MTC

FTA Rejects Federal Stimulus Funding for BART Oakland Airport Connector

Posted by Eric ⋅ 12 February 2010 ⋅ 24 Comments

The big news from the day: even though BART and FTA have been working the past couple weeks on a plan to correct the Title VI deficiencies in BART’s Oakland Airport Connector project, today Peter Rogoff sent a letter (PDF) to BART and MTC announcing that BART’s corrective action plan for the OAC has been … Continue reading →

OAC Judgment Day is Postponed, But Draws Near

Posted by Eric ⋅ 28 January 2010 ⋅ 6 Comments

Groundhog Day came a couple days early this year. Yesterday, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission faced yet another contentious meeting regarding the BART Oakland Airport Connector. And the Commission faced a remarkably similar question to that which it faced almost one year ago. This time, though, the stakes were higher. Last year, BART promised to MTC … Continue reading →

FTA Holds Back on BART OAC Funding

Posted by Eric ⋅ 21 January 2010 ⋅ 3 Comments

After months of disheartening news in 2009 in which agency after agency rubber-stamped BART’s ill-conceived Oakland Airport Connector project, it was welcome news to learn that the Federal Transit Administration decided to withhold $70 million of ARRA stimulus funding, which BART needs to build the OAC. This announcement comes just a few months after Public … Continue reading →

Whither East Bay BRT?

Posted by Eric ⋅ 26 September 2009 ⋅ 13 Comments

Courtesy of AC Transit. The AC Transit Board of Directors held a meeting to confront head-on the risk that the agency’s current financial crisis poses to its planned 17-mile bus rapid transit (BRT) project, which would extend from downtown Berkeley to San Leandro, via Telegraph Avenue, downtown Oakland, and East 14th Street. The State has … Continue reading →

Catch a TIGER by the Toe

Posted by Eric ⋅ 4 August 2009 ⋅ 5 Comments

The SFCTA and MTC are hoping to score $50 million of TIGER funds for Doyle Drive. Rendering courtesy of SFCTA. Certain pots of money in the ARRA federal stimulus bill that have been earmarked for transportation, like the $8 billion of grants for high-speed rail, have gotten a lot of attention. Other pots of money, … Continue reading →

Peninsula Investments

Posted by Eric ⋅ 17 June 2009 ⋅ 16 Comments

It’s funny how things sometimes turn out. In terms of funding, BART has long been the Bay Area’s favorite son. Year after year, BART is allocated a major piece of the region’s transit funding pie, a piece that is disproportionately large for the number of people it moves. Meanwhile: slow, antiquated, dirty, screechy Caltrain has … Continue reading →

Shifting Funds, Shifty Priorities

Posted by Eric ⋅ 26 March 2009 ⋅ 9 Comments

First, A Few Numbers (and Acronyms) Regular readers may recall our previous discussion of Transportation 2035, the latest update to MTC’s ongoing efforts on the Regional Transportation Plan. Earlier this year, we wrote a special feature that describes the multifaceted plan, fleshing out how MTC has proposed to allocate $226 billion of local, state, and … Continue reading →