balance the line's directions -- it is important for us to balance the system because everything goes through the subway. if something happened on one line, it can affect all the others. on a number of occasions, what we do to balance the trains -- if you had five trains in a row outbound on the n line, we would use a switch back to turn one of those trains in bound, so if people were waiting, they could have a train coming as close to schedule as we can. it is a common technique in the industry.

the reason why use it is it is one of the service management techniques we can use with our physical plant. we have talked about the potential of using gap trains, buses, but a switchback is essentially a service management technique to address a delay in the system. the second part of your question? commissioner campos: maybe you are already addressing this, but the switch back rate for the 14 line relative to the others? maybe you do not keep that record. >> what i wanted to show you today on the 14th line is we do a number of things in addition to switchbacks, swapping of coaches. we have got a little bit more flexibility because it is

operated by track less, which is less flexible, and diesel coaches. i would be happy to go back and look and compare, certainly for the month of january, looking at 14 and comparing that to how often others were switched back. i am happy to do that for you but i do not have that in my presentation. commissioner avalos: you did mention 137 switch packs on the 49 in january? >> 137 in january. 34 to date in february. commissioner avalos: compare that to switch back on light rail vehicles, which i think was 207 across the entire city. so january, relative to the light rail system on the year, has a large number of

switchbacks. >> i would want to compare it to another trackless line. 14 has a lot of service, more trips. again, we use some other adjustments to keep the lines spaced evenly. i'm sorry, did you want me to compare -- i would offer that a comparable thing would be to look of other lines in california to give you an apples to apples comparison. commissioner avalos: i think what would be a better comparison is the geary line compared to the 14. >> i have one more slide to

offer in terms of what we are doing to continue to improve the performance of the 14 line. one of the things that we talked about, deploying parking control officers in certain areas of congestion. double parking in bus zones. we have been looking at delays at certain times. we have the advantage of looking at some video and we see at all different times double parking in bus zones and that sort of thing. i really believe this second one is important. we could do a better job of outreach, helping people to understand the system. 14 is a good example because of the different kinds of services.

sometimes, if you watch the operation of the line, there are interesting and things where somebody could be standing at the end of a bus shelter and the operator will pull up with a trackless coach and the person will have to run 5 feet. sometimes with trackless, that is where the breaker is. we need to help our operators better with that and also help the public understand. there are a number of things like that that we could do. the other thing is -- we have talked about this in various committees -- the mission is an ideal candidate for us to begin a process of rear boarding, using fare inspectors.

i think the management introduction in january was the first time we had been able to staff the line management center during the rush hour. first we start with light rail in september. now we have got it in january. that is the new technology that allows us to manage the system more aggressively. finally, as we are reviewing our own policies, staying accountable to the question that you have asked, everything we are doing is committed to reducing time and improve performance. commissioner campos: measuring the line, is that your locator

service? i think you would have something that would record, electronically, the day you have about into girls, where the spacing is between vehicles, how often you have switchbacks. why would you have to record that by hand, as you mentioned earlier in this hearing? >> what we had was, past practices, i cannot address them specifically. u.s. a question about going back several years -- you asked a question about going back several years to see how many switchbacks there were for a vehicle -- i provided a sample

of how it was done on paper. it was simply not reported. for whatever reason, i do not know. i keep using the term real-time, but we are able to see and identify vehicles in the system. now when we make a switch back, we can see where all the vehicles are on the line, whether they are track less or rail. i will try to go back and do research -- commissioner avalos: i am not really interested in what happened years ago, unless there is a trend. what is important is what is happening now. demand is much greater than the service and they want to see more frequent buses. and we can only add just depending on how the resources. maybe you can print out a month of your data from your automated

vehicle locator and you can come and share that with me in my office, and how that relates to the 14th line and the operations. that would be helpful. commissioner campos: thank you. i am certainly interested in that. maybe we can share that with all members of the committee. thank you. anything else? commissioner avalos: the question around where the work is, in terms of looking at daly city bart. >> we have another power point set up for you. i will defer to my planning partner for that.

>> good morning, mr. terra, commissioners, mr. milosevic. thank you for having me today. i want to give you a brief overview of this proposal.

this morning, i'm going to give you some background to the proposal and discuss service options available, sfmta service preferred routes, and the actions part is currently undertaking, and the next apps as well. as you know, sfmta has always been supportive of this proposal. it has been reflected in various documents in the past, but especially now in the transit effect of this project -- effectiveness project. at this time, unfortunately, we are not able to come up with a near-term proposal because of the current budget situation, adjustments that we are proposing to add back to the service.

and the extension would improve service to this sector of the city, based on everything commissioner avalos mentioned earlier. we have considered a couple of options to meet this goal. option a is to extend to the daly city bart station using motor coaches, neither the 14 limited or 14 local. both would provide service seven days a week with hybrid coaches which are cleaner and quieter. option b is to confront a neutral in overhead system along the route and extend service to the daly city bart from there. commissioner avalos: if i could

cost you. we met in my office one year ago with daly city, the city administrator, bart was there -- i believe you were there as well. we put option b on the table because of infrastructure needs, it was something that daly city was not really interested in, and the cost was sort of prohibitive. we do not need to discuss option b. >> ok. that was a long-term solution. commissioner avalos: it is great, but once you have the overhead wires there, is permanently there. >> so these are the options.

again, we would look at a as a five-year solution before we consider permanent construction. a is also more practical at this point. in b, trolly coaches. we have scarce capital right now. there are other names for service, including the extension of the 22 line into mission bay. commissioner campos: a question about your comparison. a lot of times when you increase service, you bring in added revenue. would that happen with option a, is that already taken into account? >> part of the ridership will be

existing. instead of transferring, they could just continue. it will probably induce new ridership, but we believe most of them will be people who are currently writing -- riding. this is the preferred route. it continues on mission to its current terminus and then uses john daly boulevard, to the bart station. these were two alternatives that we discussed previously that were less desirable, harder to be exacted by the community. it goes through some residential areas and its length in the travel time, so it adds

to the operating cost, and it is more difficult to accommodate the 60-foot vehicles. these are the advantages of the preferred route. i discussed these previously. the daly city bart station access study that is currently ongoing will be useful. it will provide that piece of information that is required to finish the costing of this project. that is at the station itself. right now, the station is pretty confined. the plan is to accommodate the 20, 8, 14, and perhaps a few other lines. the area needs to be big enough to accommodate the loading and

unloading activities, as well as layover activities. that is one thing that we do not have costing information on this time. the next step -- again, we do not need to fund this extension at the moment. but we need to identify sufficient bus layover and passenger boarding spaces, how we can obtain the funding to operate, develop the longer term trolly extensions as a longer-term strategy. working with daly city to see if they can accommodate the

potential overhead wires in their jurisdiction. commissioner campos: thank you. i know last year we have talked about something, that service cuts were looming. there was discussion that this could be possible in 2013. i understand the needs of the capacity at the daly city bart station. i am a little bit disconcerted about the time line you are proposing here, but i want to be helpful as we move forward, where i can assist -- relationships with dailies city, bart, any way that my office can be assistance, i am available. my question was, there are a lot of people in my district and sean elsbernd's district who want to the daly city bart.

we walk -- walk to the daly city bart. questions about whether or not we can even use our clipper card. there were discussions about how we can share that usage with san francisco at the daly city bart. >> i do not have that answer. that is something that i can come back to you on. we look forward to your guidance, going forward. commissioner campos: on the issue of the time line, the study is scheduled to conclude in the fall of this year. what is the timing on this? when can we expect to see something concrete? >> it depends on the final

station improvements, what part is allocated to this particular extension proposal. and then we have total package cost together, then we can see where we can get funding from. commissioner campos: how long will that take? >> we can start evaluating and collecting the last piece. we should have some information by the time we meet next time. commissioner campos: so for purposes of this committee, when can we have the specs are you can report on the status of this? >> probably in september, october. commissioner campos: that is a long time. commissioner avalos: can we make it july? commissioner campos: we will have a hearing in july and see where you are. is there anyone from the public that would like to comment on this item?

seeing none, public comment is closed. actually, we do. please come on up. >> good morning. local 258. let's talk about the switchbacks. most of the time, we do not know when they are going to occur. for example, there is a delay in the subway but we do not know until we come out of the portal. whoever got on in the subway will not know there will be a switch back. the other thing i wanted to mention, on the border team line, i have lived my life on that line -- 14 line, i have lived my life on that line.

we need to look not only at the switchbacks, time from point a to point b, and that is the key point. we are going to have switchbacks. will that solve the problem? now. the other question is the equipment. -- no. we need better equipment to provide the service that san franciscans deserve. we need to work hard on that issue. not only that, the other point i want to make, backdoor loading. we tell our members that back door loading is fine. then a couple of months later, we say it is not. are we leaving the issue to the operator to handle?

we do not know when someone is impacted. that is another thing that you have to look at. not only that -- some of the back doors, you may have a green light to go. look at these issues, please. commissioner campos: thank you. on the issue of equipment, i do think that is an important issue and maybe something we can bring up at a later meeting. next speaker, please. >> hello, supervisors. mark caswell, working to organize a writer's on the 14th mission. the thing we are hearing loud and clear is reliability, reliability, reliability. we want to make sure we are addressing reliability first and

foremost for different writers -- riders. commissioner campos: great. thank you. next speaker, please. >> [unintelligible] just a question on the switchback. if the 49 were just one line, i would make the comment -- the 24 and the 68 to get a more comprehensive view of the data and the comparison. commissioner campos: thank you. any other speaker? seeing non-, public comment is closed. >> we have a few follow-up questions for the mta. i know when we had the previous hearing, supervisor avalos and i

asked the question is pertinent to win the next train would be. the other important issue was the tracking. was it a delayed? and equipment failure? the public speaker reminded us of that we know we have a significant amounts of those. those are significant issues we have to address with mta and in our body here. i am wondering as we track this data, when the lrv's are arriving, are we tracking when the switchbacks need to occur. >> thank you we are tracking -- thank you. we are tracking directly within

our control versus other events that occur, mostly on the street. it is a very challenging, for us, because of delays. we continue to look -- we take every delay and i put together on a monthly basis of cause, and nature of each of the vehicle delays. we look at the maintenance programs. we look at the particular campaigns. we have very tight margins of availability on the lrv's. we have 130 scheduled, not including the f line. the age, condition, the rail

vehicles have not had a full midlife overall. they are between 15 years old and 18 years old. our real car usually lasts 30 years. -- a railcar usually lasts 30 years. working with the manufacturers, the suppliers on these issues, but it is a cause of concern for us, because it is the single biggest cause of delays. commissioner chiu: when you provide the january report, can you provide the causes for those switchbacks? one of the commitments the mta

made was to the riders. i appreciate the improvements he made with the -- the improvements he made with this effort. we have heard complaints about not hearing about a switchback until leaving the lrv's. commissioner campos: commissioner avalos? commissioner avalos: it looks like there are some discussions going on. i want to make sure the mta is part of those discussions. i want to make sure there is a robust conversation so that we can have the best presentation in the city.

there is a study. the mta is going to be promoting that idea and wholeheartedly digging into that process. >> good to hear. >> do you want to answer that, for -- or -- >> i have consulted with the expert and he says i should answer yes. commissioner avalos: good to hear. i look forward to that recommendation. other than from the mta, i think it would be imported to be part of that process as well. -- it would be important to be part of that process as well. if we are moving forward on that, the connection between daly city bart