Why Is This Important?
Transportation has a significant impact on the economy, environment, and individual quality of life.  Traffic congestion causes costly delays resulting in lost productivity, less time with families, wasted resources, and stress.  Vehicles pollute the air and water and are a significant contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.  With housing increasingly unaffordable in San Mateo County, families may be forced to live far from their jobs, resulting in long commutes.  San Mateo County also has heavy traffic because of commuters using the corridor between Santa Clara and San Francisco Counties.

What Is a Sustainable State?
A sustainable state is one where the costs associated with traffic congestion are minimal and individuals have access to affordable and reliable public transportation.

How Are We Doing?
Vehicle travel

  • In 2006, average vehicle-hours of delay on San Mateo County freeways
    totaled of 7,700 hours, a 1 percent increase from 2005.


Data source: California Department of Transportation

 

  • In 2006, costs from traffic delays totaled over $149,000 dollars
    per day for an average weekday. 
  • Driving alone was the most popular mode of commute for nearly three
    out of four workers in the county. 
  • Over 11 percent of workers in the county had average commuting times
    of over 60 minutes, a slightly higher percentage than in previous years.

Public transit

  • Although a still small proportion of commuters use public transit,
    in 2006 total weekday ridership across all transit agencies serving
    the county (BART, Caltrain, and SamTrans) grew by 5 percent.
  • SamTrans riders accounted for 46 percent of all daily public transit
    riders.
  • Caltrain saw the largest growth in ridership, with a nearly 13 percent
    increase from 2005.


Data source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey

Transportation 2035: Change in Motion

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is preparing a new long-range transportation plan for the San Francisco Bay Area, Transportation 2035: Change in Motion. Performance targets to reach by 2035 that will help steer development of the plan include: (1) Reduce transportation-related CO2 emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels, (2) Reduce emissions of finer particulates (PM2.5) by 10 percent and coarser particulates (PM10) by 45 percent, (3) Reduce daily per capita vehicle miles traveled by 10 percent, (4) Reduce per capita delay by 20 percent, and (5) Decrease the share of low-income and lower middle-income residents’ household income consumed by transportation and housing by 10 percent.

See appendix page 78, CLICK HERE. Researcher: Jeremy Fisher