we have opportunities to go further in the coming years. what is a healthy environment? it means not only more active transportation and use of streets by people so that there is a healthier amount of activity but also greenhouse gas reduction for the emissions to come down, referring to particulate matter, the fine dust and particles that lodged in your lungs that can exacerbate asthma and other conditions. world-class infrastructure, we have terrific transit networks, especially for a western city, but it can be and needs to be even better. what can we do to improve it? we can follow suggestions to provide more priority for transit, but we need to keep our overall network in a state of

the repair. we know that deferred maintenance is a problem not only in terms of safety and operation, but it is also a big budget concern. so, these are going to be very important issues in terms of transportation and funding that is critical here in the city and with regional partners. how do we do this work? with the involvement of many people, including the board, neighborhood advocacy groups, travel, geographic markets, the work trip and the non-work trapped. we will be using technical tools and outreach to will saukvillole

community involvement. technical out reaches tomorrow, as our citizens advisory committee kicked off on october 13. the first being the central freeway study from 12:00 to 2:00, an open house at our offices on the 26th floor. from 5:30 until 7:00 p.m. we will have a presentation and workshop. fees check out our worksite for more information. we are also planning a joint out -- and on the sixth of october.

commissioner of the lows will also be attending the meeting in the balboa area station at 6:00 p.m. we encourage everyone to stay involved, did involve, learn about the plan, it will be an 18 month effort and we plan to come back to you periodically for updates. supervisor chu: thank you. any questions from the committee? this is an informational item. seeing no one, public comment is closed. this is just an information item, no action is required. >> item #8, update on the municipal transportation agency's central subway project. >> good morning.

the central subway is in phase two of the light rail project, which does aids north from forth and king street to chinatown. there is a service station on brandon and for, and then it goes into a portable under the i-80 freeway. then it moves along fourth street and stockton to move up to union square, chinatown. in january this year, the transportation authority authorized the final design for the project. later in march, the transportation authority board adopted a budget of $1.5 billion, he residence service

state of august 18. to date, from the inception of the project, $60.3 million in expenses. the full funding grant agreement is expected in november. that is the means by which the term federal transportation authority guarantees of the funding for the project. that is when the funding levels are agreed to. right now the project is in the final design phase which will be from -- has been running from june of this year until june 2012. the work is basically working on the design itself, plan specifications, estimates, but also, right away acquisitions,

fta road map, it interagency coordination. the road map, which is attached to your documents, i believe it starts on page 54. it is a rather extensive list of deliverable that the fta has determined necessary to cement before they can agree to the final funding. the final design phase is also happening concurrently with the early construction. in the design phase, there are basically three design contracts, 14 tunnels. -- one for tunnels. the construction project was advertise september 18.

this the middle will be later on this month. the other two contracts, they are not as advanced, and they do not need to be because of the procurement comes much later in the schedule. early construction. the fda, as a matter of policy, allows nonprofit construction procurement prior to the funding agreement. to this end, we are looking at two utility contracts. the first one is 70% complete. it will be done by december of this year. the second one, as i just mentioned, will be advertised in september. there is also a tunnels contract, a $2 million project. this project will have three separate notices to proceed. the first notice will be for the

procurement of the tunnel boring machines. this process will take about one year. that is why it is done in a dance -- in advance. the second notice to proceed will be the construction of the access pit, putting the machine in the ground. the third one will be for the actual construction, the tunnels themselves, in 2012. in the area of dock right-of-way acquisition, there are two properties that need to be taken completely. one is in chinatown. it has eight retail tenants on the first floor, 19 residential units. relocation needs to be done for those of depends. the mosconi station only has two

commercial use tenants. in addition to these, there are various underground easements. earlier in july, the transportation authority approved the impact relocation study. it addressed how the 55 residents of chinatown will be relocated. they need to be provided comparable housing. that was approved. right now, the mta is negotiating the acquisition of the properties. they should go to bid by march of this year. also part of the project is an arts program, which is in accordance with seven to discuss city policy. -- san francisco city policy. the purpose of this is to commission some of our local pieces. right now, the budget for this portion is $14.5 million.

basically, it is intended to enhance the rider's experience. you notice the station we have on market street right now are rather bare, except for advertising -- utilitarian is a better word. to that effect, in july of this year, two artists were selected for the project. they are now in the development stage. mta submitted the report for the new starts. the letter for prejudice approval. that will allow them construction on that access to it. -- access pit.

then in february, a major milestone, full funding. immediately after, construction will begin. revenue service, just for the christmas season. the funding plan is mainly unchanged from the baseline. the funding shortfall has been reduced to $133 million from $164 million. that was from high-speed rail connectivity funds that were identified to be used on the project. i also need to mention, even though technically it is not a shortfall,bn @ there are $88 min in tcrp funds that are dedicated to the project, but because of the state of the economy, it is unlikely that those bonds will

materialize. commissioner chu: so it is $88 million on top of the $133? >> yes, these are state funds, traffic improvement funds. because of the financial state, it is unlikely that those funds will materialize on time. it will materialize and eventually, but they -- it will materialize eventually, but they will need something to fill the gap in the meantime. with that, that completes my presentation. commissioner chu: the shortfall

is the $133 million and the back fall, the $88 million, the amount that mta needs to secure before 201. 1. is there an end to a representative who can speak to what the prospects are, are you explore options for that gap, what are they? >> good morning. we have been exploring with a group called the mind the gap group. the committee has come up with a series of underpriced strategies for closing the gap. -- unprioritized strategies for

closing the gap. we do not need to have all the money in hand, we need the commitments in hand. some of the funding, we do not expect until december 2011, but we have to demonstrate to our partners that our funding is solid. right now, there are the gaps. that said, we submitted a new annual report to the fta. we are still processing that internally and we will be briefing staff on the findings of that report in the next few days, weeks. commissioner chu: thank you. when would be inappropriate time to get a report, update from this committee to educate us on where we are with closing that gap? >> thank you for the question. i think it would be important to

have this discussion prior to the next meeting of the plans and programs committee, so that you can be informed about it at the next meeting. the project and process is moving forward. what joel said is correct, you do not need all the money in and, but it will make a stronger case when you are arguing it did before congress. particularly, for a project this size and with this much the visibility. an active role on your part, in terms of understanding where things are going and where advocacy will be needed, so with your blessing, a level schedule it for october. >> any other questions from the committee? are there any members of the public who wish to speak on item #8?

>> howard wong. savemuni.com. we hope on behalf of ridership, the mta, ta, exert the same passion in seeking funds for the muni system, not only for the restoration of service that has already been cut in december and may. but the deferred investment of $1.9 million that the m.t.a. study has concluded has been missing. $609 million, the structural deficit for the maintenance of the existing fleet. the central subway, as you may know from our previous

communiques, in our opinion, is a poor investment, a politically initiated projects that does not serve chinatown or north beach. the central subway projects project -- reduction of services to the stockton corridor. about 75,000 hours per year. we think even the existing state and local funds of $384 million, of which $123 million in prop k funds, might be a salvation of the muni system in the next few years as the city faces increasing budget deficits. we hope there will be some enlightened leadership, if not from our city, from washington, perhaps the fta themselves, independent agency that are not

as potenbeholden to the politicl forces in the city, to guide us, in no way that will improve public transit for all of san francisco in the coming years. thank you. >commissioner chu: thank you. are there any other members of the putt that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner dufty: i just want to comment, as a supervisor who has a district including the castro, i cannot imagine the sustainability of my neighborhood without rail transit. the central subway will offer the reliability of hundreds of thousands of people every year to go to chinatown in a very expedited and fast manner, also union square. i think it does set an important milestone, in terms of

providing rail access to other parts of the city. i think this is an important project and is good for the city as a whole. commissioner chu: thank you. any other comments from the committee? commissioner cihu? commissioner chiu: this is a project that will have an enormous impact on the community. insuring that we have real north/south access to our system will expand our transit options and will help the community in ways that is hard to imagine at this time, particularly being able to use such an enormous amount of federal funds in these tough economic times is an opportunity that we have already decided on numerous occasions as a city to move forward on and that i will continue to support. >commissioner chu: thank you. next item. >> introduction of new items.

this is an informational item. commissioner chu: commissioners? commissioner dufty: earlier today, we took action on a number of black related funding items which all of a strong support. i recently spent a bit of time with some policy makers, representatives of the dpw, visitors from the netherlands, to see how public transportation and biking is really a way of life, but not here in the country. i would like to hear an item at the ta to discuss the future of the bicycling in san francisco. we have been in conversations with representatives from other departments, the viking community, and we would like them to take part in a conversation so we can inform

the work that the ta is doing. commissioner chu: thank you, commissioner. related to the topics we spoke about earlier today, we may have spoken on, taking action on with regard to the central subway. it was simply an update to where we are in regards to closing the gap. that will be an important conversation to have. at least an update on where we are heading to, where we might need more help. the other issue relates to the $100,000 additional increase for the audit. i know that we spoke earlier about the opportunity to bring back to the committee, once we have a good idea of the scope and completion of the components of that. i would also like to request that we have that update as well.

any members of the public who wish to speak on item number nine? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> item 10, public comment. commissioner chu: any members who would like to speak in general comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> item 11, adjournment. commissioner chu: thank you, we are returneadjourned. commissioner mar: good morning and welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the san francisco city and county

transportation authority. we will be joined shortly by the chair of the committee. please read item one. >> item 1, roll call. adding two, approve the minutes of the july 13, 2010 meeting. commissioner elsbernd: any comment on this item? seeing none, motion to approve this item. please read item 3. >> item 3, recommend approval of a budget amendment to at $100,000 to the authorities adopted fiscal year 2010-2011 budget for the purpose of partially defraying the cost of a management performance audit of the municipal transit agency of order of a consulting contract to the first ranked firm in an amount not to exceed $200,000 for audit services for a limited scope management performance audit of the mta.

>> this item is on your agenda packet starting on page 5. essentially, there was an initiative by the board of supervisors -- i'm glad that the chair of the authority is here because he was one of the key proponents -- to do a performance audit of the municipal transportation agency. this was several months ago, and at the time, there was a request made through the plans and programs committee to allocate funds to match other monies that the board of supervisors was earmarking for this purpose. $100,000 got earmarked for that, and the authority was asked to approve the procurement of the management performance audit services. we work very closely with the

office of commissioner david campos, who was the lead on this item, i believe, together with commissioner mirkarimi. the board of supervisors put together a scope of work. we issued an rfp, and were very clear that this would initially be dealt with by staff, but it would be directed by the board itself, and at the time, during the recess, for the sake of not waiting until the legislative recess, we went ahead and issue an rfp for the amount that i have the authority to contract, which was $70,000. we include the entire scope with the verification that we did not think the entire scope could be down for $70,000, but that there would be a further round of discussion with the board to see

if there was a need for more money -- or the authority, for more money. that amount generated only one bid. i'm not talking about one responsive bid. just one bid. i did not feel comfortable moving that forward on a single bid. it would not have been a sole- source contract, but still, i felt there had to be more interest out there than just for a single bid, so we canceled that procurement and restated it in the second rfp, where we did more work estimating how much money would be needed to really do that scope, so that is how we advertised this as a $200,000 effort. a more realistic sense of what it would take to do this right, so the action today -- that generated the kind of response

we direct -- we expected. three response of bids. what we have done today is brought you a recommendation for a top-range from, and there is a representative from that firm today. the firm is ctr. -- cgr. we received bids from cgr, a management consulting firm based in oakland with a fairly extensive track record in this type of work, and we had a proposal also from ktmg, in this case, it's sacramento office, and we also have a proposal from moss adams, another accounting firm from seattle. the action than would be to -- for you to recommend the award of a contract for the top-rank from that would require -- the top-rank firm that would

require $100,000 because that was the difference between the action that was taken back in june compared to the money we actually need. this would be matched by an action at the plans and programs committee later this morning to appropriate the one other $100,000 to the authorities so we can cover the whole budget. i want to welcome the chair of the planning committee, commissioner mar. the action today would be two steps, to both recommend approval of the contract with cgr management service and also to amend the budget by $100,000. let me clarify a couple of things -- amending the budget usually means moving money away from the reserve into the operating budget of the authority, so that the expense which was not anticipated at the beginning of the year is actually covered. the other thing i should point

out is that the preliminary social services, the ones that were actually bid on, are detailed on pages eight and nine of your packet, and it focuses on three main areas of activity. one is the capital program management area. the other is construction projects, and the third is fleet and systems procurement. these are three large, key areas that i would like to highlight as areas where a management performance audit can actually provide significant help in defining improvement opportunities in ways in which the mta can function better to help us do a better job from this and of allocating funds -- from this and -- from this end