Alameda CTC year in review: Gilman interchange done, 31,500 students riding free

The Alameda County Transportation Commission released its 2025 annual report on Friday, a year-end account of what the county's transportation money built and what it is still building.

The headline item for the East Bay is finished. The I-80/Gilman Interchange Project in Berkeley is complete, improving safety and traffic operations at the freeway and adding bicycle and pedestrian access along with connections to the regional trail network. Anyone who has tried to cross Gilman Street on foot or by bike in the past decade will notice the difference.

Three larger highway projects remain under construction: the I-680 Express Lane Gap Project, the toll system upgrade on the I-580 express lanes, and the SR-84/I-680 interchange improvement.

The commission's school programs are the part of the report with the largest numbers attached. In the 2024-25 school year, more than 31,500 students at 161 schools used the Student Transit Pass Program, which gives free bus passes to participating students. Between them they took close to 2.2 million transit trips. The Safe Routes to Schools program, which works on walking and cycling to campus, expanded to nearly 300 schools countywide.

All of it runs on Measure BB, the county transportation sales tax voters approved in 2014. The measure passed its 10-year mark in 2024 and continues to fund the commission's project and program list.

The full report is posted on the commission's site.