THE INSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES OF DEVELOPING MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: THE IMPLICATIONS FOR ITS PLANNING AND DEPLOYMENT

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is the Regional Transportation Planning Agency (RTPA) for the San Francisco Bay Area, which includes nine counties over 100 municipalities and 25 transit operators. As both the RTPA (under state law) and the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) (under federal law) for the area, MTC is responsible for assisting public agencies under its jurisdiction to carry out all policies, regulations, or other requirements related to the award or disbursement of federal, state, and regional transportation funds. MTC has undertaken the task of developing a multimodal, intermodal transportation system management strategy to guide both short term investment decision-making for the Bay Area. The formulation of a management strategy was an essential first step to the evaluation of ITS user services for the region. MTC has undertaken this endeavor with the Bay Area Partnership, a coalition of 36 top managers from public agencies involved in transportation and environmental protection at the local, regional, state, and federal levels. In undertaking this project, MTC and the Bay Area Partnership recognized that the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation System (MTS) is managed, but not as a system. Each element of the system is micromanaged by operating agencies. The goal of the project was to articulate an overall strategy for management and operation of the transportation system. MTC and the Partnership undertook a process of implementing the management strategy in a series of corridor-oriented, cooperative management workshops. These workshops were completed in three corridors as a test of the concept and produced significant conclusions about the viability of a systemwide approach to regional transportation systems management. Numerous lessons were learned about the human and organizational dynamics that make the development and implementation of effective interjurisdictional management strategies difficult. The effort was successful in the Bay Area largely because of the strong leadership and financial support of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The process followed by MTC successfully laid the ground work for consideration of ITS user services throughout the region.