News, Views and Analysis from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments
Youth from all nine Bay Area counties will play a role in the Horizon planning process over the next three years. Read More
Three MTC standing committee meetings are scheduled for Friday, July 13 starting at 10:00 a.m. at the Bay Area Metro Center. Here are links to the full agendas and meeting packets:
Read on for the highlights; tune in live to the meetings on Friday from our Live Webcasts page; and bookmark the main Meetings page to keep up with all MTC meetings. Read More
Do you daydream of new ways to cross over or under the San Francisco Bay? Close your eyes and see a fleet of flying cars, carrying commuters to work each day? This could be your time to shine. MTC and ABAG are looking for your biggest, brightest, billion dollar (or more!) ideas for redefining the way we travel in and around the Bay Area.
This month, the agencies are jointly issuing an open Request for Transformative Projects – transportation project ideas that have the potential to revolutionize how we move around the region. Transformative Projects should provide new and creative solutions for transportation in the area and should be large in scale – costing $1 billion or more. Public agencies, individuals, private sector companies and nongovernmental organizations are all encouraged to participate. Proposals are due on September 6, 2018 and can be submitted by completing the online form.
The Request for Transformative Projects is part of the Horizon initiative to explore the challenges and opportunities likely to face the Bay Area between now and 2050. Finalists will be selected in October 2018. Keep reading to find out more! Read More
Update: Video recordings of these meetings (excluding MTC Policy Advisory Council Equity and Access Subcommittee) are now available.
The Bay Area Toll Oversight Committee, two of MTC’s standing committees and the MTC Policy Advisory Council will meet starting at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 13, at the Bay Area Metro Center. Highlights include review of BATA's FY 2018-19 Toll Bridge Operating and Capital Budgets, funding updates for regional and state transportation programs, review of MTC's FY 2018-19 Agency Budget, discussion of MTC’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program, and updates on several other MTC projects and programs. Read on for links to everything, and tune in live to the meetings on Wednesday from our Live Webcasts page. Read More
Update: Video recordings of these meetings are now available.
Three of MTC’s standing committees will meet starting at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 8, at the Bay Area Metro Center. Highlights include a preview of a new report on autonomous vehicles, proposed action on two pieces of housing-related state legislation, updates on this week’s state primary election, and federal legislation and funding updates. Read on for links to everything, and tune in live to the meetings on Friday from our Live Webcasts page. Read More
Horizon is an exciting new effort from MTC and ABAG to allow the public, planners and policymakers to wrestle with challenging questions about the external forces that could shape the Bay Area through 2050. Horizon will explore a range of pressing issues and attempt to put the region on sounder footing as it prepares for, and tries to shape, a trajectory that is both equitable and resilient to potential headwinds.
Horizon will identify a suite of potential external forces and allow residents, planners and decision-makers alike to think through policy and investment solutions that make sense in each distinct future. Ultimately, policies and projects that perform well regardless of what happens in the decades ahead will be identified as top priorities going forward. This planning initiative will inform the next regional transportation and land use plan, a separate but closely related effort that will kick off in mid-2019.
Currently, major Horizon work efforts have been directed towards establishing Guiding Principles that will help orient the process, as well as on identifying the futures themselves. Keep reading to find out more about the futures and watch the video above for additional background. Read More
What should the San Francisco Bay Area of the future look like? MTC and ABAG want to hear from you as we develop a blueprint for how our region lives, works and plays in the decades ahead. Read More
Some of the biggest challenges faced by regional planners over long time horizons are risk, and uncertainty. New technologies, unexpected natural or man-made disasters, economic booms and busts, and political volatility can all lay waste to the most diligent and careful planning efforts.
As the nine county San Francisco Bay Area’s transportation and land use planning agencies, respectively, MTC and ABAG are jointly responsible for developing the region’s long-range Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy (RTP/SCS). Our most recent RTP/SCS, Plan Bay Area 2040, discusses how the region will grow over the next two decades and identifies transportation and land use strategies to enable a more sustainable, equitable and economically vibrant future.
The RTP/SCS has its limitations though. While a long list of statutory requirements ensure the plan is doing what it is intended by law to do, these requirements can also constrain the types of issues that can be explored, modeled and ultimately acted upon. This makes it difficult to incorporate outside-the-box – yet essential – thinking about emerging issues into the RTP/SCS’s policy and project framework.