Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty PHOTO/Shane Bond

ALAMEDA COUNTY | With passage last November of Measure BB, the 30-year, $8 billion half-cent sales tax increase for transportation in the East Bay, the first round of project are slated to begin this summer.

On Friday, the Alameda County Transportation Commission, a group comprised of representatives from 14 Alameda County cities and six transit agencies, unanimously re-elected Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty as its chair.

Haggerty’s involvement in Measure BB’s has been credited with its success at the ballot box last November. “It is a great privilege to have the confidence and partnership of my colleagues and to guide Alameda CTC in meeting its commitment to deliver programs and projects outlined in our voter-approved transportation measures,” Haggerty said in a statement.

The commission also named Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan as its vice-chair. In the past, Kaplan has championed transportation issues in Oakland and the county.

Needing approval from two-thirds of voters last fall, Measure BB passed with 70.67 percent of the vote. Two years prior, a similar reauthorization of Measure B, a previous county transportation measure, which was due to expire, famously fell short of passage by just over 700 votes.

In the meantime, four Measure B-funded projects are due to open this year, according to the Alameda CTC. (Measure B is the predecessor to Measure BB.) They include the Interstate 580 Express Lanes in the Tri Valley; the Interstate 80 SMART Corridor; BART’s extension to Warm Springs in Fremont and the East Bay Greenway.