By Susan Kirsch
November 9, 2025
San Francisco Bay Area residents are once again being given a chance to see what regional planners propose for us through 2050 and the predicted impacts on our lives.
Two regional agencies sit at the center of this effort. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has about 422 employees and a budget of roughly $360 million. The Association of Bay Area Governments operates with a budget of about $93 million and no separate staff; instead, MTC staff support ABAG’s programs. Under this governance model, MTC staff shape how our region grows and oversee regional investments.
Their joint blueprint, Plan Bay Area 2050+, identifies needs and revenues for implementing 35 strategies covering transportation, housing, the economy and the environment. The draft environmental impact report, a legally required analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act, examines what that growth will mean for aesthetics, air quality, wildfire risk, and 14 other environmental categories.
The draft report is intended to help the MTC/ABAG governing boards, with input from the public, weigh the plan’s benefits against its hazards.
First, the glossy news: Plan Bay Area 2050+ lays out a plan to collect and invest about $512 billion for transportation, $746 billion to accommodate projected population and housing growth and $229 billion to protect the region from sea-level rise.
These plans raise a key question: Where’s the money going to come from? Just last year, the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority and MTC were forced to pull Regional Measure 4, a proposed $20 billion regional housing bond, after financial errors surfaced. Reports described it as a “$20 billion mistake” for a bond that overpromised and collapsed under scrutiny. If that single measure couldn’t withstand public or financial review, how can the public be confident that a trillion-dollar plan will fare any better?