not from a geometric standpoint make a design work that puts the station and the dedicated lines underneath so the options that we have for creating a dedicated bus line in the center require filling the tranche at fillmore and making everything run at the surface. there is the cost to doing this. we are still working on determining whether or not our costs like that can be incorporated into the project because we do also want to be competitive for federal funds. we're going to be going after federal transit administration funds to help us fund the project and we want to be competitive. part of that is the cost effectiveness measure of how much money are you spending per benefit that you are getting from transit. there is a question about whether or not that fill is needed or not to run the

project. it would be nice to do it to stitch the community together. we have heard the north and south sides fear filmore have felt divided for a long time and -- near fillmore have filled divided for a long time and wish to be connected. we have benefits beyond transit and we're looking at whether or not we can include this as part of the project. we can definitely include this in our environmental document so it has environmental clearance. perhaps the idea is if we could include it in the project budget and be as part of the transit project we could relate -- include it as a related project and find other funds to do that. that is something we do at the same time. i will move on to the inner geary. that is the eastern portion.

the busines -- buses run on a one-we couplet. in that portion, the bus has a dedicated lane among most -- along most of that segment. what we're looking at there is better delineation of the bus lane and maybe some more work with parking and loading areas to see if we can remove conflicts and increased bus reliability there. -- increase us reliability there. we have some upcoming outreach. three community open houses after that set of outreach. hopefully we will have enough to define our alternatives. we will go into an environmental analysis of those alternatives. our analysis includes the number of technical studies including an economic analysis.

we are developing a preliminary construction plan and we're expecting to release a draft environmental document in 2013. i will conclude with the information about our open houses coming up and brick for questions. we are planning for three open houses, one in the richmond, one in the middle portion of the corridor in japantown, and one in the inner portion of the corridor at st. mary's cathedral. these are the and -- at the end of june. that concludes my presentation. i'm happy to take questions at this time. >> commissioner? commissioner dooley: i do have some questions. my primary concern is as always the destruction to the merchant corridor. and i feel that before you go further with any of this, you

need to get a detailed description for the merchants of the scope of the construction, the length of time the disruption would be occurring, i also want to strongly urge you to have outreach meetings with the merchant associations. another of these projects have been going on around san francisco. i have found that there is no mitigation plan for business disruptions for the merchants, and we would need to keep in mind that most of these businesses are not giant corporations. significant impact in terms of business disruption would be extremely detrimental to their businesses. just want to urge a lot of outreach to the merchants.

i have found that to be lacking. >> we are happy to do outreach. we have ideas about outreach and how we can do it to the merchant communities. we have thought about impacts in terms of what the construction plan will be. we have intimation we can share. -- information we can share. paramount is when all is said and done, this project will look from a construction standpoint like -- [no audio] to the scale of blocking off the entire street. it is not in the scale of the tunnel. it is a resurfacing. it is like resurfacing a project that you would imagine anywhere else in the city. the other thing i want to point

out to think about at this point, we can do staging. and so we do not need to block off the entire corridor also once. we can do blocks at a time and we're estimating we think the construction will take two months per set of blocks and weekend block off three to six blocks at a time. we do not expect to block off the entire street. we expect to keep it open. there will not be much in the way of sidewalk construction so pedestrian access will not be impeded. that is the kind of thing we think we have got some idea by this point and we can refine our plan with input from the merchant community. that is the magnitude of what we're thinking about in terms of duration and intensity. commissioner riley: i echo commissioner dooley's concern. i used to work in the richmaond

area and there were talks about having underground transit but after talking to the merchants and the businesses in the area and finding out how detrimental that would be for small business, that did not happen. i hope that we do a lot of outrage -- outreach adn th -- and the plan will not negatively impact them. >> thank you. commissioner dwight: ditto, commissioner dooley. you touched on pedestrian walkways which is keen. can you tell me, does any of these lands, will it to impact parking? -- lines, will it impact parking? >> i can say anything definitive but we do know that parking

would be affected in some locations. for instance, the places where there are angled parking, that is where the right of way gets narrower. in order to provide a dedicated bus line, we would have to read- oriented the angled parking to parallel parking so we can fit the bus lane in. we can provide that width. there would be less parking on st.. -- street. we recognize parking is needed in this area of the city. we're looking for options for how we can -- what we can do given that we may need to change some of the ankle to parallel. -- angled to parallel. perhaps we could change the configuration there and convert some of the parallels basis to

-- spaces to ankle the -- angled spaces. commssioner o'connorrtiz: i am thinking like a small business person. how do deliveries get there when you do not have parking? do we need it after the businesses are no longer there? especially small businesses? just the community average because i have been reaching out for a lot of merchants and only -- [no audio] there has not been outreach. they're pretty complicated and intense. maybe an animation or something. i read in your proposal at one point it could be 60% of 417%

down. that is no -- no concrete facts. parking will be affected and small businesses will be affected in certain areas. >> we will be sure to share our findings in the parking analysis. there will be more concrete numbers in that analysis. >> you cannot estimate the impact on the parking if you do not know you're going with the option a or three or four. before you define any one of those, if it is a combination for different blocks, you do not know the parking impact, right? >> when we -- the environmental document will include analysis of the four alternatives. there will be impacts that will

be analyzed for each of those alternatives. you will know what the outcome looks like. and we will disclose what the impact from running the buses in that we will be. there will be four different cases you will see in the document that we will have the results for in terms of our impact. >> when you say for the places you'll have to make some adjustments, i'm trying to visualize this. we go from angled parking to parallel. i am picturing cars will be sitting at right ankle parallel to each other but i presume that is not what i mean. >> parallel meeting parallel to the path of travel. >> there will be in front of the other in series.

we would call that tandem parking. parallel suggests to spaces side-by-side which everybody loves. tandem parking is how we describe one behind the other. parallel to the flow of traffic. that will be a dramatic reduction in the parking space. you are going to have a plan that will tell everyone here is the four ways, one of the four ways that this will get done. if it is done this way, here is all the figures. that will include the combination of different approaches. we have the intersection from dedicated lanes and outside to the inside. when do you think you'll have that? >> our document, we are aiming for releasing it in 2013. >> how long has the study been going on? >> the idea is not new.

we have had a series of efforts to get us closer to coming through -- to an agreement on how best to do this. there was a feasibility study i believe was adopted in 2007. after that the authority authorize us to move into an environmental phase. >> you are doing an environmental study and it will be doing what again. commissioner ortiz: i am asking so i apologize if i do not come as prepared. was there some kind of real on gary avenue -- geary avenue.

>> i do not remember what it was a got removed. >> 1956. >> i had one more question. what is the potential impact on new jobs in the city? >> i do not have an answer but we will get that question. president adams: any other commissioner comments? >> there is a few ways to look at that question. threre are a certain amount of jobs and that is a figure we can derive based on the final project. we're looking at two under $40 million or $250 million. if you -- we can calculate that.

another way to consider this project is the city plans to grow the association of bay area governments. this corridor service residential trips and employment trips. -- serbves residential trips and implement trips. hopefully, that is helpful. president adams: i would like to say that i like the fact that something is going to be done or something is that because those buses and i have taken the limited and the regular one. sometimes it takes me an hour to get from downtown of 2 19th ave. it is the parking. one of my questions is if you

put the bus lanes in the middle, what you have parking where the bus lanes used to be? and i know you are saying you will do this in phases. i am all for transit first and cycling. the richmond is the -- a different area. you need cards out there and you need parking. and to mitigate this with -- mta could build a five-story parking structure. that is my big concern and it is to the businesses out there. i have a business out there and i circled the block for 45 minutes or an hour sometimes to find a parking spot. if you are doing construction kalmade any alternative spaces like talk to the schools where you can open up a lot of people

can park well you are mitigating this. when you're finished, let's have were parking and it will be a win-win situation on both sides. if we select a center alternative where the buses are running and boarding from the center, that means we can take those -- the space that is used as a bus stop on the side and convert that to parking. there is some positive forces in terms of parking supply that our work that may -- you have to look and see how that balances out. >> i will open -- any other commissioner comments? i will open this up for public comment. so, public comment on item number eight. >> good evening.

what is being proposed is going to affect the businesses out there. as you all know, once a business -- it is hard to get somebody to move in. it will affect that with parking and dropping. let's get one project and get van ness finished first. let's see how that works. and then move on to some the else. it is like your opening one here and -- and another one here. we're opposed to what is being proposed and i think we are -- need more outreach. i have to leave. i have a visitor from australia, i just got back from japan myself. thank you. president adams: any other public comment? come on up. >> hello, everyone.

nick bilani. i know how that corridor works. it will be detrimental if we not have their teeth down there. i was sitting here and i have heard this presentation many times and i thought about it. they have a pedestrian walkway. anybody think about that? how did small business get people to come in? they walk by the store. to have a pathway out of the street, you all listened lose with -- and that foot traffic. you use what can make a small business work. it hit me -- occurred to me just now sitting here because this is a small business commission. that is something to think

about, too. you might want to keep in consideration. thank you. >> could i ask you a question? >> you can ask me all you want. >> would you say -- we're saying our primary concern is the small business. would you be thinking let's just not do this? we have discussions, we use terms like for the greater good of the sensitivity. if you were -- did not mention it, what to see a plan detailing how they will mitigate and minimize the impact of small- business. we understand this is for the better good or do you think we should not do it at all? >> i do not think we should do it. there are other plans that have gone from transit online's down the side of the streets to

fixing the issues that are going on -- going through from signals to all sorts of other stuff that are better options than the center only lane. better options than a b r.t.. better for business and residents and they would work better. this plan does not really fully work. i was looking at the pictures they had for episodic and fillmore. we will put karzai in there and center only. then we have to split the melt when they get to [no audio] we have to look at what the greater good is but we have to look at what works. this does not look like it's going to work. it really does not on the surface. president adams: thank you. neck speaker? -- next speaker?

>> good evening. brian larkin. like the street out here. i am here on behalf of planning for the richmond association. instead of going to the flow -- the full blown brt, would rather see implementation of the recommendations of the effectiveness project that came out two years ago. they would include moving the signals to the -- the bus stops to the farm size of the signalized intersections. when a bus comes to a red light, if it were the stock on the one side, bus stops, the

signal is green. just as the buses pulling out, the light turns red so you sit there through another cycle. by moving the buses to the far side of the bus stop, we will eliminate that. we're thinking of the time savings that brt could accomplish could be accomplished just as easy by making those kinds of changes. among the things that are supposed to be the advantages of brt is how quickly they can implement it. their schedule said it would have revenue service by [no audio] it is 2012 now. they have to do design and construction. what are looking at, 2016, 2017 before we have a system implemented before we see any real benefit from it.

the cost will be higher than the two and $58 million limit for small starters. that is the source of funds family. if they go beyond that $250 million, they do not qualify for the $100 million they might get from the federal transit administration. there are a lot of the questions that remain even though we are several years into this project. we would rather see an easily implemented things done before this. president adams: thank you. next speaker? >> i am a member of the geary merchants prayed with all due respect and appreciation for the hard work these great people made, i want to say it is a slow

economy now and i hear from the business people from comment, -- clement, geary, and richmond. maybe we should look at other options that will not have this type of destruction. thank you. president adams: thank you. neck speaker. -- next speaker. >> thank you for bringing this up. i am the president of geary boulevard merchants association. this not the first time i have been in front of the small business commission in reference. there were good questions that were asked and i can answer. i was on the cac and we did propose a lane dedicated -- at one time we called it a diamond lane.

every challenge they have put us through in claviers, we have passed a bill. it can have a bus lane here. police officers can now gives to goods. we put cameras in the front and back in inside the bus. synchronizing and lighting said the driver when he comes in if there was a red light, he can press the button. it is activated today. they're not using it. is going to work. -- it is going to work. we're trying to compromise and trying to talk to them. it would not talk to us. they have went in front of people and told us, do not shut this -- shove this down our throats and they tried to work but it would not listen to the community.

so much money is being spent for these ideas they have. there was one that can be implemented tomorrow. it can work with it will not do that. it is about jobs. you were right. if they came up with one proposal, whichever one there was, and i can speak to us about that, we can work with him but when they come up with these different proposals and there is no answer to the parking, for the construction. we have experience would have been their last year. we are concerned. we heard about -- when i spoke about parking, they said maybe you should move to a shopping mall.

this is something that i had -- i was told i should move to a dish of all -- shopping mall. i would love to work with them and i went to his office and he took a lot of notes. nothing. we went there to talk. nothing was done. that is why we're here. they do not care that put us out of business and is the truth. president adams: thank you. any other public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> i have a question for staff. that is have there been the

survey studies and analysis in terms of -- we hear from the businesses about the need for parking. one of the things this sounds like to me, the residents and people who go to the richmond to shop tend to go by car. if that is the case, is this being looked at as a design for getting workers downtown back and forth? what kind of surveys, studies, in terms of the people who live there, how they shop so home, e car, and go shopping, or do they stop along the way? >> we have done surveys of sappers citywide. i would have to go back and look at the geary