Steve Heminger served as the former executive director of the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

's Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) from 2001 until his retirement in 2019. Since then, he has been serving as a director for the

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA or San Francisco MTA) is an agency created by consolidation of the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni), the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT), and the Taxicab Commission. The age ...

(SFMTA).

Early life and education

Heminger received his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

and his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

Career

Prior to joining MTC, Heminger served as Vice President for Transportation for the

Bay Area Council The Bay Area Council is a business association in San Francisco, founded in 1945, and dedicated to economic development in the San Francisco Bay Area. At its inception in the post WWII years, members included Wells Fargo, Bank of America, the Tra ...

, and as a staff assistant for various local, state, and federal governments, including the

San Francisco Board of Supervisors The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the board of supervisors, legislative body within the government of San Francisco, government of the San Francisco, City and County of San Francisco in the U.S. state of California. Government and polit ...

California State Legislature The California State Legislature is the bicameral state legislature of the U.S. state of California, consisting of the California State Assembly (lower house with 80 members) and the California State Senate (upper house with 40 members). ...

and

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

. At MTC, Heminger started as the manager of Legislation and Public Affairs in 1993; he was promoted to deputy executive director in 1999 and executive director in 2001. In 2005, Heminger was appointed by

Speaker of the House The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England. Usage The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hung ...

Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia Pelosi ( ; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who was the List of Speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 52nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving from 2007 to 2011 an ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

to serve on the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. The commission, formed by

SAFETEA-LU Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users or SAFETEA-LU was a funding and authorization bill that governed United States federal surface transportation spending. It was signed into law by President Geo ...

, expired on July 7, 2008. Heminger, a Democrat, has been active in transportation politics, and he has recommended that the federal gasoline tax be raised by forty cents per gallon. He was also a possible candidate to be President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

's nominee as

Secretary of Transportation The United States secretary of transportation is the head of the United States Department of Transportation. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to transportation. The secre ...

. Obama would ultimately choose

Ray LaHood Raymond H. LaHood ( ; born December 6, 1945) is an American politician who served as the 16th United States Secretary of Transportation from 2009 to 2013 under President Barack Obama. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served in the ...

to fill the Transportation post. Heminger's leadership at the MTC has been controversial, in regards to his extensive foreign travel at public expense, the problematic construction management of the new

eastern span replacement of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge The eastern span replacement of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge was a construction project to replace a seismically unsound portion of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Bay Bridge with a new self-anchored suspension bridge (SAS) and ...

, and the decision to spend substantial transportation funds on the acquisition of a new MTC regional headquarters, supporting a move from Oakland to San Francisco, which was projected to cost $48 million but later increased to $218 million. Heminger became the executive director of the

Association of Bay Area Governments The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is a regional planning agency incorporating various local governments in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. It encompasses nine counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay. Those counties are ...

(ABAG) in July 2017 after ABAG and MTC merged. He retired from the executive director positions of both ABAG and MTC on February 28, 2019 and was appointed to the Board of Directors for the SFMTA by Mayor

London Breed London Nicole Breed (born August 11, 1974) is an American politician who served as the 45th mayor of San Francisco from 2018 to 2025. She was supervisor for District 5 and was president of the Board of Supervisors from 2015 to 2018. Raised in t ...

later that year. Heminger represents SFMTA on the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, the authority that operates

Caltrain Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a commuter rail line in California, serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose, California, San Jose at the Tamien station with weekday r ...

. In addition, he serves as a Senior Fellow for the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

Institute of Transportation Studies The Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) at the University of California's Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, and Los Angeles campuses are centers for research, education, and scholarship in the fields of transportation planning and engineering. Facul ...

References

External links

* (July 25, 2011) California Democrats Georgetown University alumni Living people People from the San Francisco Bay Area University of Chicago alumni Year of birth missing (living people) {{California-politician-stub