so come >> thank you very much, we are in a construction site. and the work is under way, we want to make sure that we not only celebrate, but celebrate safely, but i am here to welcome you all in the morning, and thank you so much for coming my name is ed riskin and i am the director of transportation and i could not be happier to see all of you here today to celebrate what is pretty a tremendous milestone in the advancement of phase two of muni light rail project, otherwise known as the central subway, it is really just such a tremendous effort, and a cap stone of many, many years, and for some of you decades worth of work, to get to this point. certainly something worthy of celebrating. we have got a lot of people who in one way or another, themselves or through their organizations are a part of how

we got to this point i just want to acknowledge some of them. besides the people, some of whom you will hear from that are up on stage including on you mayor, members of the board, the supervisors members of the sfmta board of directors, we also are pleased to be joined by our lead federal funder, of the u.s. department of transportation administration, and leslie roger and give him a hand of the regional administrator. and he is the one that started delivering that big check to us. back in october. i don't know that he is here and another important partner and we are sit ng his right-of-way underneath the structure, cal trans, region four director bj sartepi. we also have one of the central things that the subway does is bring connection to the transit

including the upcoming high speed rail. so we have ben from the high speed rail authority, let's give him a hand, thank you for being here. we have a number of the our communities supporters as well, karin floods from the union square bid, very strong partner and they have been putting up with us as we have been working through her neighborhood, carlin diamond from the market street association. cathy, and andrew from the (inaudible) cvd and jim lazares that i was just talking to and he is already working on the next phase and we have the china town and many of our china ton including in the front row miss rows pack and mr. gordon chin. and we have a number of members of our community advisory group for the central subway. people who have volunteered their time as everyone else

just mentioned has year after year to suffer this project through to make sure that we are doing it well and doing it right. and finally, there is a lot of leadership and support from the communities, from the federal partners and from the government and from city hall that makes all of this happen, but at the end of the day, everybody has to drive this project forward and so i want to acknowledge the subway director, john sungi, since 2006 john has been working day and night living and breathing this project to make sure that it happens, i think that he has a central subway tattoo on his arm. i think that the tunnel manage machine down stairs has spent more time with tom than his family has. he has been bringing expertise and commitment to improving the transit in san francisco to bear in this project day in and day out for the last seven years now. so i know that this is a big

day for him and i want to thank him and his excellent team and the sfmta staff and dpa staff and the contractors and all of whom have been working hard to get us here today. and then i also want to acknowledge some of the political leadership, that is really been a part of bringing this project forward. the significant federal commitment to this project between the first and second phase is nearly half of the funding has come from the federal government recognizing the regional and national significance of this project and so of course our senators and their offices have been behind us all of the way and then a particular our leader the leader of the house of representatives nancy pelosi, has been one of the strongest supporters for this project and we are delighted to have the new chief of staff joining us if we could, give a round of

applause for all of the officials fed and state that have been behind us. and we also have mike here and we are putting a lot of people to work with this project and it is not just a transit benefit that we get in 2019, when we turn on the switch and open the revenue service, but this immediate economic benefit that this project is bringing now to get people to work. and while the economy is a little stronger now than when we started work a year or so again it was not so much and we were getting people off the benches and in their booths working on the ground. and an important benefit of this project for the economy of san francisco today and not just tomorrow. and ultimately this is about public transportation and it is about investing in the future of public transportation in the city and we are a transit first city and we need to better move the people who are trying to get around san francisco today, as well as those who will be coming to san francisco tomorrow. so this is really about

building for the future, strengthening the transit system that we have today and i think that i am going to stop now because i have talked too long and bring up the people that you want to hear from starting with the leader in san francisco, a man who not only understands transportation and jobs, and i think that you have heard of him talk about jobs but understands the importance of infrastructure and investing in the economy and san francisco has pleased to follow him as public works director and i think that having been a public works director he really gets this stuff and as the mayor he has a bigger view of this and has done a great job in leading it in infrastructure and please join in welcoming mayor ed lee. [ applause ] >> thank you, ed and thank you

to you and your staff again, to your board of directors, tom, and the rest of the commissioners, thank you for your leadership. i also want to thank the board of supervisors for working so closely with us and a couple of them up here, i think that this is a really good reason to celebrate supervisors, that we have this great project, also i want to say a big thanks to our former mayers and i had the individual of being here at this time. but, i think back, and i know rose knows what i am talking about, two and a half decades, you know, willie brown, lieutenant nusom, and the mayors before us working in concert, with our federal partners or working very closely with our neighborhood leaders. we are able to get and enjoy this day. i am looking forward to eating the cake. not just because i like cake

but also because it represents a struggle for our communities for quite some years to say that we are going to be here and that we are going to be part of the future of this city and that is what this t-line extension really means, and central subway is a great transportation project but it is also a reflection, that they are also here to stay and prosper with staoet and yes we will have that conversation about the future beyond that, but the future right here, is about making sure that we connect up the north and south. the modern san francisco will have a transportation system that will reflect that and this is why it is so meaningful, is because i do know in a few years that we will be saying why did it take this long to get here. this is such a great idea to connect up and i know this is

at the heart of the feelings of the people who live in china town and whether it is in the projects and the small businesses along stockton street all the way down fourth street right to here and we are going to marvel at why we would not have done this faster and quicker. because we are going to grow with this system and i think in a very short time you are going to see the value of this system moving people as quickly as it does now when you see the subway of market street working a lot of people, and it is going to be the same thing and there is a lot of growth that is happening in the south east corridor and they want to connect up with the north east corridor. and so, this is our future, this is what we have been talking about and it it is right here before us and it starts and i also want to give a big thanks, fong, you and rose, and gordon and so many other people have been such strong leadof to hear the reving up of the

tunnel bore machines and i understand that we can't do that today because of safety reasons and ones that notice starts happening once the digging starts and the tunneling starts then i think that we will have that great reflection of two and a half if not three decades of effort that has been here to make sure that we modernize our city and make sure that our communities are connected up. and i also want to give a big thanks to the collaboration of agencies that will be working for the next two and a half to three years. whether it is our police department, our parking patrol officers, on the streets, a public works making sure that the streets are safe for everybody. and connecting up a little bit of understanding about the destruction that we will have and some of the areas of the city, but knowing that it is our future that we are all doing this for. and working with the small businesses all along the way to make sure that they are all included. we want to do it right, and

this is why the federal government said yes, from president obama all the way down to our communities. we want to do it the right way, so i am here to say thank you to everybody, we look forward to this good work and we look forward to working with our labor teams and making sure that we train more people to get these jobs and include even more local participation r. we prokured over a billion for this project and will pay off in a higher quality of life for the people of san francisco. congratulations as you mark this major milestone and i look forward to joining with you in the future so we can celebrate the completing of the subway. >> thank you, robert and please, again, convey our thanks and gratitude to the leader. so, continuing on the path of leadership, from his time first coming into office one of the

strongest voices at city hall and support not just of this project but transportation in general is someone who is both the president of the board, and someone who also represents the district which will serve as the term inus for the central subway and the light rail and those in the current phase and in the future phase and so we are happy to have you here joining with us the president of the board of supervisors and also representing district three david chiu. >> the sun is shining on the central subway today. thank you so much for being part of this celebration, of the first tunnel boring machine. i have to say that it has been incredibly inpioneering to learn about the history of dr. margaret chung, who is otherwise known as mom chung and the role in our city's history. our country's first female chinese american doctor in the heart of china town, someone who adopted over 1,000 suns,

mostly service men during world war ii. i can tell you as the son of a tiger mom, i have a good sense that mom chung was a tiger mom. and that is what we have needed to build this project. per the history of fighting is helping to build our city's future, we all know that over the past few decades, thousands of san franciscos have been fighting to implement the central subway and for someone who served on the advisory committee before i was elected to office there are thousands of community members from the bay view and the vis valley to mission bay and union square and to china town who have fought to get us to where we are here today. there have been dozens of political leaders and i want to thank our good senators and nancy pelosi and generations of mayor, mayor lee and i want to thank my colleagues, including

kim and breeder who are here today, after hundreds of community meetings and thousands of pages of studies and i think that tens of thousands of hours of debate. we are ready. the talk is going to continue, but the real action is going to go underground, mou is the time to tunnel and build the subway and now is the time to connect our north and south communities between the densist neighborhoods on the west coast and the city that will grow in the decades to come. >> as we celebrate today, i challenge all of us not to stop in china town. we should continue to come together quickly with a vision of where the central subway should go next to north beach, and the fisherman's wharf that is our next challenge. but we will take a moment today to celebrate what is a great day in san francisco, the amazing technology that these machines represent show that san francisco, we know how to make muni a world class transit system for the world class

city, congratulations. >> thank you, president chiu and so the central subway ends in district three but the project starts right here in district six where we are standing and i mention that had we are underneath the cal transbut right on fourth street and we are all standing and sitting right on fourth street and so we are taking up a lot of real estate here in south of market and we have been under construction for three years now and we have been working very hard to be neighbors so that the people and the employees of the businesses of district six and we are grateful for the support that we have in city hall who represents them and join me for welcoming supervisor jane kim. >> roughly about 12 or 13 years ago, the very first board of

supervisors meeting that i attend was a land use committee meeting where i came to speak on behalf of the china town development center to speak in support of the central pro-yekt and the very first meeting that i attended at city hall and the first time that i spoke at public comment. >> 13 years later it is such a pleasure to be here today. and to honor a tunnel boring machine and also to be here to honor an asian american woman. i think that it is incredibly satisfying to know that we are heading this way on this project and it feels like it is taking so long and it has taken so long. so many years of community advocacy, the thousands of meeting, and it is great to be here with some of my past colleagues and now with my current colleagues both from china town and our families collaborative and our residential association and those that i work with today

from the (inaudible) to many of our south of market allies. this central subway is going to be an amazing expansion on both for the south of market and for china town, i used to ride almost every day and for those who have written, the thought for the buses know how heavily the lines are used by the youth, families and seniors. neflt over 90 percent of the residents don't own cars and that is the type of smart, neighborhood development that we want to encourage and we also have to support the very residents that believe in that type of model that have an increase in structure and this is also important for south of market and we have plans for how we plan to expand the residential and commercial development along this line so we are supporting the infrastructure that is coming in as well. and we have so many working class families and seniors this south of market and they will

be able to enjoy being able to go in through underground through china town and north beach and fisherman's wharf as well. it is awe inspiring to stand next to the giant tunnel boring machine that has been used around the world to bring major projects to life. although, our residents along this corridor are being very patient and have kindly not sent too many e-mails of complaints about the nose and construction and i think that speaks to the work of the workers that are here today to make this project possible. >> this incredibly powerful tool that has been talked about will construct the entire length of both and 1.5 miles long and ranging from 40 to 120 feet and i am happy to be here today with so many supporters that have fought to make this project a reality and i look forward to the extension of the central subway in the future.

thank you. >> thank you, supervisor kim. so we have the board of supervisors and remember, the members of the board of supervisors also sit as the county transportation commission, so they are not just kind of bringing their leadership in support from their representation on the board but also bringing the funding through the association of the prop case sales tax that is part of the funding of this. i want to thank the county transportation authority as well, for their support, and their leadership. the other leader who is a member of the board of supervisors and transportation, county, transportation commission is supervisor london breed from district five and give her a hand, grateful for her support. more importantly she is my district supervisor, she represents the district that i live in and i am kind of feeling a little less doubt here that my supervisor is not talking about the subway stops that we are going to get.

so i think that we will also plan for phase four where we are going to hook a left and come back south and get subway into district five. >> don't want to be left out. >> another district five resident is my boss. and we have great leadership from the federal government all the way down, but the kind of front line leadership is really the sfmta board of directors that threw the years had to make the difficult discussions in terms of expenditures and contracts and use of the right-of-way and the changes in the transportation system and the hard decisions really come down to the sfmta board, where we are very lucky to have, i think, a very committed forward bringing board and they have been led for a number of years. i am not just saying kind words because i am a boss and could

fire me, but he has brought great leadership and direction and stability to this agency and it has been a big part to why we are here today and so it is my great pleasure to welcome to the podium the chairman of the board of directors, mr. tom noland. >> thank you, i could listen to him introduce me all day long. on behalf of the board i am delighted to be here this is a huge day for us and it has been a long, hard struggle. a number of people have been mentioned but there are some who are supportive who have not been mentioned one is former mayor and congressman, and of the dot, norman who was instrumental way back years ago. and our current dot director ray lahood and i want to call a

special shout out to former member of our board who has been a supporter of this project for many years, will (inaudible), thank you. thank you, will. and steadfast support. and this is truly been a labor of love for the board and critics along the way and i am totally convinced, absolutely convinced that when this is opened, everybody will realize this was totally worth while and all of the struggles forward and a lng time coming and great leadership. and he and his team and we appreciate that and we are it marks the beginning and i am looking forward, mr. mayor for dedication and whether i am able to rise this. and i did tell the mayor that i have a problem personally, and my term will be up before it is dedicated so i asked for one more term to be here on that great, great day. thank you all. >> so it is because of the leadership of the sfmta board of directors that we executed

the contract for the tunneling work about a year and a half ago. our contractor is benard heely and they are the ones responsible for the site right underneath where you are sitting the first of the two tunnel boring machines and launching on june tenth or eleventh. >> and as you can see even before you take the tour, and i can do so if you are able and it is significant work and you can see the crane behind us that is bringing in the pieces piece by piece, and 20-feet wide and it weighs 750 tons and the entire apparatus is longer than the football field and the two that are making the way from here underneath china town, and up to north beach and the second one, and that process will take about a year

so for all of the hard work to move the facilities to build the tunnel work and remarkably fast, given the expertise that we have with the contractors and the technology that allowed this to happen with the minimal disruption above ground and from the tunneling. this happens below the ground and not ripping apart the streets to build the tunnel the way that they used to in the older days, a little more vibration just as we are going about our business in the next year, quietly below the surface these machines will be steadily making their way north way, pretty impressive and so to close us out, i want to invite up, and i don't know about that. >> i want to invite up one of the great cheer leaders not just for the project but for

china town and the whole city and the relatively new but long time member and now executive director of the china town community development center, the reverend norman fong. >> okay, two words, everyone say go giants. >> that is when... but also what we are doing here today, and we are here to help go giants boring machine. okay? you got it? all right. and there are two of them and we have the family members of the... they are named after two excellent, wonderful people. one and david helped me with the infraon margaret chung who was known as mom chung and we will see it real soon and she was in san francisco from 1889 to 1959 and the first chinese american physician in the country and working in the

heart of san francisco and she adopted a lot of american service men over 1,000 and one of them that she called and the congressman from minnesota to create the first female branch of the navy and here to talk about her is jena lowell rice, give it up for her. >> mayor, lee, distinguished guest and friends and family. thank you, for honoring our great confident, dr. margaret mom chung, i have to admit, when we first heard about this they were really excited but we had no idea what it was. so we did a little research, and we found out what the tunnel boring machine was and we looked at each other and we said really? >> really? >> they are going to name a massive construction machine

after our anti-doc? that is what we called her. >> and then we thought about it, this is perfect, there is actually quite similar. in several different ways. this tunnel boring machine is a pioneer as it will start the tunneling in phase two of the central subway and auntie was a pioneer as you have heard as the first american board chinese physician in the country and she started the first western clinic in china town and why this will help to build a subway that will bring together neighborhoods of the city, and auntie brought together, serve men, politicians, hollywood and military brats, in their common dedication to fighting or in dedication to the