they are all involved in leasing space. there may be times of four or five months in between phases. if the timing works out, we could try a quick pilot. for example, the right-turn prohibition on montgomery or third street, and see how that works. director heinicke: i will say i am a little dubious. my skepticism has been proven wrong before. i am dubious of quick pilot programs. there has to be enough time for notice to take effect and to see what -- turn traffic patterns are, -- to see what long-term traffic patterns are. i am a little concerned about pilot projects. the other issue about that is

the timing of something like this -- you think it is through 2015 we will be dealing with the tours. >> yes. chairperson nolan: we are talking about possibly options four and five. my preference is 5, which would improve pedestrian safety. my first priority is pedestrian safety first. if that is the project that would not be impacted a lot by central subway and things like that -- >> one thing i would point out also -- we have listed six pilots. if you were to do all of them, you would have multiple variables of what you would find out in some cases with all of these going at the same time. not that we are being gun shy, but it might make sense to look

at 1 or two of them in terms of stuff monitoring and c. -- staff monitoring and see what is more attractive. you would want to have them distinctly monitor the pilot. chairperson nolan: you would stand alone on one of these things? >> yes. >> i would also think that deploying a pilot at market and montgomery would be available. basically, we are just modulating the conflict between the right turn and pedestrians in the crosswalk. to separate them would have an immeasurable benefit for the transit that is queuing up to s. that would not be impacted by central subway construction. director brinkman: one more thing i wanted to bring up. under ite threem thre -- under

item three, there were two options on stockton street. i think closing that intersection, within the central subway scope of work -- the central subway throws a monkey wrench into everything. but so much of the strategic planning we are dealing with, the climate action plan -- all of those things involve reducing the number of private automobile trips. i do not want us to go too far down the road of maintaining the status quo for all the car trips in that area. i think our long-term goals are to reduce car trips over all the city. that has to include a big reduction in the downtown area. that is an area where i think it is easy to achieve that reduction. if we make transit run smoother, we will have more people on

transit. if we make pedestrian and bike safety stronger, we will have more people choosing those options. i want to be careful that we do not say we cannot do anything because it will negatively impact car trips that are already there when we know we want to reduce those overall as our long-term goal. >> we agree completely. right now, ellis street is serving as a relief for our two detours. i think it is critical to have it in place. otherwise, it would cause gridlock in the entire area. in the short term -- director brinkman: i will bring up again the response we had from the union square merchants at one of their meetings. they were pleased with the lack of traffic. i think that is an important thing to keep in mind. i have said before that traffic is not like the weather.

you can do something about it. traffic will be like water if we are not careful. it will find another way. we can improve that area, as we saw in stockton street. >> what if we asked mr. ye to come back with more detail -- yee to come back with more detail, something like director brinkman is suggesting now? >> and also how to implement these. >> that is fine. may i ask him a factual question? the closure of markets street, or the plans for market street, got a lot of attention. the question i asked when i am standing out there on market street, on the east side of 11

th -- who is driving a private vehicle on market street for more than a block? it seems to be someone who is lost or from out of town, or has not figured out that is an inefficient way to drive. i wonder if we have done anything to look at who really is on market street. would it be a real detriment if we took them off? i realize delivery trucks and taxicabs -- we want to continue that. as far as a private vehicle, who is driving on market street? >> we know from various studies we have done in the past that the vast majority of automobile traffic on market street eastbound is related to local access to different blocks. for example, to get between third and fourth, because of the waycross' streets are laid out, you may need -- because of the

way cross streets are laid out, you may need to travel several blocks. there are other situations where because of the grid patterns for san francisco, with market street at a diagonal, to go from north of market to south of market you have no choice but to travel market street for a couple of blocks. a good example is to go to south of market you have to turn left on market and go down at three blocks until you get to second street before the first opportunity to go south. if there are other ways to accommodate those trips, they need to be on market street. that is why one of the changes we made on stockton street before construction -- we removed the loading island approaching ellis street to keep the automobile traffic

heading south of market on stockton instead of making the turn onto farrell to turn back on second street. it is a combination of those types of traffic on market street. >> those sound like things that could be mitigated in other ways. >> that is correct. that is one of the things the better market street project is looking at. it is a grander vision of what we can accomplish. >> i know that. i say that out loud not to say that this should be taken lightly. but i also say, to get back to director oka's comment, that in the long term, precluding traffic on the street is something we can be pushing for. >> that is correct. >> i want to second a lot of the comments a lot of my colleagues have said.

the first time we experienced significant backup in the tunnel, we were sitting there for what seemed like an eternity. i ran down and was able to hop on a j or l and had no problem. the second time, the traffic was so bad it blocked that station as well. i saw an f-car coming and thought it would save me time. big mistake. i learned my lesson the hard way never to take transit to go down market again. the next time, there was a mob of people waiting for transit on market coming off the n and i decided i would jog to civic center. i was able to beat the car that was pulled up next to me. increasing the speed, i think, is paramount if we are going to get more transit riders downtown. it just takes too long to

navigate the system. but i also really value director lee's comments with respect to pedestrian safety on six. i was on my bike on sixth street yesterday and did recognize the real value for significant improvement to that street. i am particularly interested in how to capitalize on that convert the plane we have their -- convertable lane we have there, the toll lane. can we do that in a way to maximize pedestrian safety? there are a lot of pedestrians on that street, as fast as it is. then i had the nerve, really, to take my bike on to folsom. this is where people get used to the idea at that market is not

the thoroughfare anymore. a guy was trying to make a left coming back off of folsom. he laid on his horn for an entire block behind me and darn near killed me, he wanted to get around me so bad. we want to make sure we get used to the fact -- get our city used to the fact that there are pedestrians who need to be safe and transit needs to be prioritized. chairperson nolan: are other members of the public? let's hear from them. who have we got? >> they are fixing the microphone. chairperson nolan: mr. toronto? >> and barry toronto -- i am barry toronto. i want to welcome the new director.

i hope you will ask many questions as a director. i want to second some of the concerns that mr. yee stated about the grid. you have to use market street because of the way one-way streets are set up to get to a street you need to go south of market or north of market. i think that has to be addressed, because it also affects taxis, with a passenger in the vehicle and the meter running and you have heavy traffic. i have had passengers get out of the tab without paying because they see all of that -- cab without paying because they see all of that traffic. what can you do? you cannot run after them. you cannot get out of the car and chased them or call the police. they have disappeared. there is frustration in that issue.

also, there are businesses along the street that will need private vehicles to drop off passengers who have a lot of supplies. there are strip clubs. there are some hotels. there has to be concerned. you have to make sure you out reach to those businesses. if you hurt those commercial establishments from doing what they need to do, because they provide tax money to the city as well as a service, as well as cultural, we have a problem. i agree we need to speed up the cars. it would great -- it would be great to get a report of how many cars use the transit line illegally. it would be great to get police observations about how abused it has been. thank you for hearing me out. >> i am ball the plant -- bob

planthold. your discussion is focused on moving vehicles, vehicles, vehicles. before you proceed with any of these potential experiments, i ask that you be sure there is a specific response to moving pedestrians. during some of the earlier discussion, director brink men -- brinkman mention three specific intersections. one is market and third. one is market and montgomery. contrary to an increasing trend to have a pedestrian interval in some intersections, at those intersections there is a car- leading interval. the green light is 3 seconds before the walk signal starts.

some pedestrians start out into the street seeing the green light. that can cause congestion and accidents. it can cause delays in muni. i have raised this at various meetings and nobody responds. why is it there? there may be a good reason, but pedestrians do not see it or understand it. that is a delay issue you have to address if you are going to go through with any experiment. do not just look at vehicles. look at people crossing the street. if anybody gets hit, that causes traffic delay as well as injury and public health cost. this is not adequate in your discussion to proceed with these experiments until there is more detail given and more responsiveness. chairperson nolan: does anyone else care to address the board? since that is information, can we direct mr. ford to move

forward? >> item 15, regarding the m.t.a.'s real fleet rehabilitation program. >> this program includes the rehabilitation of our light rail vehicles and historic street cars, as well as the restoration of seven damaged light rail vehicles. the this program, we are improving the maintain ability -- maintainability of these services and are able to return several vehicles which have been on hold. i would like to ask our director of fleet construction to give you some background on the current status of these projects. >> good afternoon, directors. i am with fleet services and construction. i would like to thank you for

the opportunity to present the current standards of our rail fleet rehabilitation and restoration programs. i would like to give you some background on the current operating fleets, which includes light rail vehicles and five historic street cars. in addition, there are 47 pcc s -- pcc's being held in storage in yards throughout the city. [pause]

the rehabilitation and restoration projects involve systems and rehabilitation. the lrv rehabilitation of several wrecked vehicles. the pcc rehabilitation of several conference cars. and restoration of historic street cart number o -- streetcar number one. beginning with the lrv project, the project budget is $72.80 million. the contract amount is $68.70 million. the scope of work -- i like to point out this is not a complete rehabilitation of the vehicles. it is partial. the purpose is to address the areas of the vehicle that have

been most problematic. the scope of work is to rehabilitate the steps, the colors, replace articulation harnesses, replace the wiring harness, replace the center articulation, and to replace the bearings and traction motors. included is a complete rehabilitation of the trucks for 34 sets of vehicles. >> i want to point out in terms of this presentation -- maybe this should have been part of the preamble. the funding for this project is somewhat limited. however, we sat down the most important comments -- components that needed to be rehabilitated. there is a great deal more need we see to get to the real

reliability levels as well as useful life of these vehicles. he is presenting what is being done now. however, when we mention the 34 car sets -- >> 143 in the program. >> there is a gap in funding. however, we started with the 34 and will continue as funding is identified. it is a five-year project. >> just a caveat to that. to completely rehabilitate the remaining cars in this program will require an additional $40 million in the project budget. this contract duration started in november 2009 and will be completed in 2015. the total number of vehicles in this particular program is 143.

we received the first pilot car back from the contractor in december of last year. currently, seven vehicles have been returned. of those seven, six are in service. i would like to also point out that at all times, or at any one time, there are eight vehicles in the production cycle at the contractor's facility. what we are showing you here is the breakdown of the funding that has been made available for the project. this includes not only local and state funds, but the american recovery act funds that were made available to us. under that, $12.10 million has been allocated for the truck

rehabilitation program. this entire program, excluding the $40 million, remains with a shortfall of $1.50 million. we are looking for sources as the project progresses to add to this. we are looking at prop k monies. this is a good illustration of the cars that are now in production. components have been removed. the contractor has subcontractors doing rehabilitation of the components coming out of these cars for replacement. one of the key items for this program is the articulation wire

harnesses on this vehicle. due to the failure of these harnesses -- there are 2 you will have to this vehicle -- there are two halves to this vehicle. these harnesses are bundles with hundreds of wires within them. they twist and bend and eventually break. when that happens, depending on which wire it is, any number of systems can be affected -- the doors, the propulsion. by performing this upgrade, we will increase the maintainability of the vehicles and increased reliability. what we are going to do is cut out that section of cabling between the two halves and put

jumpers in. it will reduce the troubleshooting and care time from two to three days to one to two hours, making for better efficiency of our maintenance costs. going forward, i would like to talk about the lrv restoration program. this is the complete repair of seven damaged lrv's. the project budget is $36 million and the contract amount was $32.90 million. the project is to restore the lrv's back to service were the conditions. -- serviceworthy conditions. we have an option for the remaining two cars.

the duration is through 2016. this is a disassembly of the vehicles in progress. under our historic street car rehabilitation program, this is for the complete restoration of 11 former newark, new jersey cars that are in the muni fleet, and the rehabilitation of five former muni pcc's. the contractor is in pennsylvania. we have a budget of $21.70 million and a contract of $18 million. these vehicles have been out of service for several years and are requiring extensive rehabilitation not only of the

body of specifically the minicars, but all mechanical and electrical systems. this contract duration lasts until 2014. we received a pilot car from this project last december, 2010. it has been undergoing extensive and intensive shakedown and commissioning tests. once that car is conditionally accepted and put into service, vehicle delivery will be 1 per month for each of those cars. this project is fully funded from a number of federal, state, and local grants. this is a good example of the five muni cars that were sent

for rehabilitation. this is car 1008, by the way. finally, the complete rehabilitation of car number one -- a historic street car built in 1912. the contractor is brookfield equipment company. this project budget is $2.50 million and the contract value is $1.90 million. being 100 years old, this car required extensive not only mechanical and electrical, but would work and metal work throughout. the contractor has done an incredible job of restoring this car back to better than its original condition and completing required upgrades to

meet regulatory compliance. the contract duration is april 2009 to april 2012. we received this car last december. it has been on the road and is undergoing intensive commissioning and testing. we anticipate this car to be put in service in august of 2011. this project is also fully funded from a number of federal, state, and local grants. i wish we had a better picture of car number one before it went to brookfield. as you can see, the restoration has been highly successful. that concludes my presentation. if you have any questions? chairperson nolan: questions and

comments? congratulations. that was great. did we have the dedication of geneva yard yet? executive director ford: i will have to check with our board secretary. >> i can determine the location of that. >> currently, the committee is working on the date and the signage for the building. when all of those can be put together, we will make an announcement. >> we have been in touch with director beach's family to make sure they are in town. they are a traveling crowd. chairperson nolan: do we have a date? date? >> it is not likely in june.