Bay Area media is dissecting Plan Bay Area 2050, a vision for policies and investments to make the nine-county region more affordable, connected, diverse, healthy and economically vibrant, which was approved by the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission last month.
The San Francisco Chronicle looked at the plan under the headline: "We can fix the Bay Area's housing and equity issues, planners say."
In the article, ABAG Executive Director Therese McMillan says of the plan: "We understand the scale of the problems, and how difficult it’s going to be to deal with them. We didn’t want to paint a rosy picture, as much as a vision of where we need to be."
The Chronicle also wrote a second piece: "There's a big new plan to make the Bay Area better. Here's where the money would go."
The San Francisco Examiner also examined the plan is the article, "$1.4 trillion ‘blueprint’ would address Bay Area’s housing, transit woes."
“We now have a blueprint for what it would take to solve an intersecting set of crises facing the region — housing, social equity challenges, transportation — that goes beyond what we’ve explored in the past,” said Dave Vautin, an ABAG/MTC planner, in the article.
From housing strategies that would produce more than 1 million new permanently affordable homes by 2050 to transit-fare reforms that would reduce cost burdens for riders with low incomes and paths to economic mobility through job training and a universal basic income, the goal of a more equitable Bay Area is interwoven throughout the plan. With a groundbreaking focus on climate change, strategies also are crafted for resilience against future uncertainties, including protection from hazards such sea-level rise and wildfires.