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Executive Director's Report

Report to the Commission: February 26, 2025

Personnel

Retirements

  • Maureen Devlin – Maureen started with MTC in February 2020 as an Associate Program Coordinator. Her last day with MTC was February 28 as a Principal Program Coordinator in the Tolling Services and Revenue section.

New Appointments

  • Melody Tsao – Melody started with MTC on February 3 as an Assistant Planner/Analyst in the Regional Planning Program section.
  • Joe Ahrenholtz – Joe started with MTC on February 18 as an Associate Planner/Analyst in the Regional Planning Program section.

Updates

The Executive Office has assembled a team to monitor Executive Orders, policy directives, funding cuts and federal layoffs to assess risk to projects and programs we administer and provide a forum for developing any strategies in response. The response team is analyzing our budgets and our federally funded contracts. We also are working to keep our partners informed as we obtain new information from our federal partner agencies. We will continue to keep the Commission and staff apprised of the latest developments at the federal level. 

A January poll of Bay Area voters conducted by Oakland-based EMC Research on behalf of MTC found that a majority (54%) of voters in the four counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo would vote yes on a half-cent sales tax to avoid major transit cuts to BART, Caltrain, Muni and AC Transit. It also found majority support (55%) in these four counties for a variable tax option that included a half-cent sales tax in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Mateo and a higher (0.875 cent) sales tax in San Francisco. State senators Wiener and Arreguín last month introduced Senate Bill 63 to authorize placement of such a measure on the November 2026 ballot. This authorization is in line with MTC’s Final 2025 Joint Advocacy Program. Item 12b of your February meeting agenda seeks Commission approval of principles to guide MTC’s advocacy on SB 63, informed by the extensive discussions and feedback provided during the Transportation Revenue Measure Select Committee process last year.

MTC staff partnered with the Water Emergency Transportation Agency to provide a tour of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge by ferry for east bay Assemblymember Buffy Wicks on Feb. 7. The purpose of the tour was to provide a close-up view of the 88-year old span and its maintenance needs in the context of the December toll increase approved to provide additional funding to support bridge rehabilitation through the Toll Bridge Capital Improvement Plan. Commissioners Moulton-Peters and El-Tawansy joined the tour, along with reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle and KQED in an effort to help educate the public about how tolls are used and the fact that the maintenance and rehabilitation of the Bay Area’s seven state-owned toll bridges depends on bridge toll dollars. See Attachment A for a story run about the tour that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle. 

I joined Commissioners Fleming, Noack and Moulton-Peters on Feb. 20 at an event at the Santa Rosa Downtown Transit Mall, celebrating the launch of the Regional Mapping & Wayfinding Project at the Transit Mall and Santa Rosa SMART station, where new transit maps and signs will be tested as part of the project. Members of the public who are unable to visit one of the test locations in Santa Rosa or El Cerrito are invited to take an online survey to provide feedback on the new maps and signs available at the link above. 

Summer 2024 marked the fourth year of the College Mentorship Program and Summer Academy, two youth programs that align with MTC-ABAG’s Equity Platform. Both programs were suspended in the summer of 2020 due to Covid and a variety of budgetary constraints. The Norman Mineta Bay Area Summer Academy provides a multi-week, mostly remote-learning curriculum for Bay Area high school students. The Ann Fitzgerald Flemer College Mentorship Program provides students with a paid, fulltime opportunity to gain professional work experience in transportation planning, finance and operational projects.

The number of high school participants doubled for the third year in a row, from 113 to 231 participants, while the college program supported more than a dozen students. We also saw a record number of college mentees have their time extended for several months to continue working with staff on vital projects that serve the region. For this upcoming cohort, we anticipate having similar numbers of high school students and have confirmed 19 slots for college mentees. Please help us get the word out about these programs and if you are interested in having one of our staff conduct outreach in your area, please contact Ky-Nam Miller at kmiller@bayareametro.gov for more information.

On February 14, the California State Senate honored former MTC Commissioner Jim Spering for his 30 years of service and regional leadership on MTC. The Senate resolution was presented by State Sen. Dave Cortese, who noted that “Jim was a peacemaker, some might call him a dealmaker...We deeply appreciate his work to make transportation more accessible, as well as the space he has made for community voices in the region.” Following Sen. Cortese’s remarks, former ABAG President now State Sen. Jesse Arreguin, former MTC Commissioner now Sen. Scott Wiener, Sen. Christopher Cabaldon and Sen. Tim Grayson each shared their own appreciation of former Commissioner Spering. A brief story and link to a video of the proceedings can be found on the BayLink blog.