Marin resident to lead region's transit agency

A Marin County resident has been named executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the leading transportation agency in the Bay Area.

Andrew Fremier of San Anselmo is taking over the agency at a time when it faces daunting tasks. It must stabilize a transportation network still reeling from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic while implementing significant projects throughout the region.

Fremier, 62, had been a deputy director with the agency since 2005. He is a former chief deputy director with Caltrans District 4, where he worked for 20 years in various positions, including overseeing bridge and highway construction and maintenance.

The commission voted unanimously Wednesday to give Fremier the top position, which comes with an annual salary of $380,000. He will replace Therese McMillan, who retired.

“You're the right person at the right time,” Alfredo Pedroza, the commission chair, told Fremier after the vote. “We have a lot of goals, we have a lot of outcomes that we need to achieve, and you're up for the challenge.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is a government agency responsible for transportation planning and funding in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties. The agency also leads the Bay Area Toll Authority, which collects and distributes bridge toll funding for the seven state-owned bridges in the Bay Area.

In an interview on Friday, Fremier said he is committed to implementing the commission's Plan Bay Area 2050, a $1.4 trillion, 30-year effort that aims to improve transit services; to improving access to affordable housing, especially near transit systems; and to adapting the Bay Area's transportation network to climate change.

“There are really three fronts,” Fremier said. “There is the transit investment, there's the housing investment and there is an investment in resiliency and sealevel rise that are all really going to force the region to work hard to find new revenue in order to make those systems work. And that's what we're committed to doing right now and for the foreseeable future.”

Fremier's appointment comes as several of the Bay Area's largest transit providers are facing a fiscal crisis. Billions of dollars of federal coronavirus relief funding meant to cover revenue losses from reduced ridership is set to dry up, and rid