Metropolitan Transportation Commission (San Francisco Bay Area)

Duties

MTC is designated a regional transportation planning agency (RTPA) by the State of California and a metropolitan planning organization (MPO) by the federal government. MTC is not the Bay Area's council of governments (COG); the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) holds that role.

MTC administers state-provided money through the Transportation Development Act (TDA) and has decision-making authority over the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP). MTC administers federal funding through various grant programs, including the Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) Program, Low Income Flexible Transportation (LIFT) Program, and Innovative Climate Grants Program.

MTC has overseen administration of toll revenue collected on the eight State-owned bridges in the Bay Area through the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) since 2005. From 1997 through 2004, BATA administered only a portion of the toll revenue.

Since 1999, MTC has worked to implement a regional transit fare-collection system called Clipper (formerly TransLink), where transit riders use a single card to pay fares on the region's different transit systems.

MTC manages various regional operational programs, including 511, the Freeway Service Patrol (FSP), call boxes, ridesharing, FasTrak electronic toll collection, regional pavement management (including the pavement management system software StreetSaver), arterial operations, and regional signal timing programs.

MTC operates a library that jointly supports MTC and ABAG. The library, which is open to the public, has a collection covering transportation and planning issues for the Bay Area.

Budget

MTC's annual budget in 2019 was $1.36 billion. The MTC collected $724.9 million in toll revenue in 2019. The MTC received $372 million in grants from the state and federal government and sales tax.

At the end of 2019, MTC had $3.5 billion in cash.

Projects

Clipper START

In July 2020, MTC, in partnership with Muni, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit, and BART, launched an 18 month pilot program to offer discount of 50% (20% for BART) for Bay Area residents at 200% of the region's federal poverty level. In October 2020, among the covid-19 pandemic, MTC voted to expand to up to 17 more transit agencies. MTC subsidizes 10% of the discount, the rest is paid by the agencies. In the first three months only 1,829 START applications were approved. In December 2023, there were 26,700 START enrollees and, in 2024 the number increased to 47,200. By February 2025, more than six million total trips were taken via the START program.

Governing structure

MTC is guided by a 21-member board of commissioners:

• Sixteen commissioners are appointed by local elected officials.
  • The five most populous counties have two representatives each: The respective counties' board of supervisors select one representative, and the mayors of the cities within the respective counties appoint the other.
  • The Mayor of Oakland and the Mayor of San Jose each appoint a commissioner
  • The four remaining counties appoint one commissioner each, with the commissioners representing both the cities and the board of supervisors for their respective counties.
• Two members represent regional agencies: ABAG and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.
• Three non-voting members are appointed to represent the federal housing department and federal and state transportation agencies. MTC is headquartered in San Francisco and has approximately 289 employees. In July 2016, the ABAG board approved the consolidation of its staff under MTC, combining the work of the Bay Area's two primary regional planning agencies. The current Chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission is Napa County Supervisor Alfredo Pedroza

References

References

1. "Comprehensive annual financial report".
2. "About MTC".
3. [http://www.mtc.ca.gov/library/ Library]
4. "MTC Annual Financial Report 2019".
5. "New Clipper Start Program Offers Transit Fare Discounts For Low-Income Riders".
6. "More fare discounts likely for low-income Bay Area transit riders: ‘There is so much hardship’".
7. "Clipper START Pilot Update".
8. Lewis, Brandon. (2025-06-02). "Fare collection updates from MTC, Cincinnati Metro".
9. (30 January 2017). "ABAG-MTC Staff Consolidation Overview". Association of Bay Area Governments.
10. (17 March 2021). "Commissioners".