In the san francisco bay area, the multiplicity of independent public transit agencies complicates transit capital planning. Throughout the 1980s, the metropolitan transportation commission (mtc), theregional transportation planning agency, coordinated a cooperative process to produce a list of priorities for federal capital grants. The process evolved into a complex but subjective scoring and ranking system, within a fund constraint. Two observations emerged after adecade of experience: (a) the process could continue despite annualreductions in federal and state capital financing, and (b) inherentlimitations in the subjective scoring system prevented it from fully incorporating diverse capital program goals and needs. A resilientinstitutional framework has contributed to the successful continuation and refinement of the process. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1266, Urban public transportation research 1990.
Abstract