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This is a time of significant flux in the Bay Area’s regional planning landscape.

First, there is a serious proposal in the California State Legislature to change the way the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is governed. MTC is the main funder of transportation in the Bay Area. The proposal, Assembly Bill 57, would add seats on this commission for the cities of San Jose and Oakland. It would be the first change to the allocation of seats on the MTC since it was formed in 1970.

At the same time, the MTC and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) are leading the Bay Area’s implementation of Senate Bill 375, which mandated that every region in California come up with a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by changing land uses to reduce driving.

Finally, as the Bay Area continues to face slow job growth, there is increasing talk about whether the MTC, ABAG and other regional agencies can play a stronger supportive role in economic development.

In early December, SPUR was asked to testify at both a state senate hearing and at the Bay Area’s Joint Policy Committee, which represents the four regional government agencies: the MTC, ABAG, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). We answered questions about how economic development happens, the role of regional agencies in fostering it and the challenges specific to the Bay Area. Here’s a recap:

How does economic development take place?

We started by describing some basic theory about local economic development policy. It’s important to keep in mind that local and regional policy tools to affect the economy are in some ways very limited. Many “fundamentals” of the economy — such as how expensive your currency is, the cost of credit, the structure of patent law and the number of immigrants who are allowed to move into a region — are beyond the control of local or regional government. And of course, the vast majority of economic decisions take place in interactions between firms and consumers, and these can only be indirectly influenced by policy of any kind. But keeping the limits of economic development policy in perspective, there are still some important steps that we should take:

Our first task is to produce an analytic description of what drives our economy (what we export, how competitive our industries are).

Second, we need to understand what local and regional factors shape this competitiveness. This includes our systems of education finance, infrastructure and local policy, as well as our general quality of life.

Third, we bring leaders in business, government, and higher education together to shape a forward-looking economic strategy. This process cannot be entirely led by the public sector, but it must have strong government support and backing.

SPUR argued that it is not appropriate for the Joint Policy Committee to be the lead entity in producing a regional economic strategy. The best economic development efforts bring firms, government agencies, educational institutions and other stakeholders together to shape a strategy. We suggested that the Bay Area should move toward the creation of something like a regional economic development commission with both public and private leadership, whose role is to produce, manage and continually update a regional economic strategy.

What are the Bay Area’s key regional planning and economic challenges?

The region faces three daunting challenges that affect both economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability:

1.     Slow job growth

2.     Increasing job sprawl and declining density of employment

3.     High reliance on car commuting

SPUR thinks that the future requires a change in how we go about regional planning and economic development.

Our competitors — urban areas around the world such as Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong and Singapore —differ from the Bay Area in two important ways. First, these other metropolitan areas are better coordinated regionally. They have forward-thinking economic development strategies and local and regional government structures that foster collaboration, prioritization and investment. Second, they have high employment density. That is, many of their workers are in dense settings where they can share ideas and collaborate. Sure, those places still envy the Silicon Valley idea-generation machine, which continually spins out successful companies. But our key advantages (education, research, infrastructure) are increasingly threatened. In the past, the economic benefits of agglomeration (dense groupings of complementary companies, suppliers and industries) did not require urbanism or urban places. In the future it will.

Given this, we think future Bay Area competitiveness will require locating more jobs in denser urban centers — places like downtown Palo Alto, Berkeley, San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco — as well as increasing the density in suburban job locations such as office parks and corporate campuses. In fact, SPUR will be releasing a major study on these ideas in January 2012.

What is the role of regional agencies in fostering economic development?

We argued that there are two key roles for the regional agencies.

First, they should take seriously the question of job location and distribution, what we’ve often called “job sprawl.” This means enacting some of the following policy changes:

• Pursuing tools to make dense and densifying job centers more attractive financially (e.g. changes to tax policy or air quality rules for indirect emissions)
• Changing the region’s transit expansion and transit-oriented development policy to reward or require jobs near transit (current rules only require planning for housing near transit)
• Pricing on highways in order to raise needed funds for new infrastructure (current plans for road pricing do not raise any additional revenue for transit)
• Block grants focused on transit-served dense places (this is a live proposal at ABAG and MTC)

Second, they should look more closely at the economic impact of their plans, policies and programs. In short, MTC and other regional agencies ought to consider how their investments and policies will affect local and regional economic growth. For our purposes, this is broader than simply assessing how a decision might affect the regulatory environment for firms.

How does this all relate to regional governance and the distribution of seats on the MTC?

The question of regional governance is related to how the Bay Area can best improve its economic competitiveness. SPUR has been looking at this question specifically around the current allocation of seats on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Assembly Bill 57 would increase the total number of MTC commissioners from 19 to 21 and the number of county seats from 14 to 16 (three each for Santa Clara and Alameda, two each for San Francisco, San Mateo and Contra Costa, and one each for Marin, Napa, Sonoma and Solano).

Objectively, there are legitimate reasons to change MTC’s allocation of seats. A lot has changed since MTC was formed in 1970.

Santa Clara County today has 25 percent of the region’s jobs and people but only 14 percent of the seats (two of 14 seats allocated by county). Alameda has more than 20 percent of jobs and people but only two seats. San Francisco has two seats, 12 percent of the people and 17 percent of the jobs. When looking at representation for our three biggest cities, there is even greater underrepresentation today: San Franciso, San Jose and Oakland only have two seats among them (i.e. San Francisco’s) yet combined they have 35 percent of the population and 30 percent of the jobs. In short, the current allocation of seats does not fairly distribute power among the counties or cities.

The proposal outlined in the State Assembly Bill 57 calls for adding an additional seat for San Jose and another for Oakland. That would change the allocation of seats and make a slightly more even distribution.

Yet, we also question whether or not changing the allocation of seats will lead to dramatically different results. Few votes at MTC are close, and even fewer are won or lost by one vote. Some have noted that both Alameda and Santa Clara counties have had a third seat over the years (as the seat representing ABAG).

Ultimately, what matters most for MTC and the region is the perception of fairness and the ongoing willingness of leaders in the various cities and counties to collaborate. Santa Clara sees the mismatch in seats and thinks this harms the legitimacy of MTC. San Francisco and other areas have their own critiques and grievances about aging transit systems and other investment needs they do not think get sufficient attention. But to bring it back to economic development, what we should mostly focus on in how San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco can collaborate on the big needs of the day:

• Getting high speed rail built
• Putting transit systems on stronger financial ground and better connecting them to each other
• Locating more employment in dense urban settings

We have no choice but to work on these and other challenges — no matter how the MTC seats are allocated. What we must avoid is letting the current disagreements over MTC seats affect our ability to collaborate. There is too much at stake.

In San Francisco, traffic planners are reversing the outdated, 20th-century strategy of engineering downtown streets into multi-lane, one-way motorways.

Last month, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) converted a one-way commercial stretch of eastern Hayes Street to a calmer two-way traffic configuration. It’s just one project in a larger move toward making streets less focused on whisking cars through town and returning them to places for walking, bicycling, efficient transit and civic life. In August, the SFMTA also converted McAllister Street for two-way traffic, and it is developing similar plans for the east end of Haight Street and several streets in the Tenderloin and SoMa districts.

The paradigm of multi-lane, one-way streets  dominated urban transportation planning in the United States after World War II, resulting in the widespread conversion of downtown streets into one-way thoroughfares. The sounds, smells and sense of danger from fast-moving car traffic have driven pedestrians, and businesses, of off these routes, transit lines have been forced onto longer routes and bicycling has become too perilous for most people.

But that’s all changing in San Francisco. In the SFMTA’s latest project, two-blocks of Hayes Street (from Gough to Van Ness) were reconfigured for two-way traffic, as called for in the Market-Octavia Plan to suit “the street’s commercial nature and role as the heart of Hayes Valley.” The street’s previous one-way configuration had been implemented in the mid-1950s to give priority to motor vehicles passing through from Ninth Street to the one-way Fell and Oak streets. The new traffic pattern should increase local activity and make this stretch of Hayes a calmer, more inviting environment.

Two-way Hayes is also a step towards a more efficient route for eastbound 21-Hayes Muni buses heading into downtown, which previously made three extra turns and several additional stops in order to navigate around the street’s westbound-only section. (The bus turns left at Laguna Street, right on Grove Street, and right again at Polk Street before making a sharp left onto Market Street). If two-way traffic is eventually extended all the way to Market Street and overhead trolley wires are moved, buses could have a more direct route.

Other two-way configurations have proven to be wholly positive for transit and other alternative modes. On McAllister, Muni’s 5-Fulton line is already zooming through its new two-way configuration, which restored eastbound access for buses, bicycles and taxis along its east end, saving an average of 3 minutes per trip and $200,000 per year in operating costs on the line.

In 2014, the two-way Haight Street project will bring the city’s first painted bus-only lanes, and plans are also being developed for a two-way Folsom Street in the SoMa district. By the end of this year, the SFMTA says it will two-way portions of Eddy and Ellis streets, as called for along with Leavenworth and Jones in the Tenderloin/Little Saigon Transportation Study.

At this year's Silver SPUR Awards Luncheon, SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf reflected on the contrasts between what he called "the totally dysfunctional state of our country right now and the remarkably functional state of our city and region." We are at a moment in history, he says, where solutions to the big problems are not coming out of Washington — they’re coming out of action at the local and regional level.

Watch the speech:
 

Find Gabriel's message inspiring? Give a year end gift to SPUR >>

With Election 2011 finally past, San Francisco voters have sent several very clear messages to our local officials. Outside of the much-discussed mayor’s race, there were some important items on the ballot this year, and voters appear to have ignored the noise and focused on the business at hand. Not only did we have the shortest ballot for a mayoral election in more than 50 years, but we managed to address some of our most pressing challenges. What was on voters’ minds?

1. We need to invest in infrastructure. Bonds for both schools and roads passed, signaling that voters are focused on the fundamentals. Proposition A was the third in a series of three bonds to retrofit the city’s schools, and it passed with more than 70 percent (but required only 55 percent). Proposition B, however, was a more unconventional funding approach for the city’s streets and roads. While issuing debt may not be the most desirable mechanism for these types of repairs, voters clearly recognized a pressing need for investment, and perhaps acknowledged that further delay could cost taxpayers significantly more.

2. Cost containment is a priority, and pension reform is a major piece of that puzzle. While many may not quite understand the technical complexities of the city’s pension system, voters clearly grasp the need for city workers to share in the pain during this down economy. There aren’t many places workers can find defined-benefit retirement plans these days, but that really wasn’t the point. Voters clearly supported the consensus-based process that led to Proposition C, which passed by more than 69 percent. Meanwhile, the competing pension proposal on the ballot (Proposition D) was defeated by an equal margin (66 percent against). We can only hope voters recognize that this is a $1.2 billion downpayment on what is a much larger problem funding pension benefits. A statewide conversation on this is also coming soon.

3. Keep your hands off our ballot. Changing the ballot initiative process is never easy, but voters either disagree about the reforms of Proposition E or weren’t sure what the implications were. There were many conflicting analyses of Prop. E — including many inaccuracies — but ultimately voters opposed the idea of initiative reform, even if only for measures originating at the Board of Supervisors. SPUR continues to support ballot reforms that make sure voter approval is reserved for matters that cannot be handled by elected officials. The ballot is a blunt (and expensive) instrument both for enacting ordinances and amending them. It’s important to remember: For every measure approved by voters, every little change must again be approved by the voters, no matter how large or small.

4. Now is not the time for taxes. Bonds are fine, just not taxes. Proposition G —  Mayor Lee’s sales tax proposal — required support from two-thirds of voters for approval. Unfortunately, it didn’t even make it to 50 percent. While it could be said that the measure was not the right solution to the city’s revenue woes, it was also a signal that voters did not think that regressive tools such as sales taxes were the right tool in a down economy — even for public safety and social services.

In many ways, it could be said that this election was about a return to priorities, even in spite of the meager turnout (barely 40 percent, at the last tally). With the considerable funds spent on the mayor’s race, it’s amazing that some very important measures on the ballot were able to break through the noise.

How did each of the measures — and SPUR recommendations — fare?

* Requires 55% support to pass
** Requires two-thirds support to pass