Bay Area’s population grows by more than 90,000 in a year

Crews construct apartments at the intersection of Interstate 680 and Bernal Avenue in Pleasanton. Alameda County, which added 25,365 people in the past year, leads the Bay Area’s population growth, the U.S. Census Bureau says. less Crews construct apartments at the intersection of Interstate 680 and Bernal Avenue in Pleasanton. Alameda County, which added 25,365 people in the past year, leads the Bay Area’s population growth, the U.S. ... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Bay Area’s population grows by more than 90,000 in a year 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

The Bay Area’s population was boosted by 90,834 people — the size of Santa Barbara — between 2014 and 2015, according to estimates in a U.S. Census Bureau report, dramatically outpacing housing and transportation needs of the region, experts say.

With 25,365 additional residents, Alameda County led the Bay Area population explosion, a mantle that belonged to Santa Clara County just two years earlier. And across the state, Alameda County’s growth came second only to Yolo County.

The regional boom has cooled since a high in 2013, when the Bay Area greeted an additional 106,645 residents. But the relatively steady upswing in the past five years, policymakers say, underscores deficiencies in housing supply and public transportation.

“What should be a great story about job growth and very desirable communities is instead a story about housing displacement and gridlock,” said Gabriel Metcalf, president of SPUR.

Unequal gains

Roadblocks to increasing the region’s housing stock, he pointed out, include zoning laws that prohibit high-density housing, prolonged project approval processes and the fact that many voters are homeowners not directly hurt by soaring home prices and who want to minimize congestion for themselves.

While each of the nine Bay Area counties grew between 2014 and 2015, the gains were far from equal.

On the lowest end of the spectrum, Marin County added 671 people, just shy of a 0.3 percent increase. Alameda County, meanwhile, saw an almost 1.6 percent change in population, which is now at 1,638,215.

The unevenness, especially when new residents are living far from their workplaces, has increased strains on public transit lines.

Capacity commute

On BART, most riders each day travel on the transbay line that links the East Bay and San Francisco. One of the starkest indicators of Oakland’s population spike can be seen at the 19th Street Station, where the number of passengers coming in and out has doubled in the past decade.

The crowded commuter trains were cast into an ugly spotlight in the past month as mysterious power surges knocked dozens of cars out of operation, and service shut down between the Pittsburg/Bay Point and North Concord stations.

“There’s a nonsensical sort of thing at play,” said BART spokesman Taylor Huckaby, referring to increased demand without rising funding to boot. “It’s been a steady march forward, and we’re just completely at capacity during commute right now.”

The system has 100,000 more riders than it did five years ago, he said.

All told, according to the figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bay Area now boasts 7,654,870 residents.

The metropolitan area defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, which increased by 60,152, was one of the few in the nation to grow by more than 50,000 people. The largest growth at a whopping 159,083 new residents was in the Houston-Woodlands-Sugar Land area of Texas.

‘Cries of anguish’

Miriam Zuk, a UC Berkeley researcher and director of the Urban Displacement Project — which released a map visualizing gentrification forces last year — said growth trends in the Bay Area between 2014 and 2015 appeared to be in line with recent years.

“Let’s say the profile of those 90,000 people look similar to years past,” she said. “That might say something about the exclusionary nature of neighborhoods.”

San Francisco County’s rate of population growth has slowed somewhat in the past three years as Alameda County’s has picked up speed, leading some, like Tim Colen, executive director of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition, to call Oakland “the new Brooklyn.”

“People say, ‘The hell with it, I can’t afford San Francisco. I’ll go to Oakland,’” he said, adding that housing price increases in Oakland are among the highest in the state. “They’re starting to hear the loud cries of anguish.”

But Colen and others, such as Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council, hailed the regional population increase.

“It means the economy is still very hot,” Colen said. “We’re attracting people here to work in the high tech, biotech, new media sectors. We seem to have the secret sauce.”

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov