that rapid network. today, we will be talking about the brt project. right behind it are improvements to the geary corrido , mission corridor, and geneva corridor. the project itself is on van ness between mission and lombardy in. it would continue on to listen to city college and to route 47 which would continue past van ness and market to the train station. the key goals of the project are to improve travel time and improve the reliability of the service to improve pedestrian safety and integrate street improvements and provide a key north-south plank in the transportation system very we

have been working with the transportation authority on the environmental review process, which they have been leading. at the completion of that process, mta will become the project lead to design, construct, and operate the project. the overall time line is shown on this slide. the third bullet is the point that we are reaching out. the information here is a little out of date. the actual, anticipated release of the draft environmental documents is going to be november 4. he ending date will shift accordingly and. the next significant action is for this board and the transportation authority board to decide on a locally preferred alternative. in a design alternatives current what should the city move forward with? we are targeting data for march of next year.

this sly gives you a breakdown of some of the major components of the project budget. we had to revise this slide so i will speak to the key points in this. the information has changed slightly since this slide was originally prepared. the brt improvements have would be made, depending on the options, it would range from $67 million to $210 million. in are a number of things the need to be implemented, including new bosses, the repaving of the street, the overhead system, in the 49 commission uses as well as upgrading the signaling system. when all of those elements are taking into nomination, the projects range from $162 million

to $216 million. we have a variety of funding from many sources, federal, state, and local. totaling about $175 million. depending on the alternative that is chosen, we either have the funding or we have a small gap that we would need to make up as we move through the design process. this is a common level of funding support for a project that is completing its environmental review phase. quickly, i will walk the three alternatives that are being considered in the environmental document. the first is what we are calling the no project. the improvements and would happen even if we decide not to go for it. replacing our buses on a regular basis, replacing the shelters

with the new designs that are going out throughout the system, and possibly considering aldo reporting as a way of speeding the system up. the first project alternative would be to improve the service and a way in that looks and less like what we have today, with the buses running in the curb lane on either side. you can see here -- the red lines would be dedicated lanes for transit. while there is a dedicated line, there would still be the ability for automobiles or other traffic to enter this link to access parking or make a right turn. for this reason, it tends to perform a little less well than the other alternatives i will share with you. then we have two center-running

alternatives, which would reconfigure the existing median to be a combination of transit boarding areas and mediant treatments. in the first example, we use two smaller platforms in the center. this would use a typical boss like we have today. -- typical bus like we have today. this would provide the most of exclusivity. it would be difficult for any other traffic to enter here. because we would need to reconstruct the entire median, this option is the most expensive to implement. the last alternative we are considering is to have one

larger platform in the middle of the median. this would require the purchase of five-door bosses. we would have bosses with three doors on the right-hand side as all of our existing buses, but unique boss with two doors on the left to allow for boarding along the van ness corridor. today, there are only about 50 of these vehicles in the country. we would be using a vehicle that is fairly limited in availability now. there is also the concern of having a detrick -- having a dedicated fleet for this service. we would need to purchase more vehicles than especially needed for the service desultory -- that is actually needed for the service itself. it would be a little more porous to the traffic. the key issues going forward

have to do with a lot of the differences between the options, the operational characteristics, the type of vehicle and vehicle availability, the stations themselves, how this would impact the transportation system, and how confident are we that we can fill a funding gap of one of the more expensive alternatives. these are issues that would feed into that. the selection we are targeting for march of next year. the last slide has some updates. these are the near term targets. the public review, in comment, as i mentioned, would kick off november 4, wrapping up around december 19 and current within that period, there would be a public hearing scheduled for a november 30 at. he had over the course of december and january, we would be working with the transportation authority to

review and prepare presentations for this to the authority board to lead up to the locally preferred alternative selection in march of 2012. with that decision, we would be able to commence the conceptual engineering phase of the project. that concludes my presentation. >> members of the board, questions or comments. >> a very good presentation and an exciting project. brt is exciting to me because, as i've said before, our metro customers enjoy the most efficient ride. this is bridging our bus service to that sort of model. i like that. without digging up the streets and incurring all the costs. in a couple of issues. one would-be taking back to a discussion we had a couple of meetings ago, whether we are going to allow cash affairs in

the brt corridor. this might be one area of where we would simply than cash and say you need a card or, because it is a confined corridor, it would be a good place to compile machines to allow people to convert cash to a fair instrument as they come aboard. we want the driver driving, not collecting cash fares, especially for a line that would be more of a commuter line than a tourist line. i could be wrong. the other issue is signal priority. i did not hear any hesitation about that. it is a controversial issue on a street like this, which called in -- which crosses some many east-west arteries. parts of the corridor, perhaps once or over the hill and looking at the water, that is an area where signal priority would

be put in. i urge that that be considered, too. we want people to get to market street from the top of the street as quickly as we can. those are ideas we can pile on the brt corridor and rest of the system as well. director ramos: thank you very much for the presentation. at one of my first jobs was working as a waiter. i learned how to bone fish at your table. i can always go back. i cannot do it like that anymore, but when i was making that commute, it was at 1:00 in the morning. i had to stand on the corner of market and van ness is waiting for something to come by and pick me up. i am wondering what kind of improvements we're going to see

for the late-night service. have you talked about that at all? >> there are two alternatives that will work with any of our vehicles, because the service changes in the late-night hours. he would have to see how that would integrate, depending on which alternative is chosen. if we choose any of the alternatives that use a standard three-store bus, there should not be an issue. if we go with centerboard in, there may be a concern with running those unique vehicles throughout the city 24 hours a day, having adequate time to do maintenance and overall activity in. director ramos: i want to make sure we focus on accommodating the work force in fisherman's wharf. because it is so slow, if i had

less than an hour to get to my job, i would drive. that would lead to parking. i would take precious parking spaces nearby from other people who do not need them as much as i do it. i am really eager to see how things will turn out to make a trend -- to make transportation faster and more efficient in this area. keep of the great work. >> on your outreach, please communicate with our first responders and emergency people. i think it will have some interesting input on how these lang configurations might help or hurt them, and particularly help them use this as a corridor to respond to emergencies more quickly. i did not see any of that. >> i am very supportive of this project so far. i am surprised to see it is coming up to march, where we selected the preferred alternative. just a suggestion, when we get close to that point, a grid of

laying out the positives and the negatives, the configuration of the street, the first responders. one quick question -- will golden gate transit get to use those lines? >> we have been working closely with them on accommodating them to some degree in any alternatives. it will depend a little bit on the option chosen. they are not in a position to acquire a fleet of left-door boarding the rebels. -- boarding vehicles. >> having the support of the golden gate transit riders could help move this forward as a regional idea and get everybody a taste of what brt can do, which i think will be amazing. >> members of the public have indicated an interest in addressing you on the matter.

chariman nolan: i understand it is a very quick one, right? >> we can do it quickly, or give you an idea of what we're doing in the board were shot. -- board workshop. we will continue that until the next meeting. secretary boomer: special order at 4:00. discussion regarding the youth pass. chariman nolan: director reiskin, the one to do a presentation? director reiskin: we do have a presentation for a baseline of understanding. we expect a lively round of public comment.

i will say that i gave a brief update on this at the last meeting. at the board of supervisors committee on neighborhood services, and they held a hearing this last week and i believe they are voting today as a full board on the resolution. i want to give great credit to power in the community, working with supervisor campos for a good grass-roots effort behind this. there is a lot of public discussion to have. there are certainly some challenges to overcome. i think you'll see what some of those are. i think it is a good discussion to have. we are working closely with stakeholders' around the table to advance this discussion and co that today's discussion helps to further advance it. chariman nolan: good afternoon

carried we have an excellent written report a. >> good afternoon. i want to give you a presentation on this effort. you cannot make the decision without looking at the overall landscape situation. just a reminder, in fiscal year of 2012, we are predicting a $22 million shortfall between revenue and expenses. as we are working on the 2013- 2014 budget, our projections again show shortfalls. also, in discussions to have had over past years, we do not budget adequately for issues budget adequately for issues like overtime, special events, budget for reserves. these and the kind of things that if you want to add them to the budget, they will have to be

part of your discussion, along with this program if you choose to fund it. in fiscal years 2011-2012, the board approved a two-year program to provide funds for the san francisco unified school district for distribution of 50% of the face value of the past. it was $10.50 in 2012. if you remember, the implementation of that program was difficult. there were distribution issues. subsequently, an item came before you in the latter part of 2010 asking you to approve passes for the final months because it had a financial impact to us. the program is currently on hold now, pending the conversation around this program.

as you know, supervisor campos is leading a coalition of advocacy groups evaluating this program. a budget analysis also completed a recent analysis with our input. the current program that is being championed is the free fares for all youth, unlimited access to muni at all times, clipper cards. this would be used to evaluate the program as a three-year pilot program. including the continuation of the $1.4 million subsidy moving forward. the budget analysis report including that writer should increase -- ridership increased.

they develop more costs from the loss of their revenue. and some additional incremental costs. the budget analysis, while they did not report the potential service increase, they did not include in that total, because they felt that, in the hiss -- historically, they felt this would continue for this program as well. we also wanted to bring in front of you other models that other cities are doing for your consideration. there are a couple of other things we could do instead of making free fare for all youth. you could reduce the -- you could reduce the youth task to further than it is currently at $21. half the value youth passes as a

bout a $1.4 million impact. we could also limit the program like new york does four hours, days, months. for example, their program allows school kids to ride only during school hours. this is challenging for the clipper. we do not know where in the line that might appear during the project. we could also limit the program by income, just like the lifeline passed for the adults. this, as you know, is very challenging administratively and will also require funding. the program cannot be limited to concerns about the youth, given the limitations of clipper. schloss, we discussed this program with the fta, and they

cautioned us from evaluating this program flight title 6 perspective. if we would embark on this program, and we would have to pass the fta mostar, in terms of the program. if we were to do this, we could not limited to san francisco use only. first of all, clipper could not allow that and a title 6 program would not allow us to do it. additionally, this would have to be a priority for the program regionally. we are only one of the transit offices operating the clipper program. we have to stand in line for our needs along with the other issues in front of clipper. with the budget analysis report, included were some areas that we do not feel we agree with. one of the first ones is they

felt we could reduce our number of fares sectors and test savings of $370,000. we do not think this is the case. we are very low on tfi staff and we believe the staff would have some safety and customer service issues as well. we do not believe that assumption is realistic. we also think we will have to incur some administrative effort in marketing and communication costs. things like, what happened to the clipper card? how will we handle that? we also have to work on marketing this program around schools, in terms of educating the use and how to use the system. we would have to work with the school district. the budget analysis estimate also assumes that $1.4 million

in that you provide will continue and that will be allocated for funding for the program. you have not proved that. that should be added to the cost as well. the last item is the big item. what the budget analysis did mention is that there would be some additional service hours and costs. they did not include that in the total. what we believe is that the assumption for additional costs of service, it is not realistic. in terms of youth writer ship -- youth ridership, they make up about 45% of our ridership from to clot-4:00. all the schools get out at the same time. we believe these services would

have to be added. probably about 25,000-75,000 additional service hours. if you remember the free muni study from a few years ago, assuming the costs from that, we extrapolated that. to come up with the $6 million. in with one caveat. we want to further refine this one to determine at what level we are going. it will be in that range of $6 million or so, depending on the service anchormen. what we have not look that is, if we add the service and have additional vehicles to provide that service, that would be further analysis of refinement that we would do depending on your direction today. the next step, we continue to work with the stakeholders.

he would like to have a preferred model discussion. should the program be limited in hours? should it be school hours only? for example, new york is school hours only. three hours per day. do want to limit access to the system? we would continue to finance financial impact. and we're working with supervisor campos and other individuals to identify sources of funding. having said that, i do not think we have clearly identified revenue sources yet. we need the board to weigh in on any direction you want to give us. any policy framework for the ongoing discussions. chariman nolan: i see we are joined by supervisor campos. i would love to have you come forward. good afternoon. supervisor campos: thank you. good afternoon. good afternoon to the executive director, director reiskin.

we are in the middle of our board of supervisors meetings. i know that at least two of my colleagues will try to speak out and speak to you as well. let me say that the board of supervisors just passed a resolution that i introduced calling up on the various agencies to collaborate to make free muni for u.k. reality in san francisco. [applause] i especially want to thank the young people who are the ones that brought this issue to our attention. quite frankly, they have given all of us a lesson in civic engagement. it is truly something to behold when you see the level of involvement that we have around this issue. for those of us who are looking to the future, it makes you feel very proud and pleased that the

city is going to be in very good hands when these young people get older. chariman nolan: i need to ask you a question so you can continue. you know how things work here. would you like to add anything else? [laughter] supervisor campos: let me make a couple of points here. first of all, we have been working on this for many months. the process of putting this together, it was not that we simply said, we want free muni for youth, make it happen. we have identified sources of funding for this program. we have the budget and legislative analysts here to answer any questions that you have. we believe it is possible to find the sources of money to make this happen in a fiscally responsible way.

we also believe that the policy benefits are numerous. not only the environmental benefits to having more people riding public transit, but also in it says about our investment in public education in general grid -- public education in general. this is also about making said francisco a livable city for families. mayor lee has tried to make san francisco a family friendly city. because of the economy and rising costs of public transportation, because the school district is significantly reducing the amount of transit that they are providing, families are hurting. this is about making a city that makes it possible for families to stay in san francisco. other cities in this country are doing it. we have led the way in many other areas. why not lead the way on this

one? i respectfully ask for your support. chariman nolan: thank you. we are honored by your presence in this session. [applause] members of the board, the you have questions or comments on the presentation? director oka: it is obvious to me, as it is obvious to all of us, that nothing in this economy is free. we can no longer afford to provide anything free. if, in fact, we provide free muni for youth, somebody else is going to have to pay for that. i agree with supervisor ca