The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) recently released its final blueprint of Plan Bay Area 2050+, the region’s latest long-range plan to address transportation, housing, the economy, and the environment over the next 30 years. According to MTC, Plan Bay Area 2050+ is “an opportunity to refine select plan strategies to integrate the lessons of the last three years.” 

Unfortunately, much of the plan could have been written for the past 30 years, as it continues highway expansion policies that worsen congestion and contribute to a warming planet while continuing to under-invest in active and public transportation infrastructure, making the Bay Area less affordable for the average working family. 

A recently released project list details $45 billion in highway projects over the next 30 years. While that represents about 9% of MTC’s total projected transportation investment, a smaller percentage than other metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and California’s state transportation budget put toward highway widening, much of the highway spending is front-loaded at the beginning of the plan, undercutting transit, walking, and biking investments while baking in congestion, pollution, and emissions for the next three decades.

Plan Bay Area 2050+ will likely fail to meet its emissions reduction target

As part of Senate Bill 375, MTC is required to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions from passenger vehicles by 19% by 2035. As our state contends with horrific wildfires during a wildfire season that extends year-round while also battling floods and drought, hitting this goal is more important than ever. However, according to the California Air Resources Board’s emission-tracking dashboard, we are moving in the wrong direction, with regional GHGs and vehicle miles traveled exceeding pre-pandemic levels. 

Unfortunately, based on the transportation project list, we’re concerned that Plan Bay Area 2050+ is unlikely to achieve the required emissions reduction. Of the $45 billion dedicated to highways, over a third, about $16 billion, is earmarked for highway expansion, interchanges, and ramp widening, which all generate significant emissions and don’t even reduce congestion. 

While the highway investment represents a fraction of the overall plan, it has an outsized climate impact. According to research from Georgetown Climate Center, you would need 10 times the investment in intercity rail to offset the emissions generated by each lane mile of highway expansion. 

Making matters worse, Transform has already raised concerns about two of these highway expansion projects, SR 37 and I-680. We believe these projects will have much larger negative VMT and emissions impacts than MTC is projecting. 

Front-loading climate destruction

MTC has put much of the highway widening in the first 10 years of the plan, baking in climate-killing emissions for the duration of the plan and ensuring maximum damage from the additional vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Nearly 80% of the highway expansion and 41 out of 88 projects are slated for the early years of the plan.

At the same time, some of the most effective greenhouse gas reduction strategies — all-lane tolling and pricing parking — won’t begin until 2035 at the earliest. We are already late in deploying these tools; we cannot and should not wait another 10 years before we take significant steps to reduce driving.

MTC — and all of California’s state and regional agencies — must stop acting like climate change is anything but an emergency. While Plan Bay Area 2050+ is an improvement on previous plans, it is simply not aggressive enough to compensate for decades of nonstop highway expansion. We can act quickly when needed; the actions already taken to respond to and streamline rebuilding after the Los Angeles fires demonstrate that. We need the same sense of urgency in addressing the climate emergency that we have in rebuilding after the catastrophes it causes or makes worse.

We need a better direction for the Bay Area’s transportation future

The projects included in Plan Bay Area 2050+ will set the funding decisions and priorities for the Bay Area’s transportation, housing, environment, and economy for the next 30 years, so getting this right is critical. Setting the wrong priorities or front-loading funding to projects that aren’t aligned with the priorities could lead to missed funding opportunities and missed climate goals.

Transform’s advocacy will inform the final blueprint, which the MTC will approve this spring. MTC will then send it to the California Air Resources Board, which must approve it and certify that it will meet sustainable communities strategy goals. We will continue advocating as the agencies involved finalize the plan over the next year, working to eliminate highway widening and expand funding for programs that support climate mitigation and the affordable, accessible, sustainable transportation options the Bay Area needs.