Plan Bay Area 2050+ is a new draft update to our region’s long-range transportation, housing, economic, and environmental plan, developed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). While MTC and ABAG are not directly accountable to voters, their plans guide the work of counties, cities, and other Bay Area government agencies and will greatly impact life in Contra Costa County over the next 25 years.

Regional planning in the Bay Area began in the 1960s–1970s with the creation of ABAG (1961) and MTC (1970) and became mandatory under California’s Sustainable Communities Strategy laws (SB 375, 2008). 

The plan contains 35 strategies grouped into four pillars — Transportation, Housing, the Economy, and the Environment — that purportedly aim to make the region affordable, connected, diverse, healthy, and vibrant by 2050. 

But independent analysts have found serious flaws in Plan Bay Area 2050+. Among them:

• Demographic assumptions — MTC/ABAG project 24% population growth to 2050 despite recent declines and out-migration; the expected growth is several times higher than that forecast by state demographers at the Department of Finance in Sacramento.

• Cost and funding — The plan identifies almost $1.5 trillion in “investments” but only about $600 billion in existing revenues, leaving a massive gap may require huge new taxes (estimated at about $3,938 per person per year).

• Transit bias — Almost no new road capacity is planned while hundreds of billions are proposed for traditional rail and bus; a poor choice given the collapse and slow recovery of transit ridership in the wake of COVID and the rise of ridesharing services and robotaxis which are ultimately cheaper and more flexible.

• Forced urbanization — Strategies that concentrate housing near transit are seen as top-down social engineering that overrides local zoning, destroys suburban character, and drives up land costs while failing to create real ownership opportunities for lower-income households.

• Undemocratic process — Unelected regional bodies override city- and county-elected officials, lack independent oversight, and use flawed modeling that “reverse-engineers” outcomes to justify predetermined policies.

• Missing alternatives — No “Plan B” is analyzed if population stagnates or declines; water supply, wildfire, and fiscal sustainability are largely ignored.

You can learn more about the critiques of Plan Bay Area 2050+ from these links:

• Gregg Dieguez and Tom Rubin of SHIFT: Bay Area, “Plan Bay Area 2050+ The Wrong Plan... By the Wrong People...” https://e33bf1b6-8cc4-4b15-8060-d8f147eada05.usrfiles.com/ugd/e33bf1_0b53844399434e60816706f8c8390b3f.pdf

• Gaetan Lion, MTC/ABAG’s Bay Area population projections are way too high. https://medium.com/@gaetanlion/abags-bay-area-population-projections-are-way-too-high-8ac2c861fc2e

What You Can Do

The public comment period for Draft Plan Bay Area 2050+ (including the Draft Environmental Impact Report) is open until 5 p.m. on Thursday, December 18, 2025. You can file comments to formally oppose elements like housing targets, transportation priorities, or funding by submitting clear comments that cite specific aspects of the plan. 

Written comments carry equal weight to oral ones and can be submitted easily online.  To comment online go to https://planbayarea.org/draftplan and scroll down to the section titled “Submit Your Comments”.

MTC will hold two more hybrid public hearings during the public comment period (December 3 in Fremont and December 4 in Novato) where residents can speak for 2–3 minutes each.  You can use this link on December 3 at 6pm to virtually join the Fremont meeting and give your verbal comments:  https://bit.ly/drafthearing2. This link will work at 6pm on December 4 for the Novato meeting: https://bit.ly/drafthearing3. Zoom users can raise their hand electronically to speak.

Other options include leaving a voice mail message at (415) 778-2292 (leave a clear, concise message for staff to transcribe), sending an email to info@planbayarea.org (Use a clear subject line such as “Comment on Draft Plan Bay Area 2050+” or “Draft EIR Comment – Opposition”. Attachments are accepted), or mailing a letter to:

MTC Public Information Office

Attn: Plan Bay Area 

375 Beale Street, Suite 800 

San Francisco, CA 94105

Tuesday CoCoTax Call Focusing on BART

As BART and other local transit agencies face a fiscal crisis arising from lower ridership and the exhaustion of emergency federal COVID-19 funding, we will be hearing from BART Board Director Matthew Rinn on Tuesday, November 18^th at Noon. The event is FREE and ONLINE, so it will be much easier to attend! Please register in advance at this Zoom link.

December Meeting

Rather than take our normal year-end break, we’re going to give members and guests more programming in December.

Join us for another FREE ONLINE meeting Tuesday, December 9^th at Noon as we hear from Contra Costa Community College District President Andy Li. Please register at this Zoom link.