AB 2057

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Existing law creates the Metropolitan Transportation Commission as a local area planning agency for the 9-county San Francisco Bay area with comprehensive regional transportation planning and other related responsibilities. Existing law creates various transit districts located in the San Francisco Bay area, with specified powers and duties relative to providing public transit services. Existing law establishes the Transportation Agency consisting of various state agencies under the supervision of an executive officer known as the Secretary of Transportation, who is required to develop and report to the Governor on legislative, budgetary, and administrative programs to accomplish comprehensive, long-range, and coordinated planning and policy formulation in the matters of public interest related to the agency. This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation that would create a transportation network manager for the 9-county San Francisco Bay area to, among other things, integrate all aspects of public transit within the 9-county San Francisco Bay area and provide leadership and accountability in planning, coordinating, and financing the transportation network. The bill would establish a 19-member Bay Area Seamless Transit Task Force to recommend to the Legislature the structure, governance, and funding of the transportation network manager and the organizational structure, governance, and funding for San Francisco Bay area transportation agencies, and other reforms to the San Francisco Bay area's local, regional, and state public agencies, that should be enacted in future legislation to maximize the effectiveness of the public transit system in the San Francisco Bay area. The bill would require the Secretary of Transportation to convene the task force by April 1, 2021. The bill would require the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to provide staffing to the task force to aid it in the performance of its duties, and would require the Legislative Analyst's Office to advise the task force in the performance of its duties. The bill would require the task force to submit a report to the Legislature on or before January 1, 2023, of its findings and recommendations and a summary of its activities. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2027. (2) Existing law requires the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, in coordination with a specified regional transit coordinating council, to adopt rules and regulations to promote the coordination of fares and schedules for all public transit systems within its jurisdiction. This bill would require the commission, in consultation with transit agencies, on or before January 1, 2022, (A) to create standardized discount categories and eligibility requirements for fare discount programs for seniors, students, youth, and other rider categories, and (B) to create a multimodal, multiagency pilot program to implement an accumulator pass that may be used with one regional rail agency and at least one transit agency. The bill would require the regional rail agency and the transit agency or agencies selected to participate in the pilot program to offer the accumulator pass to the public on or before July 1, 2022. The bill would require the commission to prepare a plan, on or before July 1, 2023, to deploy the Clipper card payment system on passenger trains operated on the Capitol Corridor and on passenger trains operated by the Altamont Corridor Express. The bill would require the commission, in the next upgrade to the Clipper card payment system, to enable customers to pay for paratransit, parking at transit stations, and employer and educational institution transit discount programs. The bill would require the commission on or before January 1, 2022, to submit a copy of a specified transit fare study undertaken by the commission to certain committees of the Legislature and the Bay Area Seamless Transit Task Force. The bill would require the commission to submit a report on or before January 1, 2023, to those entities on the progress of implementing the recommendations of that study. (3) Existing law authorizes the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to improve service coordination and effectiveness in specified transit corridors by recommending improvements in those corridors, including the reduction of duplicative service and institution of coordinated service across public transit system boundaries. This bill would require the commission, in consultation with transit agencies, on or before July 1, 2023, to develop a comprehensive, standardized regional transit mapping and wayfinding system and to develop an implementation and maintenance strategy and funding plan for deployment of the system. The bill would require a transit operator in the San Francisco Bay area to use open data standards to make available all routes, schedules, and fares in a specified data format and to track actual transmission of real-time information by transit vehicles and report that information to the commission to ensure that schedule predictions are available. The bill would require the commission to coordinate these activities and to develop an implementation and funding plan for deployment of these capabilities. (4) The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 establishes the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources emitting greenhouse gases. The act requires the state board to approve a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020 and to ensure that statewide greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to at least 40% below the 1990 level by 2030. Existing law requires designated regional transportation planning agencies to prepare and adopt a regional transportation plan. Certain of these agencies are also designated under federal law as metropolitan planning organizations. Existing law requires a regional transportation plan to include specified elements, and, if the transportation planning agency is also a metropolitan planning organization, to also include a sustainable communities strategy or alternative planning strategy, which is designed to achieve certain targets for 2020 and 2035 established by the state board for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light trucks in the region. This bill would require the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to develop and adopt targets for reducing vehicle miles traveled per capita and for increasing the travel mode share of public transit and active modes of transportation in the San Francisco Bay area that are consistent with, or exceed, state climate goals and other goals and standards for improving air quality in the region. The bill would require the commission to develop a comprehensive set of performance indicators for those targets, and would require the commission to annually report to the Transportation Agency and the state board on the progress the region is making towards meeting those targets. The bill would require the commission to establish a capital project development review process on or before January 1, 2023, and, as part of the process to, among other things, specify the project deliverables that will be evaluated to determine if a project is eligible to be included in the regional transportation plan or to receive an allocation of state or regional funds. (5) Existing law authorizes a regional transportation agency or the Department of Transportation to apply to the California Transportation Commission to develop and operate high-occupancy toll lanes or other toll facilities. The bill would require, on or before January 1, 2022, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, in partnership with the Department of Transportation and the operators of managed lanes in the San Francisco Bay area, to take specified steps to ensure the regional managed lanes network supports seamless operation of high-capacity transit. (6) By imposing new duties on local agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (7) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.