Advances in transportation and transit planning have been vital to California’s growth and development throughout the state’s history. In 1919, for example, a new motor law required that horse-drawn vehicles as well as automobiles begin using lights for safety reasons, according to the Morning Union newspaper of August 6, 1919. “The new headlight law makes it harder to see a horse-drawn vehicle at a distance at night,” notes the report. “A buggy or other horse-drawn vehicle’s body is so high that the automobile driver’s lights under the new law do not show up the vehicle as quickly as previously. The law provides that horse-drawn vehicles carry lights. The law is to be rigidly enforced according to motor officers, so farmers should take notice.”

The birth of publicly owned transit districts came more slowly than headlights. It was not until 1956, after new state legislation, that the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District took over “from the Key System and its predecessors, which carried passengers via buses, horse-drawn rail, electric streetcars, and ferries over the previous 100 years,” notes the California Transit Association. Today, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is the public transportation planning, financing, and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

By law, MTC “and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) work together to adopt a long-range regional plan every four years that serves as the Bay Area’s Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy,” according to MTC public documents, that note these efforts help Bay Area agencies plan and prioritize the public policies and investments “necessary to advance the region’s vision of a more affordable, connected, diverse, healthy, and vibrant Bay Area for all.”

MTC and ABAG adopted Plan Bay Area 2050 in October 2021. It focused on housing, the economy, transportation, and the environment. In the wake of the pandemic and changes to the needs of riders, MTC once again partnered with ABAG to develop an updated plan, Plan Bay Area 2050+, to better serve the region’s residents over the next 25 years.

Transit 2050+ Network

A critically important subset of the Plan Bay Area 2050+ report is the Transit 2050+ Network plan, “the result of a first-of-its-kind planning effort for a better Bay Area public transit system,” according to MTC officials. “Staff from MTC and the region’s transit agencies have worked closely together to identify a series of improvements and investments that could be made over the next 25 years in order to keep the Bay Area’s transit system operating while expanding it for the future.”

The transit plan is based on information from more than 3,000 Bay Area residents. In summer 2023, regional planners asked them what they valued most in terms of public transit and their use of transit. Issues raised included convenience, travel time, frequency, safety, and cleanliness. In response, the Draft Transit 2050+ Network plan was crafted over the following 12 months and released in July 2024. It identifies key strategies and investments to advance the priorities of residents and riders.

The plan outlines six strategies intended to increase ridership by improving the experience of using public transit. The first three are to operate and maintain the existing transit network; better coordinate fares, signage, and more across transit agencies; and improve the transfer timing at key regional hubs. The remaining three strategies are to enhance security, safety, and cleanliness on transit; enhance transit frequency, capacity, and reliability, and expand transit services throughout the region.

An assessment focused on “near-term transit service needs” was conducted in fall 2023 and winter 2024, followed by an assessment of “major capital and operating projects through the Project Performance Assessment” in winter and spring 2024, MTC officials note. “These data-driven analyses were considered in tandem with public and stakeholder feedback to shape the Draft Transit 2050+ Network.”

Improvements Ahead

Suggested Draft Transit 2050+ Network improvements include near-term projects to upgrade existing transit service, “such as more frequent bus, train, and ferry service; and longer-term expansion projects, such as new express bus service and rail expansions that improve system capacity,” public documents say. More frequent bus, train, and ferry service are among the near-term projects included in the Draft Transit 2050+ Network. Longer-term expansion projects include new express bus service and rail expansions to improve system capacity.

“However, these projects can only become a reality if an estimated $86 billion in new money is raised to pay for them, likely through tolls, taxes, or fees,” officials note. “If the needed money is secured, near-term projects are slated to begin service between 2025 and 2035, while longer-term projects will open in 2036 through 2050.”

Near-term changes that may benefit commuters to and from Hacienda include improvements in AC Transit local bus frequency, AC Transit San Pablo Avenue Bus Rapid Transit, and County Connection bus frequency. Changes in BART infrastructure and frequency are also expected to improve the rider experience. Longer term projects expected to benefit Hacienda residents and commuters include expanding the AC Transit Rapid Bus Network, expanding the I-680 Express Bus Service, improvements to ACE train frequency and service, and opening the Valley Link initial operating segment from Dublin/Pleasanton BART to Mountain House.

The 22-mile initial operating segment between the BART station in Hacienda and the Mountain House Community station, including the Isabel and South Front Road stations in Livermore, is targeted to begin construction as early as 2025. Agency officials estimate that Valley Link, once completed, will carry 33,000 daily riders by 2040. Valley Link is expected to remove tens of thousands of cars off Interstates 580 and 205 and connect nearly 500 miles of passenger rail with more than 130 stations in the Northern California Megaregion.

Additional benefits outlined in Draft Transit 2050+ Network, according to officials, include simpler fares, more travel options between communities, and better coordination of services. “The Draft Network also will help the Bay Area support cost-effective ridership recovery and growth by accelerating bus investments; advance high-priority rail projects, such as BART to Silicon Valley Phase 2 and the Caltrain/High-Speed Rail Portal project, to completion; and fund complementary strategies such as a unified mapping and wayfinding system and investments in safety and security for customers,” they say.

The Draft Transit 2050+ Network will be added to the Plan Bay Area 2050+ Final Blueprint later this year. The transit plan is a key element in the effort to transform the region’s public transportation system into a more connected, more efficient, and more customer-focused mobility network, as officials describe it. If successful, these changes will allow riders to make trips faster and more frequently while becoming ever more connected via public ferries, buses, or trains to the greater Bay Area. Which in turn means that Hacienda’s location at the center of the region will be all the more advantageous for its tenants and residents.

For more information about Transit 2050+, please visit www.planbayarea.org/2050/transit-2050-plus. For more information about Plan BayArea 2050+, please visit planbayarea.org.

For more information about ValleyLink, please visit www.valleylinkrail.com.