Housing Archives - Transform

Fate of Affordable Housing Linked to Transit

May 13, 2026/in Blog, Housing, Transit/by Laura McCamy

On May 11, 2026, Transform gathered advocates from four affordable housing organizations to talk about why their groups are collecting signatures to put the regional transit measure on the November ballot and training residents to advocate for transit as well as affordable housing. Sophia DeWitt from East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO), Kenneth Javier-Rosales from SV@Home, Ken Chan from the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, and Quintin Mecke with the Coalition of Community Housing Developers in San Francisco were hosted by Transform’s Zack Deutsch-Gross.

Before the discussion, Amourence Lee added the funder perspective for the San Francisco Foundation, and EBHO’s Board President, William Goodwin, framed the importance of Affordable Housing Month as an opportunity to talk about solutions and EBHO’s role as convener of this month’s events in Alameda County.

Affordable housing residents rely on public transit

Public transit provides affordable housing residents with an economical way to get around. DeWitt noted that she’s a “transit-dependent rider,” as are many people in the Bay Area, for whom saving transit is vital. “Transit moves the Bay Area,” she said.

Mecke agreed, noting that transit was foundational to affordable housing residents. “These are folks who do not have remote jobs,” he said. While overall Muni ridership is down, some lines are at 120% of pre-pandemic ridership, demonstrating the lifeline that transit provides for many San Francisco residents.

All the housing advocates reported the enthusiasm among their groups for collecting signatures for the transit measure. It’s clear to housers that transit is key to affordable housing, including its funding.

Affordable housing funding tied to transit

Several of California’s affordable housing funding mechanisms score projects partly on their proximity to rich public transit. If Bay Area transit providers are forced to cut routes or reduce service due to funding shortfalls, affordable housing projects will become less competitive. Put bluntly: without transit, we’ll lose a lot of affordable housing.

Deutsch-Gross noted that the communities all the organizations on the webinar serve are populated by whole people, who need transportation as well as housing. He highlighted the value of signature-gathering, not only as a mechanism to put the regional transit measure on the ballot with a lower threshold to pass, but also as an opportunity to engage and educate the community. “Those conversations are so much more important to the world we want to see than just gathering signatures,” he said.

The conversation included a discussion of advocates’ vision for a future where transportation and housing funding aren’t hanging by a thread every election cycle. Watch the recording for much more.

View the presentation.

Connect Bay Area_ How Housers Are Helping to Save Transit Download

Parking Wasn’t on the Radar at Housing California’s Annual Conference

April 1, 2026/in Blog, Housing, Parking/by Julia Gerasimenko

But It Should Be.

At this year’s Housing California Conference, conversations focused on displacement, housing production, and cross-sector collaboration. Parking barely came up. That absence precludes a key opportunity to build more affordable housing.

Across panels on updating regional planning standards (SB 375), fair housing, and local housing tools, speakers returned to a familiar challenge: California is still struggling to deliver enough homes in places where people can live without having to drive everywhere. We are not short on ideas. We are short on implementation.

Yet one of the most immediate, proven tools for unlocking housing was mostly missing from the conversation: parking policy. When it did come up, it was an exciting and promising story.

Less parking, more housing

Parking requirements quietly shape what gets built, where, and at what cost. When cities require a set number of parking spaces, they are also requiring more land, more construction, and higher rents. These costs can be the difference between a project moving forward or not.

In one session, staff from the City of Sacramento shared how eliminating parking minimums in 2024 has helped remove barriers to building housing. By no longer requiring a fixed number of parking spaces, the city has reduced development costs, simplified project design, and made it easier for both affordable and market-rate housing projects to move forward. They described how removing these mandates gives developers more flexibility, reduces upfront costs, and helps projects that might not have penciled out or come together budget-wise actually get built.

Sacramento’s move reflects what we are seeing across California. When you remove unnecessary parking mandates, you give housing a chance to pencil out. You also open the door to more flexible, community-serving uses of space.

This is exactly what we are working toward through SPOT SJ.

Reimagining travel in downtown San Jose

In San Jose, Transform’s SPOT SJ project is showing that parking is not just a constraint — it’s an opportunity. Better parking management can support small businesses, reduce housing costs, and make it easier to repurpose space for people. The question is not whether parking exists. It is how we use it.

What stood out at Housing California was how aligned the broader housing conversation already is with this shift. Panels emphasized transit-oriented development, climate goals, and reinvestment without displacement. All of those goals depend on using land more efficiently.

You cannot fully get there while overbuilding parking that will mostly sit empty.

Centering parking in the housing affordability conversation

If we want to move from policy goals to real outcomes, car parking and transportation need to move from the sidelines to the center of the conversation. Not as technical details, but as core housing strategies.

Because sometimes the most powerful housing solution is not building more. It is removing what gets in the way.

Transform’s Leadership on Transit-Oriented Communities

March 9, 2026/in Blog, Housing, Transit/by Julia Gerasimenko

Last month, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) finalized the framework for the Bay Area’s Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) Policy. The framework will guide how cities qualify for regional transportation funding based on their progress toward building housing near transit.

While the vote marks an important milestone, the TOC Policy is the result of more than two decades of advocacy to align transportation investments with housing, climate, and equity goals. Transform has been part of that effort from the beginning in the Bay Area, championing transit-oriented development as a housing, climate, and equity solution.

Spearheading a movement for transit-oriented development

In the early 2000s, the Bay Area was expanding its transit system but often failed to plan communities around it. New stations were frequently surrounded by parking lots or low-density zoning rather than homes, stores, and comfortably walkable streets.

In 2004, Transform helped lead a regional coalition that released It Takes a Village, a report calling for stronger regional policies to support dense, walkable neighborhoods near transit. The report argued that transit investments should be paired with housing density, limits on excessive parking structures, and safer walking and biking access to stations. It found that Bay Area residents would save over $1.8 billion annually on transportation costs — an average of $600 per household — through transit-oriented development. We would save billions more indirectly from reduced health costs, less time lost to congestion, and a stronger tax base.

Those ideas helped shape the region’s first transit-oriented development policy, adopted by MTC in 2005. While groundbreaking at the time, the policy applied primarily to new transit stations and offered few incentives for cities to adopt supportive land use policies.

Fewer parking spots, more transit

Over the following years, Transform and our partners continued pushing the region to connect transportation investments with housing outcomes. Through research, coalition advocacy, and reports such as Parking Revolution: Housing Solution, Transform highlighted how parking requirements and car-oriented land use policies were limiting the potential of transit investments and making housing more expensive across the Bay Area.

At the same time, regional planning efforts like Plan Bay Area reinforced the need for more homes near transit as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support affordable, walkable communities.

These efforts ultimately helped lead to the adoption of MTC’s Transit-Oriented Communities Policy in 2022. The updated policy expanded the scope of the earlier TOD framework and established expectations for local jurisdictions around housing density near transit, affordable housing production and preservation, parking management, and safe access for people walking, biking, and taking transit.

Just as importantly, the policy began linking progress on these goals to eligibility for regional transportation funding.

Transform continues to campaign for policies supporting infill development

The Bay Area has invested billions of dollars in transit infrastructure. To fully realize the benefits of those investments, the region must also build the homes and neighborhoods that allow people to live near transit and rely less on cars.

In recent months, MTC’s votes on January 28 and February 25 helped solidify how the TOC Policy will interact with major regional funding programs like the One Bay Area Grant, reinforcing the principle that transportation funding should support communities planning to co-locate housing with sustainable transportation.

For Transform, the TOC Policy reflects a long-standing belief that transportation and housing policy must work together. The work to implement the TOC Policy continues, but the progress made so far shows what sustained regional advocacy can achieve. Transform will continue working with partners across the Bay Area to ensure that the policy delivers more affordable homes, stronger communities, and a transportation system that works for everyone.

MTC Links Funding to Sustainable Communities Policy for the First Time with $45M Incentive Program

February 25, 2026/in Blog, Climate Change, Housing, Press Releases, Transit/by Julia Gerasimenko

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 25, 2026

Contact: Zack Deutsch-Gross, [email protected], (415) 637-0101

San Francisco – Today, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission formally adopted the Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) Incentive Program, setting aside $45 million in One Bay Area Grant (OBAG 4) funds to reward cities that adopt housing, parking, and transportation policies that support the building of homes near transit.

Transform applauds MTC’s decision to maintain a strong link between transit and housing through its TOC Policy and OBAG grants. Building new housing near transit is proven to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution, and transportation costs, making it one of the most effective ways to combat climate change.

This vote finalizes an evaluation framework first considered when MTC adopted its original TOC Policy in 2022. The program establishes a 100-point scoring system across four priority categories: density, housing production and tenant protections, parking management, and station access. Jurisdictions must meet scoring thresholds to qualify for OBAG 4 incentive funds.

“As a regional leader and a steward of significant public resources, MTC has a responsibility to advance our collective regional transit, housing, climate, and equity goals,” said Zack Deutsch-Gross, executive director of Transform. “The Commission’s vote today showed real leadership in leveraging regional dollars to support local policies that contribute to those goals.”

The TOC Incentive Program follows MTC’s January approval of the broader OBAG 4 framework, which set aside the funding for the next round of grants. With today’s vote, jurisdictions can apply for grants from the $45 million in OBAG 4 funds if they demonstrate compliance with TOC standards across the four categories. The deadline to qualify for grant funding has been extended to July 1, 2027.

The original TOC Policy, adopted in September 2022, was designed to better align land use and planning decisions within a half mile of transit areas with the Bay Area’s climate, transportation, economic, and housing goals, as articulated in Plan Bay Area. Since then, MTC has debated how tightly to tie transportation funding to specific policies that advance these goals. Today’s vote represents a victory for advocates who have urged the Commission to use OBAG funding as a means to encourage communities to develop affordable, equitable, transit-oriented housing.

“For years, Transform has pushed MTC to tie transportation funding to integrated policy outcomes near transit stations, including tenant protections and smarter parking policies. Today’s vote makes that linkage real,” said Deutsch-Gross.

Transform Urges MTC to Link Funding to Housing and Transit

February 18, 2026/in Blog, Housing, Transportation/by Julia Gerasimenko

On February 25, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) will take its final vote on its Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) Policy. This vote will determine whether the region follows through on linking billions in transportation funding to real progress on affordable housing, tenant protections, and transit-oriented development.

Last month, at its January 28 meeting, MTC advanced major decisions on the One Bay Area Grant (OBAG) program, which distributes billions in regional transportation funding. Commissioners affirmed that OBAG can be used to incentivize jurisdictions to align with regional housing and climate goals. But they also left the door open to weakening the link between funding and TOC compliance.

The February 25 vote will determine whether OBAG remains a meaningful incentive for implementation or becomes disconnected from the housing and land use policies needed to make transit investments succeed. Transform and our allies are organizing to urge MTC not to weaken its TOC policy. You can help by emailing your MTC commissioners.

The TOC policy is how Plan Bay Area gets implemented

The TOC policy is the implementation tool for Plan Bay Area 2050. It aligns transportation funding with local policies that support affordable housing, prevent displacement, and reduce car dependence.

Because MTC cannot require cities to adopt land use policies directly, tying OBAG funding to TOC compliance is an essential lever to encourage compliance. This incentive structure ensures regional funding supports jurisdictions that are taking concrete steps to implement the region’s adopted goals.

Cities across the Bay Area have already begun adopting tenant protections, affordable housing policies, and parking reforms in response to the TOC polixy. Weakening the policy now would undermine that progress.

Weakening TOC would undermine the region’s housing and climate goals

Some commissioners and jurisdictions are pushing to allow cities to qualify for funding without implementing meaningful housing policies. This would defeat the purpose of the TOC policy, which was designed to reward implementation, not simply planning or minimum compliance.

Allowing jurisdictions to qualify without taking action would weaken one of the region’s most important tools for reducing displacement, increasing housing affordability, and supporting transit ridership.

Regional transportation funding should support communities that are taking action to advance regional goals.

On February 25, MTC must uphold a strong TOC policy and follow through on its commitment to link transportation funding with housing and climate outcomes.

Want to take your advocacy to the next level?

Show up to make a comment on Wednesday, February 25 (9:35 AM – 1 PM)

You can show up in person at 375 Beale Street, San Francisco, CA 94105 at 9:35 or on Zoom (link to be released on Friday, February 20).

If you plan to be on Zoom, you can sign up for our Timely Text Alerts to know when the item is up.

We will share sample talking points when the agenda is released.

Tell MTC to Link Funding to Real Housing Outcomes

January 21, 2026/in Blog, Climate Change, Housing/by Julia Gerasimenko

On Wednesday, January 28, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission will take up critical decisions about how regional transportation funding is allocated through the One Bay Area Grant (OBAG) Program.

The January 28 MTC meeting will focus on tying OBAG funding to Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) implementation. A follow-up meeting on February 25 is expected to focus on the TOC Policy itself.

These votes are deeply connected and critically important to the future of sustainable development in the Bay Area.

OBAG is one of the region’s strongest tools for shaping land use, housing, and transportation outcomes. How MTC structures OBAG funding now will either reinforce or undermine the TOC Policy before commissioners even vote on the final details next month.

We urge the Commission to use the January 28 meeting to send a clear signal that:

Regional funding must advance regional goals.
TOC compliance is essential to meeting climate, housing, and equity commitments.
Scarce public dollars should prioritize jurisdictions taking meaningful action toward meeting regional goals.

OBAG funding is one of the few levers MTC has to ensure that local decisions align with regional goals. Decisions the commission makes now will determine whether the TOC policy functions as a meaningful incentive or simply becomes another well-intentioned plan without teeth.

Transform is advocating for a strong policy that uses OBAG funding as an incentive for communities to develop infill housing near transit, reducing car dependency and increasing livability and affordability.

Take action now to send a message to commissioners before their January 28 meeting

The TOC Policy was originally designed to move the Bay Area beyond baseline requirements by encouraging stronger tenant protections, more affordable housing near transit, better station access, and smarter parking policies. While early conversations with MTC suggested strong alignment around linking funding to TOC metrics, there is now a risk that the bar for cities to comply with TOC will be considerably lowered.

Allocating OBAG funding to cities for meeting watered-down minimum requirements will undermine the work of other Bay Area cities that take transit-oriented development much more seriously. Furthermore, the precedent would erode further efforts to hold cities accountable to our climate, transportation, and housing goals.

Email your MTC commissioner today and tell them to fund housing near transit, not more sprawl.

Transform will continue to push for a stronger TOC policy

If MTC is serious about meeting its housing, climate, and transportation goals, it must take a leadership role to ensure that regional funding supports the communities that are stepping up to advance infill housing near transit, reducing car dependency and increasing livability and affordability, not cities that continue to drag their feet and maintain the status quo.

Between now and then, the message is clear: regional dollars should be conditioned on cities implementing policies and programs that support housing and business development that is near transportation, putting public transit in reach for more people and improving the quality of life in the Bay Area.

Transform will be turning out with other advocates and community members in January and February to push for a policy that delivers meaningful outcomes.

Parking Costs Continue to Hold Back Housing Development in San Jose

January 7, 2026/in Blog, Housing, Parking, SPOT SJ/by Julia Gerasimenko

Too many San Jose residents feel the crunch of high rents while seeing downtown sites sit empty. The City of San Jose’s Housing Department is working on a Cost of Development study (not yet released) and has begun to share some findings to shed light on why it remains so expensive to build homes in the city, especially the walkable, transit-oriented, and affordable housing our climate and communities urgently need.

Parking is a major contributor to high costs, which the draft study should give more weight to.

Parking spaces take up land, money, and construction capacity needed for living space

The study notes that podium and wrap apartment buildings (see photo above), which are the backbone of infill housing across the Bay Area, rely on structured or podium parking. Podium parking is a multilevel parking structure, usually on the lower levels of a residential building.

While these types of parking conserve space in dense urban settings, they add millions in costs before a single home becomes available. For a hypothetical podium building, parking accounts for roughly 3% to as much as 20% of hard construction costs, adding significant cost before a single home becomes available. For high-rise towers, structured and subterranean parking can represent a substantial share of total project costs, often tens of millions of dollars, making these projects especially sensitive to even small cost increases.

That cost has a ripple effect across the whole project. Developers must charge higher rents, build fewer affordable units, or not build at all.

The most climate-friendly housing types are not currently feasible to build

The study concludes that podium, wrap, and tower apartment buildings are not financially feasible in San Jose today, even before factoring in land costs. Townhomes and stacked flats pencil out, but these lower-density units cannot meet our housing or climate goals, and often create more car dependence.

SPOT SJ data shows there are already roughly two parking spaces per resident in San Jose. We are not short on space to store cars—we are short on homes.

Parking requirements increase housing costs and reduce affordability

Parking structure costs are especially harmful for affordable housing. The more funding that gets absorbed by parking, the fewer homes that can be built for people.

The cost study confirms that fees and taxes can add as much as $72,000 per unit in some parts of San Jose. Parking is a major driver of these costs because it increases the size, complexity, and footprint of a project.

When land is scarce, smarter parking means more homes

Reducing parking frees up space on the ground: more street trees, safer sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and outdoor dining instead of more asphalt. This is how SPOT SJ imagines streets that serve people first.

The study finds that modest changes in development costs or rent levels could make midrise construction feasible again. Reducing the amount of costly structured parking is one of the most effective ways to achieve that. Even a 5-15% shift could unlock thousands of units in walkable neighborhoods.

Parking reform is a powerful lever that’s within the city’s control at a time when interest rates, materials, and financing remain stubbornly expensive.

What comes next

There is no single solution to solve California’s housing crisis. But we do know one thing with certainty: we cannot afford to keep devoting so much space and money to storing cars instead of housing people.

San Jose has the chance to lead California in building for our communities and our climate. Reducing the amount of parking in new developments and modernizing our streets to prioritize equitable, accessible, active transportation choices are crucial steps toward more affordable, sustainable housing.

Transform Opposes Anti-Housing Measure in Menlo Park

December 4, 2025/in Blog, Housing, Parking, Press Releases/by Zack Deutsch-Gross

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dec 4, 2025

Media Contact: Zack Deutsch-Gross, Executive Director, Transform, [email protected], 415.637.0101

The 2026 citizens’ ballot initiative is a nakedly NIMBY attempt to prioritize parking over people

A citizens’ initiative to block affordable housing on three city-owned parking lots in Menlo Park has now qualified for the November 2026 ballot. The City of Menlo Park had planned for at least 345 affordable homes on the site, but, if the initiative passes, it would be forced to run a citywide ballot measure before it could sell the land or “permanently diminish the availability, access, or convenience of parking”—a prerequisite to building affordable housing on the site.

“Replacing empty parking lots with affordable housing is a no-brainer, especially in Menlo Park, where there are already great Caltrain, Samtrans, and free shuttle options,” says Transform’s Executive Director Zack Deutsch-Gross. “Transform strongly opposes this retrograde measure that places more value on car storage that sits empty much of the time than badly-needed homes for families.”

The measure would prohibit Menlo Park from selling, leasing, donating, disposing of, or conveying city-owned downtown parking lots without approval by a majority of voters. This would delay and possibly derail the city’s plan to build affordable housing on the sites.

“San Mateo’s problems of displacement, homelessness, and long commutes will get worse if voters approve this measure,” said Transform’s Housing and Parking Policy Manager Julia Gerasimenko. “Not only will it take us further from our housing goals, but it will undercut transit investments and hurt local businesses in the long run.”

The measure would also require that if the city intends to make any physical alterations to the downtown parking lots that would permanently diminish the availability, access, or convenience of parking, then the city must submit to the voters a subsequent ballot measure seeking authority to make such alterations prior to implementation. The measure further disallows any actions “which would diminish the availability, access or convenience of public parking for Downtown customers, workers and visitors.”

Parking is never free. It takes up precious civic space that could be devoted to other uses, such as more affordable housing to alleviate the critical shortage of affordable units throughout California and particularly on the Peninsula. Almost one-third of downtown Menlo Park is already dedicated to off-street parking. Residents and business owners pay for this overabundance of parking spots through higher rents, higher retail prices, and missed opportunities to build affordable housing or green space.

Transform’s report, Parking Revolution/Housing Solution, showed how excess parking capacity generates higher vehicle ownership, traffic, and pollution, and reduces incentives for more affordable transportation modes. The Menlo Park initiative is a regressive and short-sighted attempt to lock the city into outmoded and disproven land use priorities, keeping the downtown core from becoming the vibrant, people-centered space it has the potential to be.

In addition to the parking and transit costs, the measure could make Menlo Park miss its housing development target, which is required by state law. If successful, it could create a new playbook for blocking affordable homes across California. Transform is committed to opposing this measure, which endangers Menlo Park and the entire Bay Area’s housing and transportation needs.

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Transform works to ensure that people of all incomes thrive in a world safe from climate chaos. We envision vibrant neighborhoods, transformed by excellent, sustainable mobility options and affordable housing, where those historically impacted by racist disinvestment now have power and voice.

Transit-Oriented Community Development Threatened in MTC Policy Update

November 11, 2025/in Blog, Housing, Policy/by Julia Gerasimenko

Urgent update 11/18/25:

At the end of October, at a Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) workshop, commissioners took a deep dive into two linked efforts that will shape the Bay Area’s growth for decades to come: implementation of the Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) Policy and development of the next One Bay Area Grant program (OBAG 4) which is set to provide approximately $200 million in funding for regional transportation and housing projects per year over the next four years.

Transform joined coalition partners from across the region to speak in strong support of keeping the TOC Policy intact and ensuring that local compliance remains tied to regional funding. While the workshop was purely informational, the discussion offered a preview of the debate to come when the commissioners vote on the OBAG 4 framework early next year.

A turning point for the region’s housing and climate goals

The Transit-Oriented Communities Policy is the engine behind the Plan Bay Area 2050 vision of affordable and connected communities. It asks cities and counties to plan for more homes and jobs near transit, adopt tenant protections, reform parking requirements, and improve station access. Together, these four components — density, housing, parking, and station access — form a framework to cut greenhouse gas emissions, reduce driving, and enable people of all incomes to live near opportunity.

Yet, as staff described at the workshop, local governments have pushed back on both the pace and complexity of compliance. Smaller jurisdictions cited limited capacity and resources; others objected to density and parking standards they view as unrealistic in the current market. In response, MTC staff have proposed a shift toward an “incentive-based” scoring system that awards partial credit to jurisdictions that show progress, even if they haven’t yet adopted TOC policies. See the slides below from MTC staff for the proposed changes, how municipalities may be scored, and then linked to OBAG 4 funds for the example “Bay City.”

Other proposed changes would grant full points for “work in progress” and reduce the weighting of certain parking and density standards. Meeting these standards will truly reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT), an area in which the region is already struggling to meet its targets year after year.

These adjustments may seem technical, but they matter. Weakening one pillar of the TOC Policy undermines the entire structure. The elements are designed to complement one another, and they carry enough weight to meet the ambitious goals of Plan Bay Area only when they work together.

Why MTC’s TOC policy matters

At Transform, we’re making advocacy around the TOC Policy a priority campaign because it touches on our core values: expanding the availability of affordable housing and building infill housing near transit as a climate remedy.

Specifically:

It connects housing, climate, and transportation goals. The TOC Policy turns the vision of Plan Bay Area 2050 into reality by encouraging more homes near transit and fewer long car commutes.
It centers equity. The policy’s housing menu supports the “3Ps” framework — production, preservation, and protection — ensuring residents can stay in their communities as they grow.
It links funding to accountability. By tying OBAG dollars to local compliance, MTC can make sure regional funds reward cities that are moving toward shared goals.

Mixed messages from MTC

During public comment, Transform and partner organizations representing affordable housing, environmental, and community-based groups urged MTC to maintain the integrity of the TOC framework and keep OBAG 4 funding linked to full policy compliance.

Commissioners’ reactions reflected the range of opinions in the room. Several expressed support for the staff’s partial-credit proposal or questioned the inclusion of tenant protection policies altogether. Others — including Commissioners Schaaf, Fleming, and Jean-Baptiste — spoke up to correct misinformation, emphasizing that the TOC does not mandate rent control and that Plan Bay Area 2050 relies on widespread TOC implementation to meet climate targets. The debate revealed both the stakes and the persistent misunderstanding of what the TOC Policy is designed to do: reward jurisdictions that plan responsibly, not punish those that don’t.

Transform’s perspective: stay strong, stay aligned

From our vantage point, the partial-credit scheme risks turning years of planning into a scoring exercise rather than real progress on housing, equity, and climate. MTC cannot meet its own greenhouse gas reduction and affordability targets if it signals that half measures are enough. Linking OBAG 4 funding eligibility to TOC compliance is not a penalty; it is a fair and effective way to ensure scarce regional dollars support communities moving toward California’s climate goals.

Transform’s strategic plan calls for advancing equitable, climate-smart growth that centers the voices of historically underinvested communities. The TOC Policy embodies that vision. As we detailed in our blog, Linking Growth to Regional Goals, and our Parking Revolution: Housing Solution report, aligning funding, housing, and transportation decisions is essential to building thriving, affordable neighborhoods near transit. Diluting the TOC requirements now would undo that progress and erode public trust in regional planning.

What’s next

MTC is expected to vote in January 2026 on the OBAG 4 framework, which will determine how federal transportation dollars are distributed across the Bay Area and whether TOC compliance remains part of that equation. Between now and then, MTC committees will continue refining the framework and responding to stakeholder feedback.

Transform will remain deeply engaged in that process, working alongside partners to ensure that the TOC Policy delivers on its promise: affordable homes near transit, strong tenant protections, and fewer car-dependent commutes.

This is the moment for commissioners to stand by the commitments they made in 2022 and keep the TOC strong, equitable, and accountable to the goals of Plan Bay Area 2050+.

Traffic Congestion Is a Housing and Transit Problem, Not a Highway Problem

October 22, 2025/in Blog, Housing, Transportation/by Zack Deutsch-Gross

One of the hardest aspects of transportation advocacy is that the solutions to transportation problems are often counterintuitive. Induced demand or induced travel is the best-known example of this: when you widen a highway, that encourages more people to drive on it, returning congestion to the original levels within a few years. But what we’re missing is that traffic congestion isn’t a problem that can ever be solved by building more or wider roads, because it’s not a problem with the highway.

Yet Caltrans keeps planning highway expansions, and California legislators and the governor continue to prop up these unsustainable projects.

Picking up the right tools to solve congestion

The United States has spent decades and trillions of dollars prioritizing driving and car-centric infrastructure. As a result, there will always be more demand for driving at peak hours than there will be space on the roadway. Thankfully, there are better ways to reduce congestion, like building infill, affordable housing near jobs, schools, and transit hubs, plus adding bus, walking, and rolling options.

Unfortunately, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In California, Caltrans is tasked with maintaining the highways and many state routes that wind through towns and cities, often serving as local roads and streets. This includes responding to problems on the roads, including backed-up traffic and slow travel times. For decades, Caltrans’ only tool to solve congestion has been roadbuilding, so that’s what it does — to the tune of $20 billion a year.

To truly solve California’s tangled traffic, we need to take the problem out of the hands of the road builders and address the root causes of congestion: building more affordable housing near jobs and improving public transportation options.

Wrong solutions create more problems

State Route 37, which connects Vallejo and other Solano County communities to Marin County and beyond, is the Bay Area poster child for wrong-headed highway widening. Caltrans proposes to spend $500 million to add lanes to a section of the roadway that will be underwater within the next couple of decades due to sea level rise. It’s a high price to pay for a very transitory solution.

And money isn’t the only cost of this destructive highway project. Governor Gavin Newsom just signed AB 697. The bill lifts limits on killing endangered species in the delicate marshland adjacent to the roadway during construction, clearing the way for Caltrans to bulldoze its plan through.

But even without the looming spectre of climate change, the SR 37 project won’t fix congestion because it doesn’t address its causes. Marin County has more jobs than households, thanks to thriving businesses and tourist attractions, plus a strong science and technology industry, and workers gravitate to job centers in these locations. Meanwhile, Vallejo and neighboring communities on the other side of the Baylands have something the North Bay counties don’t: cheaper housing. The average rent for a three-bedroom unit in Vallejo is $2,476, while rent for the same unit in Marin is double that, at $4,995 a month. So workers in lower-income sectors —like the people who keep restaurants, hotels, tasting rooms, and spas running — are often forced to look far from their work to find housing they can afford.

The lack of affordable housing near jobs in North Bay communities is compounded by a lack of frequent and reliable public transit. This leaves workers with no choice but to drive between work and home, clogging SR 37.

Widening a section of this highway to ease the congestion is like taking pain medication for a broken arm, but not setting the bone. You might feel better for a while, but you haven’t solved the problem.

Housing and transit are better investments

According to California’s Department of Housing and Community Development, Marin County needs to build over 14,000 units of new housing by 2031 to keep up with its housing needs. Building these homes is one of the best ways to reduce congestion — much better than adding new lanes to a highway that will simply be new surfaces for congestion in a few years. A report on the impact of California’s successful Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program showed that building 20,000 homes took more than 40,000 cars off the road each year. With a $500 million public investment, affordable housing developers could help finance thousands of housing units in the North Bay.

Single-occupancy vehicles are a wildly inefficient way to move humans from one place to another. A recent study by the Climate and Community Institute modeled the impact of shifting $1 billion in highway spending to public transit. The study found that this shift saved almost $200,000 in congestion-related costs, as well as reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by more than 1.8 million annually. Putting $500 million toward improved transit options would do much more to ease congestion on overcrowded roads like SR 37.

Highways aren’t drainpipes

Even the smartest engineer will come up with the wrong answer when they start with the wrong assumptions. For decades, our road planners have assumed that roads function like drainpipes: iIf the pipe is overflowing, get a wider pipe to handle the flow.

A better metaphor for the network of streets and highways that connect our communities is as an expression of our desires, frustrations, and aspirations. Our roads show where we’ve failed by backing up traffic when transit and housing options are suboptimal. They show what we wish for with people creating ad hoc walkways to cut through too-long blocks and bike riders on sidewalks where streets are too dangerous. But our transportation systems can also highlight the best of us, lifting up our shared humanity and strengthening our social fabric, from the ubiquitous smile and head-nod of strangers riding the bus to the wave of a toddler zooming past on the back of an e-bike.

Highway widening as the go-to solution for traffic congestion is a failure of attention and imagination. We need to direct the attention of the decision makers who allocate funding for transportation, housing, and transit to the true causes of congestion. And we need to expand our imagination of what’s possible to solve congestion from what has always been to what actually works.

Transform is leading the fight to move beyond highways as the answer to every transportation challenge. We’re working to find real solutions that improve people’s lives and stop climate change. We hope you’ll join us.