Plan Bay Area 2050+ Blueprint

What is the Plan Bay Area 2050+ Blueprint?

The Blueprint is essentially a draft version of the plan. It is a foundational framework for a future vision of the Bay Area that includes: 

• Forecasts and Assumptions about the Bay Area’s future (population, jobs, financial needs and revenues, sea level rise, etc.);
• Strategies for public investment and policy reform; and
• Geographies where future housing and/or job growth can be focused under the plan’s Strategies.

The Blueprint is then analyzed through computer-generated models and simulations to measure how successful the strategies are in achieving shared goals for the future, such as housing affordability, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and much more.

Strategies

A strategy is either a public policy or set of investments for transportation, housing, the economy and the environment that can be implemented in the Bay Area over the next 25 years. Strategies can be implemented at the local, regional or state levels. Specific near-term actions and the role for MTC and ABAG will be identified through a collaborative process to develop the Implementation Plan later in 2024. 

Building the Blueprint

Development of the Draft Blueprint began in summer 2023 as MTC and ABAG staff traveled across the region engaging with communities and partners to better understand how life changed as the Bay Area enters the “new normal.” The Plan Bay Area 2050+ Draft Blueprint includes strategy refinements informed by Plan Bay Area 2050 implementation and public/partner engagement findings, and it retains and builds on the 11 themes and 35 strategies included in the current long-range plan. The Draft Blueprint also reflects updated forecasts and assumptions to reflect current planning conditions. 

On January 12, the Joint MTC Planning Committee with the ABAG Administrative Committee approved revised Plan Bay Area 2050+ Draft Blueprint strategies and Growth Geographies for further study and analysis. 

The next round of engagement with residents and our partners is planned to begin in spring 2024 and will inform the development of the Final Blueprint. MTC and the ABAG Executive Board are expected to approve the Final Blueprint in summer 2024.

Transit 2050+

Rapid changes in commute patterns brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as significant reductions in anticipated transit revenues through 2050, demand a comprehensive overhaul of the six transit-related strategies included in Plan Bay Area 2050.

Transit 2050+ — a parallel long-range planning effort underway in collaboration with the Bay Area transit agencies — will be responsible for updating these strategies with the goal of creating a comprehensive regional transit network concept. When finalized, this network concept will be incorporated into the Plan Bay Area 2050+ Final Blueprint.

As such, the Draft Blueprint only includes a handful of modified transportation strategies, pending the development of a fiscally-constrained Transportation Project List that will integrate recommendations from Transit 2050+. 

Stay Tuned for Public Input Opportunities

We need your input to help inform the Final Blueprint. MTC and ABAG staff plan to conduct a second round of engagement starting in spring 2024.

Be the first to learn about upcoming public engagement activities by subscribing to the Plan Bay Area 2050+ mailing list.