News, Views and Analysis from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments
An online tool from the Association of Bay Area Governments is now available to help residents identify potential earthquake-related damage to their homes and provides information on how to gird against the next big temblor. Read More
The latest special issue of ESTUARY News magazine is now available and takes a deep dive into the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge, which in May 2017 selected nine high-powered teams from across the globe to come up with innovative design ideas that address sea level rise and resilience to climate change around the region.
Last month, after a year-long process, Resilient by Design shared the final design concepts developed by local residents, community organizations, public officials and local, national, and international experts. These concepts were “meant to inspire, catalyze action, and push us along the path to a more resilient future.”
The June 2018 Issue of ESTUARY News explores each of the individual Bay Area Challenge design concepts in more detail and puts the whole Challenge in wider context, including where we might go from here. Keep reading to find out more! Read More
We recently reviewed some of the Highlights from the Spring 2018 ABAG General Assembly, providing an overview of the program's focus on topics such as wildfires, floods and sea level rise, earthquakes, and energy.
The video above gives a sneak peak inside the event itself, featuring some of the the speakers and public officials who came together to discuss "Building a Resilient Region" and how cities and regions can effectively respond to the unique challenges of the 21st Century. Read More
Nearly 150 attendees from local governments throughout the nine county San Francisco Bay Area attended the ABAG Spring 2018 General Assembly and Business Meeting on May 31, 2018.
The General Assembly brings together ABAG’s member towns, cities and counties once a year to review and approve the Associations’s budget and work program for the coming fiscal year, as well as to discuss urgent policy issues facing the region.
The overarching theme of this year’s program was resilience. Major topics covered included recovery lessons from the North Bay Wildfires, adaptation strategies for floods and sea level rise, earthquake preparedness, and energy programs.
The 2018 General Assembly agenda is available online and key materials, handouts and presentations are available on ABAG’s website. Keep reading to find out more! Read More
[This post is adapted from a news release on ABAG’s website.]
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and its many partners, including the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), have unveiled a new scenario and public outreach campaign to showcase what could happen during a major earthquake in the San Francisco Bay area along the Hayward Fault and help the public prepare for and recover from an earthquake. The HayWired Earthquake Scenario is intended to build awareness of earthquake risk and help Bay Area residents understand what they can do to mitigate risks and bounce back once the shaking stops. The public-engagement campaign – Outsmart Disaster – offers many resources, including a new fact sheet, on-line at https://outsmartdisaster.com/. Read More
Last month Congress approved a $1.3 trillion appropriations bill to fund the government for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018. In a departure from previous years, the budget included major boosts in funding for both defense and non-defense discretionary programs and also significantly increased investment in federal housing and transportation programs.
This post will provide summaries of major housing, transportation and other relevant provisions from the final FY 2018 spending bill; a chart comparing FY 2017 and FY 2018 funding levels; and analysis of California and/or Bay Area impacts for select housing and transportation programs. Continue reading on for more details. Read More
* First in an occasional series of dispatches from MTC and ABAG staff about their experiences out in the field.
On September 19, 2017, Mexico City experienced a damaging magnitude 7.1 earthquake, resulting in the deaths of 228 people and the collapse of 44 buildings. The 2017 earthquake occurred on the 35th anniversary of another deadly earthquake in the city that killed nearly 10,000 people.
Due to geological, building construction and social factors, Mexico City is highly vulnerable to earthquakes. Much of the city sits on an ancient lake bed that has been drained over the last several centuries to accommodate the city’s expansion. This geology leads to significant subsidence and loose soils, which worsens ground shaking and can cause liquefaction in earthquake events.
In addition, although Mexico’s current building codes are similar to those in the Bay Area, many existing buildings date back decades or centuries, before these codes were in place. Nearly 60 percent of residential buildings are self-built without permits or inspections, meaning they don’t comply with any codes at all. Many of these residents are also highly vulnerable due to their social status – they often lack savings, insurance, secure jobs or even legal rights to their own homes.
The earthquake was a reminder to those of us in the Bay Area about the ever-present hazards of living in our own region. Read More
What if a major earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area? Would you and your family be prepared?
Next month, the HayWired Scenario – a major California regional and statewide earthquake preparedness initiative – will be released to the public, providing a scientific, realistic and quantitative depiction of what would happen if there was a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on the Hayward Fault with an epicenter in Oakland. The initiative wants to shift behavior surrounding earthquakes by improving communications and the use of earthquake hazard, early warning and aftershock forecast information, as well as inform building codes, build community capacity and foster business continuity planning.
Developed by the U.S. Geological Survey, the scenario's public release will kick off on April 18, 2018, with a press event at U.C. Berkeley’s California Memorial Stadium, University Club, with the annual Lawson Lecture, including a panel from 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. so you can ask the HayWired team questions. The release of the HayWired Scenario also marks the beginning of the HayWired Public Engagement Campaign, known as Outsmart Disaster. Read More
This month’s open access, long-form reading recommendations from the MTC-ABAG Library cover housing issues, Regional Measure 3, local and state transit, the inner workings of ridesharing companies, climate change, and the overall resilience of the Bay Area. Continue reading on to take a closer look! Read More
This past fall, the four 2017 North Bay Wildfires damaged or destroyed an estimated 8,900 structures, taking out a major chunk of Santa Rosa’s (and the wider region’s) housing stock. It served as an uneasy reminder of the potential dangers the Bay Area and its residents face from other ever-present natural hazards, such as earthquakes. For example: How many buildings could be damaged? How many households displaced? How many residents in need of shelter?
A new page from ABAG’s Resilience Program, Expected Housing Losses in an Earthquake, provides the latest and greatest research findings about the region’s seismic risk – including the fact that up to 70,000 residential buildings could be made uninhabitable. In the below video, Dana Brechwald, Resilience Planner, discusses the research and details the residential building damage estimates and displacement risks for 16 different earthquake scenarios. Read More