comment. >> as was presented by the person trying to help those two really need some help in transportation and the bay view area, one of the buses that was left out is the 23rd that goes all the way to this issue. it has a lot of people who work and students who are poor. another bus left out is the nine san bruno and the express bus.

we are talking about thousands of dollars but in some areas, about $400,000. those are the type of moneys. this discussion has been going on for the last four or five years. four years ago, some shuttle buses were used for three months and then abruptly stopped. it's a presentation that was given but in all these presentations, and order to have some solution for go to a better place, they have to be time lines and benchmarks.

[tone] i'm going to go back to the community and ask if they know what's happening with the bayview hundred points foundation. i'm going to make it a point to talk to him as to what is happening but the people at the grassroots have to really know what is happening and you who represent the district should make an attempt to bring this information to everybody. [tone] supervisor avalos: thank you. any other member of the public like to comment? see no other members of the public, public comment is closed. motion from commissioner kim. we will take that without objection. >> item 7, recommend that the center lane bus rapid transit with right side boarding, a

single median and the limits of left turns as the locally preferred alternative for the van ness avenue art project. this is an action item. >> before i introduce the planner who is presenting the item, i want to acknowledge the tremendous partnership that leadership of our board and partners at the mta who worked with us to come to this point to be able to present to you the staff recommendation of this representation. i would like to know -- that would like to note that this is an action item and we would like to defer the item until the full board last week. some of which are on the desk.

anyone who would be interested in the action taken last week, it was a 6-3 vote. for us to be -- to brief the supervisors, and members of the committee, we would offer that as an option if you would so choose. >> your recommendation is to take no action but move to the full action -- >> that would allow us time to fully briefed the supervisors and any other committee members would like a briefing on these late breaking items as well as the actions from theca cac last week.

we are prepared to do an information and we could defer to the full board. supervisor avalos: i'm going to make a motion to continue this item in committee. this has major impact in this effort to and i know it has been years in the making. i get that absolutely. my issue here is i have not been briefed on these latest items over the last month or two. i know there has been a change chosen at this point in time and to ask for a vote today before one of the supervisors that there -- i don't know if president chiu has had a briefing. that's absolutely inappropriate and i'm, saying right now i'm upset about the fact they have not reached out to my office and there is no coordination here or a meeting hasn't happened. this is a responsibility of

mine and its a project that has been worked on for so long, the fact we're going to ask for a vote today without even -- i know it's getting moved to next week but i'm not prepared to say next week i'm going to be ready either. last night, which is too late, i get a lot of comments and i have no basis to even talk to them about my opinions are on this project. that ought -- i don't think that's going to change in one week's time. i would make a motion to continue this. i know commissioner avalos has a different opinion but it's appropriate and i think necessary for the supervisors and commissioners to get affected by this in their districts to be fully briefed on this before we ask a vote on any of this, even if it might be non-binding. that's going to be my motion and i will make a motion to continue to the call of the chair, that

way commissioner avalos -- we can calendar it or work together. supervisor avalos: thank you for your motion. not sure of that being seconded. seconded by commissioner cohen. we probably need to take public comment and i also wanted to hear about time lines for moving this project forward and what does the delay mean or continuance mean in terms of how this will get processed. >> my understanding is the mta board will take the policy action today and it would not be binding. it would allow staff to include the preferred alternative to be

included and for us to maintain the schedule. the federal transit administration is very keen for us to catch up since we are behind our schedule but they understand the need for a strong, local process. the staff should work with the board to ensure everyone has the full information available before a decision is rendered. >> just a question of our reaching out to our offices -- there was a story in the paper last week talking about this alternative. >> it has been out there. there was a recommendation at the last board meeting and we offer briefings to the board members and some did take us up and some did not take us up on that briefing opportunity. i want to apologize for the oversight for not alerting

supervisor farrell and supervisor chiu. we were busy documenting the packet and dealing with freedom of information and other sort of fire drills. i apologize. that was an oversight on our part and we should have been able to bring that to their attention. supervisor kim: i just wanted to say i will support the continuance. while our office did receive a briefing and we are supportive, i think it's important to have the import -- have the support of our supervisors and i know we have the supervisors who are integral part of that corridor as well as our district and in the future, christina olague will be gaining a portion of that. i understand what it is like not being reached out to, so i think that is an important process.

i appreciate the briefing our office did receive and i would like to thank you for work on the project because what has come before us is a very delicate project and i'm excited about what that might mean in terms of public transit and trends in general. supervisor avalos: thank you. >> if the committee is willing, it might be beneficial to the public given this new alternative is a hybrid of two parallel are alternatives, we could do a brief presentation to the public to be aware of what the alternative is. supervisor avalos: i think that would be a good use of time. we will have a brief presentation. we'll take no action and continue it. that seems to be with the committee has decided to do. >> good morning.

i'm a transportation planner with the authority. i will just briefly go to the background as will as the alternatives considered and how we came to this recommendation. this project has been a long time in the making. it has been a close collaboration with the mta as well as other agencies across the city. it is a regional project. the state department of transportation and caltrans -- since we're applying for funds, they are involved in prioritizing that. this part of the muni rapid network, a key ingredient, and van ness is the first project. geary is the second. the main purpose of the project, everybody sees the speed benefit but reliability on van ness is one of the major benefits of this problem.

the chart on the lower right shows the frequency of buses arriving at market street on van ness ave. they're scheduled to come every seven and a half minutes. you expect to see a bell curve but what you see is that it is flat, meaning there are buses likely to come 14 minutes apart or one minute apart as often as they are supposed to come seven minutes apart and i think people experience that unreliability. we want to enhance pedestrian comfort, urban design and move people through the corridor. the goal is to have more on transit but still moving a similar number through the corridor. brt is it popularized in other countries and it's the combination of all of these benefits. you've probably seen some of

these things like signaled priority or low floor buses which when you put everything together, you have a dedicated transit lane that makes this a priority work better because the buses moving at a consistent speak. that is what makes it a new mode in san francisco. the project considered a no build alternative as well as three build alternatives. the two center alternatives have a design variations that limit left turns. it would limit left turns to for in each direction and there would just be a left turn at lombard and southbound at broadway between mission and lombard. this is alternative #two. it runs on the side with our buses and cars. this will be buses only in a dedicated line and would be high-quality platforms in the street where the parking lane is currently. parking is retained outside

station locations as much as possible. branding is the key part to let people know it's part of the rapid that work. pedestrian safety treatment -- countdown signals, we are proposing to put them as part of the overhead contact. pedestrian lighting and the reduction in left turns. that's one of the most frequent causes of pedestrian-auto collisions. alternative three would have buses and the center where the median is today, a fully separate bus line would require moving all the trees and reconfiguring the median. alternative #four has buses running in the left most travel line. the big difference here would require vehicles to have doors on both sides of the vehicle.

the findings of the environmental document show we do improved travel times to meet the reliability goal, resulting in increased transit boarding and giving a similar number of people through the corridor, many more on us than before. because the buses are able to move more quickly, they are able to provide more frequency with your actual vehicles. it's a reduction in operating costs and it's very important in this day and age of challenging and operational funding. finally, the multi modal safety for pedestrians. there is one finding in the environmental document and that is in traffic circulation. we looked at the near-term and long-term out to 2035. in 2015, the three auto delay impacts but that's no worse than in the know build alternative due to background growth. in the long term, they're the

such a significant amount of background growth, when you implement it to transmit only, you'd see between six and eight zones with impacts. there are things we're looking at to mitigate those. due to the requirements, we cannot assume them in the background. we of dallas -- a lot of community and stakeholder our reach. we have done a lot of meetings at the end of the presentation and the way we analyze the different alternatives is in chapter 10, there are eight different categories that are performance indicators. you can see them on your screen -- we basically saw how each alternative, including did know build alternative performed in each of these categories. however, we realize not all those categories would be

weighted equally by all the stakeholders. we went through a series of exercises with the citizen advisory committee and said you have 100 points to divide up. how would you wait each of the performance categories? transit performance was the number one priority. that stands out of the rest. passenger experience, with the rest are literally less than half the weight. while we consider everything in there, we saw people gravitated toward if they're going to do a transit project, you want to have an alternative that benefits the transit performance. what we found in the document is the best that meets that needs is the center was reduced left turns. you can see it takes twice as long to travel by bus as it does by car if you do both of france

on clay street and under design option b, you'd cut that in half. public comment indicated about three to one ratio of people who prefer the center to the side. the public naturally understood the center would perform better and when of the main reasons for that is because an aside, people need to parallel park or write in turn would have to use the transit travel lane and it's not as protected as the center. that's where you get the extra bump in the travel time and reliability. each of the alternatives had their own challenges. alternative three has a head on configuration which may require wider travel lanes and that would because the need to reduce the size of the median. the transit would be traveling ride over where the sewer exists, so that is a potential utility and construction risk.

the removal of all the trees was seen as not desirable. for alternative no. 4, requiring the left hand door vehicles, the 47 runs with a diesel hybrid you need to have to sub links for this corridor which was seen as a major procurement risk because there's no existence of a five door trolly coach in north america. staff said what's the way to make the center running north and this is the recommendation we are bringing forward today. it is a refinement of the center alternatives. the buses outside a state of location would run in the left most troubling for linking the median and as it came to the station location, they would transition toward the center and load and unload from the right side. they would then transition back to the right side. that gets the major travel time and reliability benefit -- i

should also mention that the design option with the lead left turn is part of the recommendation. it really does get the major transit reliability benefit and you can't operate the vehicles outside a station locations. the buses would be able to pass each other in the event of a breakdown. it allows golden gate transit to use the stops as well. we're going to try to maintain as much of the center median as possible and it's a consistent design in terms of the way it is laid out. this is the outreach we have done today. we sent out a newsletter to our 800 contacts and updated the web site with press releases and we have made presentations. supervisor avalos: we will spend time on the outreach. we will continue this item and you can do even more outreach between now and then.

>> absolutely. that is pretty much -- those are the areas of interest we can bring back. most people are pleased it is a high performing alternative that works. therethis requested action is obviously not applicable if we are continuing. thank you for your time. supervisor avalos: thank you. we can open this up for public comment. this will be continued if we vote in that direction. madam clerk, did you have a question? >> no. supervisor avalos: ok, public comment. >> i listen to this presentation of the planning commission, and what we have here is all san franciscans are

interested in this project, as much as we are interested in what happens on franklin street or what happens on geary street or what has happened on the third street. so you will see a lot of people take this project to court, and one of the reasons being you can have outreach. there are focus groups who understand the issues that have not been informed. for example, today you have one supervisor who was completely left out in the dark. and then you have two other supervisors who find out that they were left in the dark. and finally, you find out that all supervisors, as usually happens, you're left out in the dark. so, who suffers are the

constituents of san francisco. this is not an easy project. van ness is not an easy project. any benefits for those that live in the city, including the traffic managers, whatever you call yourselves, live in the city -- if you just come to work in the city for the paycheck, you not put a lot of compassion in this project. [bell rings] this is important. you may look at van ness, but i am really interested to see what happens on franklin street and polk street. that is my subjective opinion. as i look at it, it is like a moving target. it is a difficult moving target, but we need focused outreach to people who really understand transportation issues. [bell rings]

thank you very much. and you keep giving two minutes. i think you should get three minutes. supervisor avalos: thank you. next speaker. >> i am on the citizens' advisory board. i am happy to see -- [inaudible] supervisor avalos: pull the microphone closer so we can hear you better. >> while the project itself has been in steady, because people voted to look into better rapid transit -- has been studied, the proposal just happened a couple of weeks ago. it is a blend of two proposals, and we had never heard of the blend of four. and the neighborhood associations are just beginning to react to it. the pacific heights association came out yesterday very dubious about taking two lanes off of van ness. the golden gate valley association is having a meeting tomorrow night. the russian hill association is going to, within a week or two,

planning a meeting on this. i spoke to someone at the lower polk street association were these people just give a presentation a couple days ago. he thought the meeting idea was a very good idea, but he was shocked to learn its involved taking two lanes away from a van ness. that is where they are. they're not focused at all. you need more than a week for the neighborhood associations to really wrap their minds around it. in doing so, i know technically these people are required to report in terms of percentage, but i would like everybody to keep in mind in means two or three minutes. reliability that somewhat depends not so much on traffic but on the bus drivers showing up, because it is a stressful job. reliability is also a matter of two or three minutes. and the extra cost to take a plane away each direction is $80

million -- to take a lane away. while we studied the six lane no build alternative, we did not study it to the extent that we did on the van ness alternatives. [bell rings] and i want to make one final comment. supervisor avalos: your time is up. >> i would like them to apply all the efficiencies. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> i am elizabeth, executive director of walk san francisco. i realize you are continuing this, but since i am here, i thought i would speak up. walk san francisco strongly supports this alternative. the center-running brt option will actually make public transportation a lot faster and more reliable along this corridor, which is a central, a

critical corridor for transportation through our city. it is also a good improvement for pedestrian safety, for the people walking along van ness. in fact, for the people who might otherwise walk along van ness bed now choose not to because it is scary and -- but now choose not to because it is scary and there are no countdown signals. those things will be improved in this project, and that is in the we strongly support. it will generally calm traffic along van ness, making conditions safer for everyone, not just pedestrians or transit users, also drivers. by reducing left turns, it will protect pedestrians. as michael schwartz said, that is something that often contributes to pedestrian collisions. having better lighting will help people on foot see and be seen. i would think about it a little

bit more as actually sort of living up to the sustainable transportation potential, the 21st century transportation potential. [bell rings] san francisco should have that, so we support this project. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. next. >> i am robin. i formally served on the pedestrian safety advisory committee, and i am every applying for the committee -- 3 applying for the committee. these alternative plans were turned in to our committee. i am speaking as an individual, but i strongly supported this particular plan with the buses running down the center of van ness. i am looking at it from a pedestrian safety point of view, and i felt strongly that this definitely protected pedestrians, that the sidewalks would be wider and more pedestrians would be able to walk. without having buses in the right hand and, -- right hand lane, you have a series of buses

that turnout causing congestion. if they have their own lanes to run down, it would serve the public much better and the flow of traffic would be a lot better. so i strongly support this plan. thank you. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. next speaker. >> i am george, and lived in the brt corridor area since 1978. my wife and i, who are now in district two, have lived in the area since 1997 on our street. we are concerned about three factors. the first is, as was mentioned earlier, the significant negative traffic impact to the local community. i am not going to have time to go through all of these factors, but i give committee members a copy of my presentation. i will go over the high points. i would appreciate if you spend some of your precious time reading through the details. as we know, there is going to be significant additional circulating traffic