and it is onlyç 4 1/3 or 1/5 of the city to go north and south. the executive used some interesting language, saying that we are going after a prize. which is what makes it so right. it is very clear that even if they were to come to their senses and say -- this is a bad project, they feel that they have to go after a prize of federal funds. clearly that tells you that if they use the word prize or federal funds, you have to look at that and say, as soon as they use that it is a justification that they know the project is not a good idea. that they are completely wasting federal money. leslie, if this goes over budget by even 10%, the easy

calculation is $160 million. none of us are driving on the new bay bridge. triple the cost? it has been one quarter of a century since the planned this. supervisor campos: next speaker, please. >> good morning, commissioners. i am here to represent the community tenants' association. i think that if all goes to show that over 20 years of community support for this project, in 2005 we collected 2000 signatures. it connects neighborhoods like the valley, bayview, chinatown to the rest of san francisco and regional transit. this makes it a transit justice

project. yes, boring tunnels is expensive, but it is worth saving neighborhoods. it is a responsible way to build up downtown and china square. the chinatown area planned protect the neighborhood as the central subway comes in. the fear of a high-rise developments in the displacement, -- and displacement, it will be watched carefully. the central subway provides consistent right of way travel and access to an efficient and reliable travel. this funding cannot be spent on another project in san francisco. if it goes -- if it is lost, it goes back to a federal pot. supervisor campos: thank you, next speaker. >> wrong. this money can be spent

elsewhere in san francisco. this project was never on the federal list for new starts until political influence waned its way into the government. and this project is not cost- effective. it will never be cost-effective. and it screws chinatown royally. merchants on stockton will be decimated. the residents of chinatown are going to have to travel three football fields to make a connection. no one else does. the muni service on stockton street is going to be cut. and of the residents of san francisco are going to suffer because other projects that are

worthwhile are not going to have any funding. this turkey is going to suck the oxygen out of all of the funding for san francisco transit. and they have not told the truth to the feds. guess who is controlling the congress in january? they are looking at cost effectiveness. this turkey is going down and you should get on board with plan b, save them money for san francisco. thank you. supervisor campos: next speaker, please. i would ask members of the public to please respect the process. there is no applause in the room. give everyone an opportunity to be heard. >> supervisors, we have heard both sides of the central subway matter. the funding for the central

subway would be better used to maintain surface transit. basically, this money is robbing peter to pay paul. the delegates that voted on this matter include organizations from all parts of the city. not just the northeast quadrant. but organizations like the castro neighborhood association, sunset, park side, education action committee, middle post neighborhood association, all parts of the city. there are 46 organizations now in coalition. money is tight. this project is now supported or justified by the citizens. however much it might be supported by the city staff. neither the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods nor any

of the speakers, save one, have a course in the race. rather, we are deeply concerned that this will be a colossal waste of funds. supervisor campos: next speaker. thank you. welcome. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is malcolm. i am here with cindy from the chinatown community development center. we are here to express strong support for this project. i want to address the points made, it embraces a lot of concern for me. the primary characterization that concerns me is that this project will somehow not serve chinatown. this is a project that chinatown is asking for. [tone] supervisor campos: our fault, my apologies.

i know that i talk quick, but i did not realize it was that quick. [laughter] do i need to repeat what i was going to say? i just want to address the point that has been repeated over and over, that this project will not benefit chinatown. despite the fact of we have advocated this over the years, there must be some credit given to the community when they know what they are talking about. this project will decrease ride * from chinatown to other parts of the city. this entire illustration of how people will have to get out of the subway, walked back in, shift over to washington street, it misses a couple of things that really need to add some richness and depth to the narrative. first, they will not have to get out of the subway to get back down. they will be able to transfer directly in an underground tunnel, saving them time.

number two, if anyone has written a bus on stockton street, you know that it is the most humiliating experience for anyone to get on, pushed around, get you and your family on, pushing your way past everyone else. central subway is going to expand transportation options for the chinatown residents. it will make the transportation experience a lot more palatable and, hopefully, even pleasant. it will hopefully address these underlying human conditions that we see every day on stockton. the other thing that i would like to quickly add, many things have been said here about the fda being would be manned -- fca being bogyman, but far from killing chinatown, this project

is what is going to allow us to attract hud money towards a transportation oriented affordable housing developments. thank you. supervisor campos: is there any member of the public that would like to speak that has not spoken? seeing no one, public comment is closed. colleagues, let me turn it over to my harvard classmate, supervisor chiu. supervisor chiu: i would like to thank everyone that came out to speak on this today. i do respect your perspective. i know that she cared deeply about the future of our community. that said, it is no secret that i have been a strong supporter of this project since i was educated about it when i served on the citizens' advisory committee. we know that we are talking about the densest neighborhoods on the west coast.

neighborhoods that, since the collapse of the freeway, have had no true public transit access. over the last few decades we have seen the impact of that on residents, families, merchants, and neighborhood corridors. we have had several decades of the discussion of what we need to do to move that forward. this project represents that work. frankly, this project represents hundreds of meetings and the input of thousands of residents who have come out to support this. part of what we have heard today is how the funding situation is truly ideal. we are fortunate and blessed during this difficult economic recession that we received top ratings from federal authorities and that our transit agencies are on board and united in supporting what we have figured out as a way to leverage the state and federal funds that

we are talking about. if we are ever going to be a transit first city, we need to have this first access in the northeast neighborhoods. i would like to thank my colleagues, the mayor, and federal officials for their strong support of this. i look forward to continuing that work. supervisor campos: supervisor chu? supervisor chu: thank you for coming out here today. i know that you have been working on this for quite some time. i am pleased to see that there is a pathway for word. i know that there are a number of things that need to be bought and, but this has been a good update for this committee. i want to address some of the things i heard in public

comments. central subway is also a project that i am very supportive of. it is important to chinatown and the regional area. we heard public comments about funding, like how this is robbing peter to pay paul. this is not the case. when we spoke to the departments, it was clear that the project and moneys that we were relying on, it does not take away from a previous project. it is the priority of the mta and the city to make sure that the central subway is built and that we have this connectivity. we had heard that federal funding could be easily reallocated. that is also not true. if anyone has been following the central subway conversation and advocacy around federal government, it is not easy to

say that we would have $900,000 for one purpose and next week's ugly spending is a more else, that simply does not happen. we would have to start over and that money would be reallocated to other places. i want to be clear that that is relieve the situation we are dealing with. there are always conversations about the sun set and how residents simply will not benefit from a connection to chinatown. i can tell you, for myself, the number of people taking that transit line in order to get to chinatown, when people say that it will only benefit a certain quadra of the city, that is really just not true. it is beneficial not only to sunset residents, but also to others in the city, making sure that not only can people get to chinatown but that the folks are able to connect to sunset.

even though we might disagree on this, for many of the people that come today, i would hope that we would be able to meet by to eye on the benefits of this project. thank you for all of the hard work from the departments. supervisor campos: supervisor dufty? supervisor dufty: i would like to join my colleague in expressing my support for the central subway project. i think that for the people in my district that want to be able to have that connection to the northeast portion of san francisco, i would say that having worked for much of my career in the transportation industry, the federal transit administration's concern is going to be about maintenance of the rest of the system. something that this board has been very focused on. we will go to our next meeting with a management audit looking

at the mta with a focus on maintaining the integrity of the system. i think that is what fta interest is going to be. we are not building a system to know where, where people do not have traditional riding transit. this is providing higher levels of quality and service to a community that has been very much in the forefront of using transit. i think it is an important keys down to the sustainability of the neighborhoods touched by this, providing even greater access to growth in this -- growth industries of clean and green technology and it will be the focus of our economic program over the next 30 to 40 years. supervisor campos: thank you, commissioner. thank you to the staff for both of this grant -- transportation authority and the mta bus

transfer -- presentations. it is great to see both agencies working together well. we hope that that continues. i would like to thank the members of the public that came out to speak on this. many smart and talented people on both sides of the equation. i do not usually disagree with the speakers that came out against the project. i understand where they are coming from. i will be the first one to say that i do have questions about some of these operational issues. that said, i still support this project. to the gentleman who asked how can someone with public transit going through the system in their districts support something like this -- i want people in chinatown to have the options that my residents have. i think that there is a way to do a project right to to address

these similar concerns. with that, colleagues, any other comments? we will close this item and file it to the call of the chair. can we call item no. 3, please? >> new items and informational items. supervisor campos: new items? any member of the public? seeing no one, public comment disclosed. >> item #4, public comment. supervisor campos: is there any member of the public that would like to speak on anything not in the agenda? seeing no one, public comment is closed. next item? >> item #5, adjournment. supervisor campos: seeing no one, public comment is closed. but -- seeing no one, we are adjourned.

>> i work with the department of environment and we are recycling oil. thank you. we can go into a refinery and we can use it again. they do oil changes and sell it anyway, so now they know when a ticket to a. hal>> to you have something you

want to get rid of? >> why throw it away when you can reuse it? >> it can be filtered out and used for other products. >> [speaking spanish] >> it is going to be a good thing for us to take used motor oil from customers. we have a 75-gallon tank that we used and we have someone take it from here to recycle. >> so far, we have 35 people. we have collected 78 gallons, if not more. these are other locations that you can go. it is absolutely free. you just need to have the location open.

you are set to go. >> i have been a cable car grip for 21 years. i am a third generation. my grand farther and my dad worked over in green division for 27. i guess you could say it's blood. >> come on in. have a seat. hold on. i like it because i am standing up. i am outside without a roof over my head and i see all

kinds of people. >> you catch up to people you know from the past. you know. went to school with. people that you work with at other jobs. military or something. kind of weird. it's a small word, you be. like i said, what do people do when they come to san francisco? they ride a cable car. >> california line starts in the financial district. people are coming down knobbhill. the cable car picks people up. takes them to work. >> there still is no other device to conquer these hills better than a cable car. nobody wanted to live up here because you had to climb up here. with the invention of the cable

car, these hills became accessible. he watched horses be dragged to death. cable cars were invent in san francisco to solve the problem with it's unique, vertically challenged terrain. we are still using cars a century old >> the old cable car is the most unique thing, it's still going. it was a good design by then and is still now. if we don't do something now. it's going to be worse later. >> the cable cars are built the same as they were in the late 1800's. we use a modern machinery.

we haven't changed a thing. it's just how we get there. >> it's a time consuming job. we go for the quality rather than the production. we take pride in our work and it shows in the end product. >> the california line is mostly locals. the commuters in the morning, i see a lot of the same people. we don't have as tourists. we are coming up to street to

chinatown. since 1957, we are the only city in the world that runs cable cars. these cars right here are part of national parks system. in the early 1960's, they became the first roles monument. the way city spread changed with the invention of the cable car. >> people know in san francisco, first thing they think about is, let's go