MTC Invites Survey Participants

Have you seen any recent changes in your commute? Do you want better connections with an agency that plans for the future of our road, highway and transit networks? The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) invites you to take a short survey about the best way to reach out to you for comments and ideas.

MTC today released an online survey to get input from the public, partner agencies and others as we prepare our next Public Participation Plan (PPP). The survey is being conducted in Spanish and Chinese as well as English.

MTC updates its PPP approximately every four years; and the survey is one of several ways we gather information about how to improve the plan. We also conduct focus groups with community-based organizations and various interest groups, distribute paper surveys at local events, and ask partner agencies about their best practices, among other strategies.

State and federal laws require MTC and other metropolitan planning organizations to adopt participation plans to give more people opportunities to be involved in the transportation planning process. MTC’s current Public Participation Plan was adopted in 2015 and informs interested residents how to engage in the wide range of MTC’s planning and funding activities. Appendix A to the Public Participation Plan highlights planning and decision milestones, and public engagement opportunities, for Plan Bay Area 2040 — the region’s current long-range transportation and land-use blueprint.

For the past two planning cycles, MTC and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) have used more traditional planning and outreach strategies for both Plan Bay Area (adopted in 2013) and Plan Bay Area 2040 (adopted in 2017). Given the Bay Area’s ever-changing economic, technological and climate conditions, we’re convinced a more innovative planning and engagement program is warranted; one that can help us analyze a wider range of future impacts and develop appropriate solutions. This upcoming planning and outreach effort (tentatively titled Futures) will help create a broad range of options for the Bay Area. Though Futures is a separate effort, the results of this work will help inform our next Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy (Next Plan).

With work on Futures and the Next Plan slated to begin this year, staff will release a draft update to the PPP this spring.

MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. ABAG is the Council of Governments and the regional planning agency for the 101 cities and towns, and nine counties of the Bay Area.