Eddie Ahn taking the oath of office for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission amid the COVID-19 pandemic, June 2020.
On June 23, 2020, Brightline’s executive director Eddie Ahn was appointed by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the transportation planning, financing, and coordinating agency for the San Francisco Bay Area region. Created in 1970, MTC is the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan planning organization.
MTC’s scope is expansive as the agency finances and coordinates transportation for the nine Bay Area counties, which include 101 cities, 7.4 million inhabitants and approximately 7,000 square miles of land. For instance, MTC directly distributes more than $700 million a year to local public transit agencies and other recipients. MTC also acts as the Bay Area Toll Authority, as it collects in excess of $600 million a year in bridge tolls which are allocated to the operation and upkeep of the region's seven state-owned toll bridges. MTC will also allocate $1.3 billion in federal relief funds from the CARES Act to Bay Area transit agencies.
Currently, 17 of the 21 commissioners are elected officials, including two mayors of Oakland and San Jose, county supervisors, and city council members. Most commissioners are appointed by a County Board of Supervisors, a mayor, or by another commission such as the Bay Conservation & Development Commission (BCDC) or Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). Only 18 of the 21 members have voting rights, while the other 3 non-voting members represent the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the California State Transportation Agency. Of course, MTC also works with BCDC, which exercises jurisdiction over development within 100 feet of the bay shoreline. Examples of major project collaboration in the past are the construction and demolition of new bridges as well as airports along the Bay.
Brightline Defense is a public policy nonprofit dedicated to environmental justice issues, and in addition to leading Brightline, Eddie Ahn currently serves on the San Francisco Commission on the Environment, which sets policy for the SF Department of Environment and its 100 staffers in 7 sustainability programs. As Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon’s appointee to BCDC and Chair of BCDC’s Environmental Justice Working Group, Eddie also helped to see through BCDC’s two-year process in passing a landmark amendment to address social equity and environmental justice issues within the San Francisco Bay Plan. In light of the recent devastation wrought by COVID-19, Eddie Ahn will subsequently have to work harder than ever to serve frontline communities.