Out of the 600 Bay Area residents polled in nine counties, 26 percent rate transportation as the most important problem facing the region.

Twenty-three percent think that the economy is the biggest problem, a 10-percent decline from when it was the top worry of residents in 2003.

Concern about housing doubled from 8 percent in 2003 to 17 percent, the second-highest intensity since 1991, according to Bay Area Council. Nearly 80 percent of those polled believe that the cost of housing worsened from the year before.

Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, said the poll results honestly reflect the public's concern with the affordability and availability of homes, a slow-to-recover economy and a congested transportation system.

"We need to speak in one voice about these problems," Wunderman said. "None of them are simple problems. We need to devote a great level of commitment, strategic thinking and working with government officials to change for the better."

The poll also found that 67 percent of respondents favored one regional agency to handle transportation issues rather than individual cities or counties. There are currently more than 30 individual Bay Area transit agencies, the poll reports.

Residents of Santa Clara, San Mateo and Alameda counties expressed the most support for the idea, while residents of Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties were less enthusiastic, according to the poll.

Bay Area residents' support of Proposition 42--which passed in 2002 and dedicates gasoline tax revenues for transportation purposes--was registered at 85 percent, but 73 percent thought the law had been used improperly by the state government to balance the budget. Among partisan lines, 82 percent of Bay Area Republicans and 70 percent of local Democrats opposed the state's use of the tax revenues, the poll reports. Seventy percent of those polled said the money should go to address transportation issues exclusively.

The Bay Area Council, which has initiated public policy and researched critical infrastructure issues in the Bay Area since 1945, uses the poll results to communicate community concerns to legislative representatives, the governor and businesses.

Despite their concerns, 73 percent of respondents agree that the overall quality of life in the Bay Area is going well or somewhat well. The poll also reveals that residents are optimistic that the region will grow economically while the quality of life continues to improve.

"The fact that there is an uptick in people's feelings about economy is really encouraging,'' Wunderman said.

The poll was conducted by Field Research Corporation. Survey respondents were selected at random to give listed and unlisted telephones an equal chance of being selected. Findings are subject to a sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.