you know all the things he has done to support us. we especially want to give him this award for being the first state legislator in the country to find family planning for low- income women. in the 1970's, when he was on the national board of planned parenthood. i do not know if you know that, but i was there. we want to give him a weapon today to help us as a fundamentalists tried to take those rights away from us. mayer browor brown -- [laughter] [applause] >> may the force be with you. [laughter]

they the force be with you and with us -- may the force be with you and with us. >> a jedi warrior. now you know what was behind that mask darth vader was wearing. me. >> at this time, i want to acknowledge a couple of people outside of our committee.

>> 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.

captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- supervisor mar: good morning, everyone. this is the finance committee of the sentences county transportation authority. our clerk is arabericka cheng. could you please call item no. 2? >> this is an action item. approval of minutes of the february 8, 2011 meeting. supervisor mar: is there anyone from the public that would like to speak? seeing no one, public comment is closed. let's move forward without objection. please call item no. 3. >> report on the tel trained

fiscal crisis. supervisor mar: this hearing was called by commissioner elsbernd. supervisor ksupervisor elsberndk you. let's go straight to staff. i do not know that we need much of an introduction. you do a pretty fine introduction. >> good morning, commissioners. i am the deputy ceo for cal train. i would like to walk you briefly through what is going on. i am going to talk about tell train service and a little bit about what the hell train is, the history of the partners contribution, san francisco, santrans, and the county transportation authority. laying out our next steps.

caltrans is a 77 mile route from san francisco to gilroy. we are over 40,000 people per day riding that train. we have 32 stations in 19 cities and currently run 86 trains per day, 22 of which are very popular. on the weekend we run 36 trains and are running a pilot for peak service in 2009. caltrans has been through a series of changes. through those changes, we have seen service increases leading to wider ship increases. funded from the farebox and three member agencies, continuing to face the

uncertainty with state funding. santrans has a structural deficit. in fiscal year 2011 they reduced production -- introduced a reduction. they are continuing to propose contributions to fiscal year 2012. so, with the uncertainty for one of the partners, cal train already had a structural issue. they do not have dedicated or stable funding sources. in 2010 and 2011, service was reduced to help with the budget. we continued to rely on one time funds.

our current contract is with amtrak, bringing change to the system. this is a writer should graf in what you see if the bust of 2003 and 2004, then writer ship -- ridership growing again. i think that the 2011 projection is very conservative and i expect it to be higher than that. in 2009 the cost recovery came over the fare box.

looking at caltrain, you can see that we are right in line or on the upper end of our peers. something that everyone always asks, are you lean? cal train has no dedicated employees in the play sce of santrans. this slide is a measure of efficiency, operating expenses being fairly low compared to others. just to speak to the member agencies in san francisco, they provide contributions to the

joint powers agreement. that agreement was put into being in 1992 when the service transferred to the joint powers board. each member subsidizes the operating budget based on each county's peak hours. the county in which you lived was the county that reflected the contribution to cal train. 2009, we froze member contributions based on the partners proposition. there was a two-step production proposed in agency contributions. we were able to solve our 2011 issue with a fund swap. this slide looks at member agency contributions to the operations of tal train. you will notice that it is about 40% from santa clara, 20%

with rough percentages from san francisco. if the partners match the contribution from santrans, bta would pay 4.7 and san francisco would contribute 2.1. this slide looks different based on the proposed reduction in santrans contribution to the caltrans operation, decreasing from $35 million per year to $11 million per year. the operating budget is about $12 million per year. looking at the 2012 budget, with current service levels, we would be looking at a projected deficit of $30 million. we put together a different schedule of a train that almost

balances the budget, but not quite. we have been through a process discussing that schedule. another question that gets asked, have you taken appropriate measures with your support for the system? we have pieces of 40 fte that work for the train. staff salary has been frozen. furloughs have been implemented. in 2009 we increased fares and laid off staff. we increased fares again in 2010. when we look at our new service pattern for the system, there are certain priorities applied. we were looking to preserve weekday commute our service for the bulk of our passengers. we were looking to minimize the

blocks and red -- maximize revenue. crews and equipment are required, maximizing service to the heaviest used station. the other thing that we were looking at, the way the to minimize is by running trains faster. from san francisco to san jose in 70 minutes, we can turn them around and get them back up during the morning commute. helping us to reduce the staffing. the longer that it takes, the more crews that to meet. you cannot turn them around quickly enough to get back up. the service that we have been talking about is suspended from gilroy. bringing out three trains in the morning, sending them down in the evening. it takes a whole crew. they do not come back.

they cannot make another trip. we have had discussions about suspending service between san jose and san francisco. as we identified stations to close, we were looking at writer ship and revenue connections. some of the stations under consideration, bay shore, college park, south san francisco, hayward park, and santa clara. so, for 2012 we held a public hearing on march 3 where the board took testimony regarding a possible fare increase. a base fare increase of 25 cents was implemented on july 2. we talked about parking increases. currently it costs $3 per day. we talked about raising that to $4 per day.

we also looked at reduction issues like staffing expenses. march 3, the board held a public hearing and declared a fiscal emergency as that hearing. a number of people testified and identified a series of possible sources to help balance the budget for fiscal year 2012, including accepting funds as repayment of the right of way. we also discussed possibly diverting capital funds and redirecting operating funds as well as seeking preventative maintenance. in terms of next steps, we continue discussions with member agencies. we continued to work with

service fehr for 2012 and 2013. we will discuss a preliminary 2012 budget balancing plan at the april 7 meeting. this might include requests for the board to consider services that are something more than the trains that we have had public hearing on. probably less than the 86 trains that we currently run. in terms of timing, we wish to implement these service changes that need to start. it took -- it takes about three months the four months. the next step will look at the preliminary balanced budget in may or june. summer of 2011, implementing fare changes, as we continue to work with our shareholders on

the transit sustainability project. that concludes my presentation. i am happy to answer any questions. supervisor elsbernd: the question for you. in terms of fiscal year 2012 and its operating budget, you mentioned that santrans has a proposed reduction. is that the way that it works? one takes the lead and everyone else follows? >> it is up to each individual organization to decide. santrans and others, if they choose not to that has been the historical pattern as each partner has matched the changes in contribution. >> can you explain the formulas for determining contribution from san francisco versus pta?

>> it has changed over time, but originally in the late 90s it was based on an a.m. formula. in late 2005 the numbers were moving around too late to increase the contributions, so it was frozen. the theory being -- where you sleep is to contribute on behalf. supervisor elsbernd: is there any analysis on how it would impact different regions? is it across the board impacting all of the regions equally? >> one item that we have not finished is a title fix analysis to make sure that none of the adjustments are discriminatory in nature against different types of writers.

that work is underway now. we could increase the recommendation that is that makes to the board. where it might be biased in some way. >> at the gilroy station is something that would not impact travel further to the south and love you gave the criteria for determining which stations. is there any more comment before those final decisions are made? >> the board will take comment again at the april meeting before any action is considered. >> -- supervisor mar: there have been a number of outside the board meetings on the issue.

supervisor elsbernd: i know that there is a group opposed riders who are starting -- a group of riders who are starting to mobilize. some people are proposing whether or not that is realistic, can you comment? >> a number of stakeholders are proposing different long-term and short-term proposals for help train. in the short term we have worked with funding partners to see if we can craft a package for revenue for the system and in sustainability with the project. since beginning discussions is the long term.

they have proposed raising fares. which we have proposed. those have been some of the areas for the short-term. >> any other questions, colleagues? >> looking at the perspective here in san francisco and the response to these questions at the board meeting, one question that we had was what is the impact on san francisco? the cast was intuitive.

the transportation network, not surprisingly, which is being couched for extremely cut service in some extreme scenarios. it will not disrupt service. we would also see impacts on the increased freeway traffic and spillover into the arterioles. it would significantly impact the competitiveness of san francisco economically. without replacing our transit system. if you want to comment, they are

in a difficult position where they have to negotiate with three entities each year. to a lesser extent the others seemed to follow suit. there is no question that there is a need for a dedicated offerings -- operating source that needs to be a regional solution. i know that in your other capacity i appreciate your particular challenges of this happening at this time, although it offers opportunities because all of the operators in the region, one of the reasons they are leading the project is they're looking at ways to perhaps achieve administrative consolidation for certain specific work. just to try to see if we can

incentivize and that one of the ones on the table is the regional gas tax. toss it never has there very well with the voters, and we cannot put all of our eggs in one basket. it will not be a slam-dunk. a couple of other things to keep in mind. mta has a significant deficit on its own. everyone else will be looking for revenues at the same time. it is also interesting to see the mtc has come up with an estimate, about $240 million, as being the size of the structural deficit of the regional transit operators regionwide. if a 10-cent gas tax were approved, that would generate about $300 million. the wisdom generally is that it cannot be a purely transit measure. you have to take a chunk of the

money out and give it to roads or something. again, we have to be strategic about what source we go after and not count on one particular source as bailing us out. i wanted to make another comment about short-term and long-term solutions. everybody is scraping the barrel to provide maintenance. the one part we did quibble with and more strongly we would not support is the diversion of funds from electrification to fill the short term--- short term--- short-term gap. electrification, as we understand it, and i'm sure commissioner elsbernd can speak to it more clearly, is either going to be the silver bullet or gold bullet for caltrain in the future. it gives them the ability to increase speeds, save on fuel

costs. basically increase ridership and decrease operating costs. it is sort of the win-win solution. so we are advocating for that both in terms of not diverting funds for the short-term solution but also in the regional transportation plan. we just did a presentation for the plans and programs committee and feel it is very important that the project be funded and see if there are ways we can advance construction of the project. supervisor mar: thank you, and we are joined by our chair, ross mirkarimi as well. is there anyone in the public that would like to speak? let me try to remember -- two minutes per person. >> good afternoon, commissioners. regional planning. spr -- regional planning director at spr.

i wanted to make up for your quick points about this. first is kind of to build on a couple of things. caltrain is fundamentally essential to both the economy and environment on a local and regional scale. we think about that map connecting san francisco to gilroy, that is literally the kind of connection and silicon valley. this rail line is the physical linkage between the various cities and communities of silicon valley, and too much of that geography has not been around trains. we are trying to change that for the next generation, trying to envision a bay area much more built around our transit network. you cannot do that without caltrain. we think about the shuttle's a lot of people are taking from the city, they are taking those to the big companies. so people working smaller companies or the ones working at stanford are the ones relying on caltrain. second, we know the cuts would

be devastating. san francisco obviously has to step up and put money in as well as the other agencies to find a short-term fix. third, we are very supportive of the short-term fix, but we have to devise time to develop a longer-term solution. the final point i want to make is that we are working on a white paper we will be issued shortly on those solutions, both on the governance structure and also the physical structure. we have to find a sustainable funding source, but also, this is not the way to run a train system. it becomes an orphan of existing agencies. there is a number of ideas out there that we will be presenting and working on with a group of stakeholders around finding those, and i encourage you to maintain your encouragement and push to make sure that they fund

this on a regular basis. thank you very much. >> i am here today as chair of the mission bay citizens advisory committee, and representing the mission bay cac on what we call the ball park mission bay transportation coordinating committee. two things -- first, electrification is a critical issue in mission bay. we are dealing with diesel trains that separate our neighborhood from the rest of the city. please continue to support funding of electrification. second, if the number of trains, particularly daytime trains, particularly game day trains, are reduced, we are not going to park our way out of this. we're losing three parking lots that are used by the giants now at the end of this season. that are used by the giants now at the end of this season.