Web Survey Allows Residents to Chart Course for Future of Bay Area Transportation

How Would You Spend $30 Billion?

OAKLAND, CA — Can you spend $30 billion in 10 minutes? That’s about how long it will take to complete a new online survey designed to help regional planners and members of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) make the hard choices necessary to finalize a new long-term regional transportation plan for the Bay Area.

MTC expects about $220 billion of local, state and federal funds to be available for transportation projects and programs around the Bay Area from 2010 through 2035. That's a lot of money. But it’s not nearly enough to simultaneously keep the region’s existing roads, highways and transit systems in good shape, and to expand them to accommodate rising population and a growing economy. So tradeoffs will be necessary. And $190 billion of the total already is committed — through voter mandates, state law or MTC policy — to maintaining and expanding the regional transportation system. This leaves about $30 billion of so-called discretionary revenues available for transportation investment over 25 years.

Should these funds be spent to maintain and operate the region’s existing streets, highways and rail, bus and ferry networks? Or should they be used instead to build new roads and expand our transit facilities? What about relieving congestion on Bay Area freeways; reducing greenhouse gas emissions; promoting transit-oriented housing development; or making sure that mobility is available to all Bay Area residents regardless of age, income or disability?

The online survey will help guide development of a new regional plan, known as Transportation 2035, which will chart the course for Bay Area transportation investment through 2035. Go to www.mtc.ca.gov/T2035 by Friday, June 27 to test your knowledge of Bay Area transportation and to let MTC know your priorities for divvying up the $30 billion in discretionary revenues.

MTC is the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area’s transportation planning, coordinating and financing agency. Assisting MTC in development of the Transportation 2035 plan are the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

Contacts:

Catalina Alvarado, MTC: (510) 817-5783

John Goodwin, MTC: (415) 778-5262