>> the morning. welcome to the san francisco county transportation authority. i am and ross mirkarimi, chair. madam clerk, good morning. would you please read roll-call? >> supervisor avalos, supervisor

campos, supervisor chiu, supervisor chu, supervisor cohen, supervisor elsbernd -- absent. supervisor farrell, supervisor kim -- absent. supervisor mar -- absent. supervisor wiener. we have a quorum. supervisor mirkarimi: good. thank you to sfgtv for their ongoing excellent. >> item number two, minutes of the center 27, 2011 meeting. this is an action item. >> ok. commissioner campeau's bid a very good. sickened by commissioner farrell. is there any comments or questions. seeing none, public comment is closed. we take this -- number one on the roll call.

commissioner avalos, commissioner caen bose, commissioner david chiu, commissioner carmen chu, commissioner calling. commissioner elsbernd absent. commissioner farrell. commissioner kim. commissioner moore. commissioner moore, absent. commissioner mirkarimi. commissioner wiener. the item passes. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. >> item number 3 commenters report. these are information items. supervisor mirkarimi: very good. colleagues, i have a brief report. the most interesting piece of news in the transportation area, this month is secretary ray lahood's announcement that he will not serve a second term with president obama, as he is now at occupy sf -- just kidding. he is planning to pursue opportunities in the private sector. we will see what this portends

for the future programs. for high-speed rail in driving safely. they have been closely associated with the secretary. hopefully this will receive as much support from his successor, if not more. congress continues to debate the president american jobs act, including the proposed $60 billion for transportation. but this work is happening against the backdrop of activities of the deficit reduction cibber committee, which is on a seek and destroy mission to reduce the federal prevacid by $1.20 trillion. in this political context, it appears that the only way that the house transportation infrastructure committee, headed by congressman john mica, can find its way to a six-year surface reauthorization is that it can find $100 billion in a non-gas tax revenue that it can pledged towards the act. this is next to an impossible task. so much so that the senate environment and public works

committee, headed by senator barbara boxer, has evolved a proposal for just a two-year act, instead of six. which would just extend the terms of this to provide some needed funding for continuity and give us a breather until the economy picks up again and revenues are identified. it is a continuing saga made more poignant by the upcoming deadline when the current temporary authorization runs out. we can expect another temporary authorization, perhaps one that will carry us through the year and just beyond the presidential elections of 2012 perhaps. on the local front, there has been progress in the sustainable community strategy. i would like to thank commissioner campos and can -- commissioner winner for attending the meeting last week. to continue to provide guidance to staff and feed bag --

feedback about our priorities. perhaps the executive director will have further details on that. that concludes my report. thank you. mr executive director. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my report is on your desk, and i have a few things i would like to highlight. first of all, october 21, the federal register. this is our eir-eis for the improvement projects to the this is a major milestone. it is something the authority took on for san francisco and with the mayor's office and the office of economic and workforce development. the trying to get the right amount and kind of access into the island. this has been quite a saga, but

at this point, i think we're poised to receive a federal record of position in late november, which is quite extraordinary because it puts us in a position to, after we receive the state's final certification on the eir in december, be able to move forward with the final design phase of the project. i would like to congratulate the division, and the person who has been really pushing this in an excellent and relentless manner for quite some time and has really succeeded in getting this to be not just an eir, but an eir on a consensus project that the state is fully backing and has captured millions of dollars in federal funding. very good news for san francisco's newest neighborhoods.

on high-speed rail, and will be doing around of briefings soon with all of you to give you a sense of what is happening. there is a major effort to fill the quality position for san francisco and high-speed rail for some time now. working with the mayor's office, caltrain, and other agencies that are primarily involved in this, and of course with the high-speed rail authority of california. the main concern i have, i think we all share, is getting to a solution to the implementation of the second phase of the transit center, the downtown extension. our position evolved over the past year or so has been that we should be able to implement that

extension, together with caltrain, and the solution to the high-speed rail approach on the san francisco peninsula it is what we call a blended operation. but caltrain trains and high- speed trains share the tracks without the need for a huge revamping of the current set up there, without making today the commitment to a 50-year future where there is a train every five minutes and a huge impact. all of us think it will end up getting in the way of a solution and consensus today. we believe that, for the foreseeable future, there is enough capacity to run both systems concurrently and bahrain the high-speed rail project initiatives state ride -- a statewide a reality in the next decade or so. we're working toward that goal

in cooperation with the number of regional and local agencies. specifically to deal with the issue of the downtown extension, we held an engineering meeting a few days ago. the authority hosted this, attended by a number of the agencies i just mentioned, as well as leading f -- experts on engineering of urban tunnels for transit purposes. both from that the industry and from academia. what has been evolving out of it that set of discussions is an initial look at potential alternative alignment that could bring high-speed rail and caltrain together, nt transbay, and at the same time addressing some of the key quality issues, like the crossing of 16th street near the mission bay campus of ucsf.

and also primarily focused on reducing the cost of the project, which currently has a gap of more than $2 billion. i believe we're on our way to succeeding. i made a preliminary set of presentations to the transportation land use committee last week. and i will be briefing you individually on the back in the next few days. on at the local scene, another major milestone. the van ness project is issuing a draft eir november 4 pit i am elated to be about to make that announcement could it is a major milestone for the project. it signals also the beginning of a new phase of cooperation with mta on game this project finally delivered. i want to thank and congratulate the planning director for her division's efforts on this, and

lee chan, and rachel hite, the project manager on our side. she did an outstanding job. the public review time is a 45- day review period december 4 through december 19. there will be a meeting on december 30 at holiday inn, golden gate way, 1500 van ness avenue. substantially more information will be available on the projects website, and i can be reached through our web site. i anticipate that in the spring, there will be parallel recommendations to our respective boards on finding an alternative. and the adoption of the final eir is anticipated next fall.

we're already working on the 30% design in cooperation with sfmta. it looks as though this project is now ranked as the highest priority nationally for federal small starts. it can be a reality. not very far behind it is the geary project eir which is now going through the same stages as the van ness one. we're now in the throes of during the capacity modeling that needs to be done on these projects. four different alternatives. not that different from van ness. that project has a number of additional challenges, in particular the intersections of fillmore and masonic, which of course is under the other street and generate some challenges and some opportunities. i will continue to keep you

posted on progress on that project. we have also been making significant progress on the state of the sentences the transportation plan. this is our 30-year look at transportation needs. it feeds right into the regional efforts on the regional transportation plan. and we completed the first phase of outreach, and we expect to be briefing the technical and other committees on the progress. we will be briefing the programs committee at an upcoming meeting as well. one followup item, on jfk drive bikeway project, approved funding for it in september. there are some follow-ups to that that report of the approval. among them, the approval by the golden gate park authority and by the recreation and parks commission to both of those approvals that happen. the golden gate park concourse

authority had some mitigation for the parking spaces being lost as a result of the bikeway implementation. the sfmta has already ended the fight another 15 parking spaces that can be restored by small changes in the design right in front of the parking institutions, which is what we were hoping for. and the park and rec commission requested sfmta to hold off or rearrange is better to avoid any impact on the crowds during the holiday season. that is in the works as well. i think we have a good happy ending for that project. we will have the bikeway with minimal impact to institutions in the park and a lot of benefits. we have a record number of papers accepted by the

transportation research board nationally for the meeting in january in washington, d.c., which is the premier transportation professionals meeting in the country. more than 8000 professionals will attend that, and we will be well-represented with several cutting edge papers. i want to congratulate the modeling section for that. i want to also take a moment to welcome courtney aguilar, the new transportation authority. she comes from the city of long beach, where she worked as a transportation program planner focused on making long beach a more bike-friendly community. you would be surprised how advanced all of that is in southern california. the amount of very good work happening in long beach and los angeles. she was right in the middle of that. she managed the metro blue line and bicycle access plan. she has a degree in public

administration with an emphasis in urban planning from cal state fullerton. she is already fitting in, and we love having her on the step. welcome, and we look forward to working with you. finally, the auditors have finished its extensive portion of their work for this year, and i anticipate you'll have a clean audit report before the finance committee in december. i wanted to thank cynthia fong, our deputy for finance and administration, for doing what it takes every day so we do not have to cram add audit time. we gaet a clean audit. her and her group does a good record keeping. so thank you. that concludes my report. i will answer any questions. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you.

any comments or questions? supervisor wiener: i wanted to raise the issue of high-speed rail, and similar issues were raised at the last meeting when caltrain presented to us. i guess i am not ready to throw in the towel on a separate track for high-speed rail. i have some concerns about the sharing with caltrain and what that can mean for the system. i always try to keep in mind what we allowed marin and san mateo county to do back when bart was -- when bart was very popular or may have been very popular at the time. but the entire region has been paying the price ever since. so when we have local opposition, of course we should always be sensitive and work with people. but i am concerned that we have

had a few cities that have really been loudoun in opposition to having a separate track for high-speed rail, and that is trying to drive the whole process. i know there cost issues as well, of course. i am not an expert on caltrain. i am sure supervisor elsbernd probably has more insight on that than i do. but when i know there will be a couple of cut out so if a caltrain vehicle broke down, the high-speed rail vehicle could go around it. but that would only be in a few areas, so there are significant stretches on the peninsula where if a caltrain vehicle broke down, that would just gum up high-speed rail. i do not know how realizable those are or what that experience is. -- i do not know how reliable those cars are or what the experiences. i thing this is a once-in-a-

lifetime kind of opportunity. >> if i may, that is exactly the kind of pushed that we need on policy issues like this. let me clarify that the position that we have been an evolving on this is only intended to throw some technical light on these issues you are mentioning. because we believe that pushing for the final system that needs to be in place in 2050, and pripet -- pretend the only way to get high-speed rail is to have that, and that is potentially a red herring for those communities that are trying to fight that vision. without necessarily showing that there is a middle path that provides an evolution towards the ultimate system, but it does not require that all of the money being saved today and all of the agreements taking place today, and it does not negate the quality of life in those

communities today in any way. as you mentioned, there is a huge money gap. so to go from the idea that the only acceptable thing to do is to do 50 miles of tunnels, there's something in between. we know that the best we can do is to show some technical facts that point to that compromise. supervisor wiener: and understand that there is a huge money issue as well. i do not have a problem with there being a transition to what i hope the system will be. but we have all seen situations where you go to a transition to get us where you want to be and partly to avoid controversy, and then you end up never taking that final step. people said that the system is in place, so why do this? fairhope we always keep it on the radar, because i think it is important. supervisor elsbernd: we also

need to keep in mind that the downtown extension renown as a bit of a pipe dream. we do not know how the hell we're going to fund that. we will need as many regional partners as we can get. i think we have a great opportunity to build a partnership with the peninsula by working with them. the amount of time i have spent on the peninsula on this issue, and a pension hope the opposition to a couple of random opposing cities. we can point fingers. i would put a lot of this on the poor, poor communications of the high speed rail authority. but i think the process put forward by caltrain in the present system is the right approach and one that we should embrace and figure out how we're going to make that work with the downtown extension. supervisor mar: thank you.

thank you so much for the report on jfk drive, the separated bike lanes. i thank my colleagues for allocating the prop k funds for this support area that helps connect the city with bikeways. welcome to courtney. i am sure she is too new to jump into this issue. but with the concourse authority and the recreation and parks commission, i think those are important steps forward having them. but i do think the project will be delayed given the holiday season. can you let as know when, early in 2012, you expect the beginning of the project and when it will end? and if there's any other processes that that has to go through with other commissions and the board for the process for approval. >> commissioner mar, thank you for the clarification. i do not believe there are any pending approvals on this.

but there are some few steps that need to be taken in finalizing the design. one of the ways that the desire of the concourse authority was able to be accommodated for parking spaces was by a small change in the with the of the bike lanes. it does not allow -- it does not change the functionality or the safety of the lane. it may be that in the final analysis, does not want it being much of a delay at all. but of course we always try to avoid the holiday season to have an economic of people -- a people -- upheaval. i will be happy to bring you back a more updated schedule in november when we have a better sense, once the technical activities have been completed on of the design of exactly when the facility is expected to

open. i think that is the main issue. we may find ways to accelerate the implementation. supervisor elsbernd: i also wanted to ask, on the geary brt, are the alternatives on the website so anyone from the public can work at the traffic modeling or transit modeling alternatives? >> yes, all -- the makeup of the alternative is on the web site. you can see the project. what we do not have yet are the results of the modeling. it will be on the website for everybody to see. >> all right, seeing that there are no further comments or questions, of public comment on item one of the directors' report. seeing none, public comment is closed. this is an informational item. no vote is necessary. read the next one. >> item 5, authorize the exhibit

a director to execute a memorandum of agreement with the city and county, through the san francisco municipal transportation agency, can san francisco planning department, and the department of the environment for a three-year time span in an amount not to exceed $434,746, for the san francisco integrated travel demand management public-private partnership project to this is an action item. supervisor mirkarimi: public seeing none, public comment is closed. comment. >> commissioner avalos said. aye. commissioner david chiu. carmen chu. commissioner:. commissioner elsbernd. commissioner farrell. commissioner kent. commissioner mark. commissioner mirkarimi. commissioner winener. item passes. item six, i recommend to the

treasure island development authority board in the san francisco board of supervisors the designation of the authority as the treasure island mobility management agency to implement the treasure island transportation program. all there is the executive director to execute a -- execute a memorandum of agreement between the authority and tida. of wright's executive director to negotiate initial operating contracts and develop timma formation of documents. supervisor mirkarimi: discussion? none. public comment? public comment is closed. so moved. thank you. next. >> 7, authorized executive director to enter into a funding agreement for the presidio parkway project with the california department of transportation and the golden gate bridge highway and transportation district to negotiate agreement -- agreement terms and conditions. action item. supervisor mirkarimi: discussion? none. public comment? public comment is closed. same house, call?

so moved. next. >> item number 8, accept $750,000 from the civic center, and associated llc to waive the lease extension option and to terminate the work space lease at 100 van ness avenue, execute a 13-your workspace lease with hudson 1455 market, llc four offices located at 1455 market street. the amount is not to exceed $685,272. the director can negotiate terms and conditions. supervisor mirkarimi: discussion? public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. san house, same call? so moved. that concludes our finance committee. on to plans and programs. >> at 9, allocate $135,000 in prop k funds would conditions to the san francisco mta for two requests, subject to the attached fiscal year cash flow distribution schedules. action item. supervisor mirkarimi:

discussion? public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. take the same house, col. so moved. next. >> item 10, approve san francisco's one bay area block grant advocates the principles, action item. supervisor mirkarimi: ok. any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. take the same house the same call. this concludes thep3/ action ps and programs committee. >> item 11, introduction of new items. and information item. supervisor mirkarimi: all right, and the introduction of new items? any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. next item. >> item 12, public comment. supervisor mirkarimi: another opportunity for public comment. seeing none, public comment is closed. and madam clerk -- >> item 13, adjournment. supervisor mirkarimi: have a good rest of the day.

meeting adjourned.