Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) issued the following statement about the Transportation Department’s FY 2007 Urban Partnership Grants, which were announced today. San Francisco was officially accepted today as part of the new federal partnership program. 

Senator Feinstein earlier this year sent a letter to Transportation Department Secretary Mary Peters, urging this action. 

“Millions of Californians waste countless hours stuck in traffic. California communities are doing their part to help ease this traffic congestion problem by improving and expanding the public transportation infrastructure. But the assistance of the federal government is absolutely critical to helping deploy a new generation of technology – from advanced tolls to time-of-day pricing – that will reduce the traffic on existing infrastructure.

Secretary Peters called me yesterday to tell me about the grant. I was very pleased to hear that San Francisco stands to receive $158.7 million under this program. The Bay Area has intense commute and reverse commute problems. I look forward to the relationship being a constructive one.”         

The Urban Partnership grant program will offer federal assistance to help San Francisco implement several projects geared toward easing congestion and gridlock, including:         

• Implementing a congestion tolling system, where the prices would vary based on the amount of traffic, for the Golden Gate Bridge and Doyle Drive.
  
• Installing transit-preferential traffic signals at 500 key intersections that will be timed to let buses and other traffic move more freely through congested downtown streets and intersections.
  
• Providing Bay Area commuters access to real-time traffic and parking information, transit schedules and fares, and the ability to pay for these services including tolls from an integrated mobility account.
  
• An improved 511 traveler information service and online multimodal trip planner. 

Under the agreement between the Department and the Bay Area partners, California officials will have until June 30, 2009 put this plan in place.

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