UPCOMING STUDIES EXPLORE CRITICAL CA, BAY AREA ISSUES

What does California need to do to ensure it has the energy and communications infrastructure necessary to compete globally? Is the Bay Area prepared to weather severe storms and rising tides and what will the cost be if we’re not? What is the cost of BART delays on the Bay Area economy? These are the questions that will be answered by a series of reports the Bay Area Council Economic Institute is preparing to release in the coming weeks and months.

Enabling increased investment in building California’s 21st Century energy and communications infrastructure is among the Bay Area Council’s lead policy priorities. This infrastructure will be critical in supporting California’s continuing efforts to combat climate change, create jobs, improve education and public services and grow our innovation economy. The Council’s Economic Institute report will examine what’s at stake and what’s holding us back from modernizing our energy and communications systems. Coming in late March/early April.

Dramatic and unpredictable swings in our weather make the Bay Area vulnerable to the kinds of severe storms that have devastated other parts of the country. Rising tides also put us at risk for huge economic losses. A new report by the Economic Institute will examine the potential economic cost of severe storms here in the Bay Area. Coming in late March.

BART is unquestionably the Bay Area’s mass transit backbone and critical to our economic success. But with growing ridership, rising maintenance costs and constrained funding, increasing service outages on the aging system wreak havoc on commuters, businesses and the economy. A Bay Area Economic Institute report will tally the economic cost to the region when BART goes down. Coming in late spring/early summer.

To commission an economic or other study related to your business or industry, contact Economic Institute Vice President Tracey Grose.