MTC Scores All-Star Award for Climate-Friendly Transportation 2035 Plan

MTC was honored for its climate protection work at the second annual Climate All Stars Conference, held November 6, 2008, in San Francisco. MTC was named a “Climate All Star” in the category of Transportation/Land Use for its climate-centric approach to drafting the next Regional Transportation Plan (RTP). MTC updates the 25-year blueprint for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area every four years; the latest version, called the Transportation 2035 Plan: Change in Motion, will be adopted by MTC in the spring of 2009 and will direct the spending of $32 billion in discretionary funding flowing to the Bay Area from local, regional, state and federal sources.

“In a large part driven by the imperative to respond to the urgency of the climate crisis, MTC took a very different approach in its creation of the 2009 RTP by adopting a series of regional goals for its investments to support. Key among these goals is to reduce transportation-related emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050,” the All Stars Conference Web site states.

“The Commission voted to direct the majority of their discretionary funds to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deliver other co-benefits. MTC's actions put the Bay Area as one of the first regions in the country whose long-range transportation investment plans focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. MTC’s bold vision for investments that shape the Bay Area's transportation choices will determine whether the Bay Area can dial down the largest source of our greenhouse gas emissions or if it will be business as usual,” the Web site continues.

The draft Transportation 2035 Plan now in progress addresses the fact that the transportation sector accounts for 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the Bay Area. MTC is earmarking $400 million over the next five years for a Transportation Climate Action Campaign that aims to reduce the Bay Area’s carbon footprint. In addition to education and public outreach, the campaign will establish a Climate Grants Program that will fund major demonstration projects to test the most innovative strategies to promote changes in driving and travel behavior. Other aspects of the campaign include boosting the Safe Routes to School and Safe Routes to Transit programs and creating a Transit Priority Program to increase the attractiveness of bus transit.

This year’s 11 award winners “represent leadership work in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and advancing solutions at the speed and scale needed to achieve the scientific imperative,” according to Kathy Goodacre, media contact for the Climate Protection Campaign, which sponsored the All Stars Conference and Awards Program. Accepting the award for MTC was James Corless, a senior planner at MTC who directs the agency’s transit-oriented development program. “This is recognition that we’re on the right track with the Transportation 2035 Plan,” he said.

Beyond the specific Climate Action Campaign, MTC's Transportation 2035 Plan also commits to spending $1 billion to build out the Regional Bicycle Network, and to doubling the size of MTC’s pioneering Transportation for Liviable Communities (TLC) Program, taking it to $2.2 billion in grants to local governments over the next 25 years. This TLC funding will put monetary weight behind the interagency FOCUS regional development and conservation initiatives, which aims to encourage more housing adjacent to public transit lines and hubs, and to protect green spaces.

The Climate Protection Campaign is a coalition made up of local elected officials, county and city staff, teachers, students, business people, activists, and regular concerned citizens from around the Bay Area.