MTC e-News: June/July 2011

MTC e-News June/July 2011

In This Issue

800 Community Members Attend Public Outreach Meetings for Plan Bay Area

Bright Orange Catwalks New to Bay Bridge East Span

Can the Bay Area Have Better Roads?

Climate Initiative Receives Statewide Honor

MTC Honored With Distinguished Public Agency Award

Five New Shows on Display at the MTC Art Gallery

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800 Community Members Attend Public Outreach Meetings for Plan Bay Area

Residents across the Bay Area turned out in force to voice their opinions on the region's housing and transportation future at 10 workshops held by MTC and ABAG this spring. The workshops are a key component of Plan Bay Area, a comprehensive effort that addresses the major planning challenges of the next 30 years with an eye towards sustainability, as mandated by California's Senate Bill 375.

At the workshops, citizens were asked to rank their priorities on a variety of topics including the location of new housing, the nature of future growth patterns, ways to fund transportation investments, and more. While there was clear support for certain issues, many opposing viewpoints were expressed throughout the process, all of which were recorded by MTC staff. A full summary of the findings can be found here.

To solicit further feedback from residents of low-income communities and communities of color, MTC also collaborated with 14 Community- Based Organizations to collect the opinions of 1,600 citizens through a variety of outreach methods.

You can keep up to date on the process, as well as participate through an interactive visioning exercise, by visiting the Plan Bay Area website.

Bright Orange Catwalks Appear on Bay Bridge East Span

A catwalk stretches diagonally from tower to roadway.
Photo © 2011 Barry Rokeach

It's been a busy few weeks for the new Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge. In late May workers successfully hoisted the "world's largest cable saddle" atop the self-anchored-suspension (SAS) tower. Now, in a sign of further progress, orange catwalks have been placed to help workers install the bridge cable safely. The 600-foot long catwalks are currently on the Yerba Buena Island side of the tower and will be followed by additional catwalks on the opposite side later this summer.

Workers travel up and down the narrow catwalks using harnesses to make preparations for cable installation. Soon they will build a frame to support the weight of the cable while it is being installed. The catwalks, made out of wire mesh panels, may look delicate, but they actually weigh 16.5 tons!

Two recently installed catwalks on the
Yerba Buena Island side of the new East Span.
Photo by Caltrans

Can the Bay Area Have Better Roads?

That's the question behind The Pothole Report, MTC's latest update on pavement conditions around the region. It details how timely road maintenance ensures more than just a smooth ride -- it can save municipalities significant funds down the road, as it is five times more costly to repair roads in poor condition than to maintain them in the first place.

Drawing from fresh data and new developments in pavement management, the updated report includes a primer on the cost and life cycle of pavement, a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction look at the state of the Bay Area's streets and roads network in 2010, and a briefing on Cold In-Place recycling, a new technique that has been shown to cut road rehab costs from 20 to 40 percent. The report also examines the costs and benefits of a "Complete Streets" approach to urban roadways, which emphasizes safe access and use by pedestrians, bicyclists and transit riders, as well as motorists.

MTC's Climate Initiative Program Receives Statewide Honor

Brenda Dix, MTC's Climate Initiatives Program grants manager
Photo by Ashley Nguyen

The California Transportation Foundation (CTF) gave high honors to an MTC climate program at its prestigious 2010 Transportation Awards program in Sacramento on June 15th. The CTF presented 19 awards, including the award for Sustainable Transportation Study or Program of the Year to MTC's Climate Initiatives Program. The CTF Transportation Awards recognize excellence in transportation projects throughout California.

"We are glad to be recognized for our commitment to sustainability and to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions," said Brenda Dix, MTC's Climate Initiatives Program grants manager.

MTC launched the Climate Initiatives Program in 2010 to spur groundbreaking transportation ideas for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the Bay Area. In total, MTC awarded 17 grants worth a total of $33 million in the areas of clean vehicles, parking management, transportation demand management and Safe Routes to School. The grantees' efforts will be implemented and evaluated over the next three years alongside other Climate Initiatives Program elements, including outreach and education, sea level rise evaluation and the Safe Routes to School County Program.

MTC Honored With "Distinguished Public Agency Award" for Housing Efforts

The Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California recently granted MTC the "Distinguished Public Agency Award" in recognition of its contribution to the affordable housing movement in the Bay Area. This marks the first time the award has been given to a public agency rather than an individual, honoring MTC's commitment to affordable housing through its policies and programs.

Recognizing the link between affordable housing, transportation and healthy communities, MTC has taken steps to support housing affordability through grant programs and long-range planning. One of MTC's initiatives, the Housing Incentive Program (HIP), helped Bay Area cities build affordable housing near transit centers. Most recently, MTC leveraged $10 million in seed money to jointly establish a $50 million revolving loan fund for affordable housing developers to finance land acquisition in select locations near rail and bus lines throughout the Bay Area. The new Bay Area Transit Oriented Affordable Housing Fund was developed in partnership with the Great Communities Collaborative, the San Francisco Foundation, the Silicon Valley Foundation and other organizations.

Five New Shows on Display

at the MTC Art Gallery

Relive the glory and grime of the late Transbay Terminal; travel by train to Paris and Shanghai; sneak a peak at Oakland's forgotten rail terminal -- these are just some of the photographs on display in MTC's latest art show, and they're all free and open to the public. Exhibits are located throughout the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter and can be viewed during regular business hours.