The San Francisco Bay Area's Metropolitan Planning Organization is the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (http://www.mtc.ca.gov). MTC has approved the expenditure of billions of dollars on transit projects and programs over the past twenty years, yet transit ridership has declined. MTCwatch.com hopes to use this web site to highlight transportation issues of interest to policy makers, the press, residents and taxpayers of the Bay Area.

MTCwatch.com is staffed by volunteers working in the area of transportation advocacy in the Bay Area. This site is not affiliated in any way with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission or any other governmental agency.

"The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is the transportation planning, coordinating and financing agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area." See http://www.mtc.ca.gov/about_mtc/about.htm for more information about MTC.

MTCwatch.com operates as a service to RAFT, the Regional Alliance For Transit, and TRANSDEF, the Transportation Solutions Defense & Education Fund and to all good-thinking people of the Bay Area region who are interested in social equity, Environmental Justice and improved transit service.

RAFT, the Regional Alliance For Transit, was founded in 1992 to help promote transportation and land use projects that will increase ridership and improve service to all the residents, commuters, and visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area. The 1994 RAFT Plan, an alternative to the 1994 Regional Transportation Plan, tested to provide superior transportation services to all residents of the Bay Area is available in the History section of this site.

TRANSDEF, the Transportation Solutions Defense & Education Fund is a public benefit, non-profit California corporation operating in the San Francisco Bay Area. Established in 1994, it works to improve the quality of life of Bay Area residents by promoting transportation programs and projects favoring transit over construction of new highways; development of real property near mass transit facilities rather than in the Bay Area's remaining open spaces; and market-oriented pricing of single occupancy automobile travel. Transdef also advocates for Environmental Justice, an effective regional planning process and clean air. The organization, from time to time, has brought suit or filed administrative complaints against government agencies over transportation and air quality issues.