motion on the floor. all in favor? all opposed? so ordered. we will take about a 10-minute break. when we come back, we will talk about the rest of the agenda. we have a set item atok, thank .

>> deputy director of the transportation department who has been working with us.

>> good afternoon in. thank you. i am here to provide a quick update on the boss rapid transit project. before i begin, i would like to have chagn -- chang to provide a few words on this. >> good evening. on behalf of the authority, we want to thank the assistant pa in very much and the rest of the brt team, for their collaboration on this exciting

project. we had some very important progress recently. the project ranks very competitively. we are seeing a green light on the operations side, which is good news. you will hear about the imminent release of the eir. we have a website for the public to check out and that is brt.org. thank you again. >> as she mentioned, the reason we are here is because we have reached a major milestone in the project and with the impending release of the draft and impact report. this is a significant step in the product development process. we want to bring you back up to speed with where we have been with the project and where we will be going in the next several months. in the interest of time, i will hit on the highlights.

there is a long history of support for this project, dating back to 1989 with the four quarters study it. reaffirmed during the transit affectionate project analysis. it was identified as an investment priority as early as the sales tax measure in 1989 and more recently has found support by the fdsa -- fda through their small starts program. this shows the overall network that was identified by the transit affect minister of. in theory, in boss rapid transit projects would be the backbone of the bus system that overlays that rapid network. today, we will be talking about the brt project. right behind it are improvements to the geary corrido , mission

corridor, and geneva corridor. the project itself is on van ness between mission and lombardy in. it would continue on to listen to city college and to route 47 which would continue past van ness and market to the train station. the key goals of the project are to improve travel time and improve the reliability of the service to improve pedestrian safety and integrate street improvements and provide a key north-south plank in the transportation system very we have been working with the transportation authority on the environmental review process, which they have been leading. at the completion of that process, mta will become the

project lead to design, construct, and operate the project. the overall time line is shown on this slide. the third bullet is the point that we are reaching out. the information here is a little out of date. the actual, anticipated release of the draft environmental documents is going to be november 4. he ending date will shift accordingly and. the next significant action is for this board and the transportation authority board to decide on a locally preferred alternative. in a design alternatives current what should the city move forward with? we are targeting data for march of next year. this sly gives you a breakdown of some of the major components of the project budget. we had to revise this slide so i will speak to the key points in this.

the information has changed slightly since this slide was originally prepared. the brt improvements have would be made, depending on the options, it would range from $67 million to $210 million. in are a number of things the need to be implemented, including new bosses, the repaving of the street, the overhead system, in the 49 commission uses as well as upgrading the signaling system. when all of those elements are taking into nomination, the projects range from $162 million to $216 million. we have a variety of funding from many sources, federal, state, and local.

totaling about $175 million. depending on the alternative that is chosen, we either have the funding or we have a small gap that we would need to make up as we move through the design process. this is a common level of funding support for a project that is completing its environmental review phase. quickly, i will walk the three alternatives that are being considered in the environmental document. the first is what we are calling the no project. the improvements and would happen even if we decide not to go for it. replacing our buses on a regular basis, replacing the shelters with the new designs that are going out throughout the system, and possibly considering aldo reporting as a way of speeding

the system up. the first project alternative would be to improve the service and a way in that looks and less like what we have today, with the buses running in the curb lane on either side. you can see here -- the red lines would be dedicated lanes for transit. while there is a dedicated line, there would still be the ability for automobiles or other traffic to enter this link to access parking or make a right turn. for this reason, it tends to perform a little less well than the other alternatives i will share with you. then we have two center-running alternatives, which would reconfigure the existing median to be a combination of transit boarding areas and mediant

treatments. in the first example, we use two smaller platforms in the center. this would use a typical boss like we have today. -- typical bus like we have today. this would provide the most of exclusivity. it would be difficult for any other traffic to enter here. because we would need to reconstruct the entire median, this option is the most expensive to implement. the last alternative we are considering is to have one larger platform in the middle of the median. this would require the purchase of five-door bosses. we would have bosses with three doors on the right-hand side as all of our existing buses, but

unique boss with two doors on the left to allow for boarding along the van ness corridor. today, there are only about 50 of these vehicles in the country. we would be using a vehicle that is fairly limited in availability now. there is also the concern of having a detrick -- having a dedicated fleet for this service. we would need to purchase more vehicles than especially needed for the service desultory -- that is actually needed for the service itself. it would be a little more porous to the traffic. the key issues going forward have to do with a lot of the differences between the options, the operational characteristics, the type of vehicle and vehicle availability, the stations

themselves, how this would impact the transportation system, and how confident are we that we can fill a funding gap of one of the more expensive alternatives. these are issues that would feed into that. the selection we are targeting for march of next year. the last slide has some updates. these are the near term targets. the public review, in comment, as i mentioned, would kick off november 4, wrapping up around december 19 and current within that period, there would be a public hearing scheduled for a november 30 at. he had over the course of december and january, we would be working with the transportation authority to review and prepare presentations for this to the authority board to lead up to the locally preferred alternative selection in march of 2012. with that decision, we would be

able to commence the conceptual engineering phase of the project. that concludes my presentation. >> members of the board, questions or comments. >> a very good presentation and an exciting project. brt is exciting to me because, as i've said before, our metro customers enjoy the most efficient ride. this is bridging our bus service to that sort of model. i like that. without digging up the streets and incurring all the costs. in a couple of issues. one would-be taking back to a discussion we had a couple of meetings ago, whether we are going to allow cash affairs in the brt corridor. this might be one area of where we would simply than cash and say you need a card or, because

it is a confined corridor, it would be a good place to compile machines to allow people to convert cash to a fair instrument as they come aboard. we want the driver driving, not collecting cash fares, especially for a line that would be more of a commuter line than a tourist line. i could be wrong. the other issue is signal priority. i did not hear any hesitation about that. it is a controversial issue on a street like this, which called in -- which crosses some many east-west arteries. parts of the corridor, perhaps once or over the hill and looking at the water, that is an area where signal priority would be put in. i urge that that be considered, too. we want people to get to market street from the top of the street as quickly as we can. those are ideas we can pile on

the brt corridor and rest of the system as well. director ramos: thank you very much for the presentation. at one of my first jobs was working as a waiter. i learned how to bone fish at your table. i can always go back. i cannot do it like that anymore, but when i was making that commute, it was at 1:00 in the morning. i had to stand on the corner of market and van ness is waiting for something to come by and pick me up. i am wondering what kind of improvements we're going to see for the late-night service. have you talked about that at all? >> there are two alternatives that will work with any of our

vehicles, because the service changes in the late-night hours. he would have to see how that would integrate, depending on which alternative is chosen. if we choose any of the alternatives that use a standard three-store bus, there should not be an issue. if we go with centerboard in, there may be a concern with running those unique vehicles throughout the city 24 hours a day, having adequate time to do maintenance and overall activity in. director ramos: i want to make sure we focus on accommodating the work force in fisherman's wharf. because it is so slow, if i had less than an hour to get to my job, i would drive. that would lead to parking. i would take precious parking spaces nearby from other people who do not need them as much as

i do it. i am really eager to see how things will turn out to make a trend -- to make transportation faster and more efficient in this area. keep of the great work. >> on your outreach, please communicate with our first responders and emergency people. i think it will have some interesting input on how these lang configurations might help or hurt them, and particularly help them use this as a corridor to respond to emergencies more quickly. i did not see any of that. >> i am very supportive of this project so far. i am surprised to see it is coming up to march, where we selected the preferred alternative. just a suggestion, when we get close to that point, a grid of laying out the positives and the negatives, the configuration of the street, the first responders. one quick question -- will golden gate transit get to use those ne