board’s Executive Committee in Washington. The major news is on the personnel front: long-time executive director Bob Skinner is retiring, and his replacement is scheduled to come aboard by the time of the TRB Annual Meeting in January 2015.
In a sign of how far we have traveled away from a user-fee financed transportation system, the House Republican Leadership has proposed that the beleaguered Highway Trust Fund be replenished with savings from the elimination of Saturday mail delivery. The conservative Heritage Foundation likened this idea to bailing out one trust fund with savings from another.
Chair Worth led a gaggle of MTC commissioners, staff, and partner agency representatives in a series of visits to the Bay Area’s state legislative delegation. The focus of our visits was the long-term Cap and Trade funding framework proposed by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, with whom we also met that afternoon. Thanks especially to Randy Rentschler and Rebecca Long for arranging the most upbeat visit to Sacramento that I can recall in many years.
On behalf of the MTC staff, I’d like to thank the commissioners who attended the workshop and offered us your candid and thoughtful responses to the issues we presented.
I had a lengthy and cordial lunch meeting with Nuria Fernandez, the new general manager of the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA). Nuria and I have known each other for some time due to our joint service on the Mineta Transportation Institute Board of Directors.
Buoyed by the strong state economy, Governor Brown released his budget proposal for FY 2014-15 that contained good news across many fronts, including transportation.
BART General Manager Grace Crunican and I made presentations before the Bay Area Council’s Transportation Committee on the current state of the region’s public transit networks and plans for their improvement.
I attended my last board of directors meeting as well as other events at the annual meeting of the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO).
The Toll Bridge Program Oversight Committee (TBPOC) met in public session for the first time in its history to approve opening the new east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Labor Day weekend. This action was made possible because the TBPOC also approved installation of temporary “shims” at the bearing locations on the east pier of the suspension span that will shoulder any seismic loads until the saddle retrofit of the shear keys is complete in December 2013.
Chair Worth, Commissioner Luce, Ezra Rapport and I made a presentation to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) on our progress in adopting the Bay Area’s first Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS).
Secretary of Transportation Brian Kelly announced that a group of independent transportation experts from the State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) will conduct an external review of the management and operations of Caltrans.
It was only one sentence in his annual “State of the State” speech, but Governor Jerry Brown stirred the hopes of the transportation community by announcing that he is directing his Transportation Secretary Brian Kelly “to review thoroughly our current priorities and explore long-term funding options.” We will keep you posted of developments in this funding review as they occur.
