think about is, let's go supervisor campos: the morning, everyone. welcome to the transportation authority meeting of july 24, 2012. i'm the chair the authority. the clerk of the authority is erica cheng. we would like to thank the sfgtv staff for covering the meeting today. if you could take roll-call. >> [roll-call]

>> we have a quorum. >> if you could please call item no. 2. >> is there any member of the public who would like to speak on item number two? can we take roll-call? >> [a roll-call]

the item passes. supervisor campos: please call item no. 3. >> the shares report. this is an information item. supervisor campos: as many of you are aware, last week, our governor, jerry brown was in town for the bill that green light the high-speed rail program. for those of you who have been following this matter, it was a very close vote and in the end, the different parties were able to reach a compromise that brought enough consensus to have enough votes to pass this very important piece of legislation. i was unable to be at the signing ceremony but i want to thank the executive director for representing the authority and i want to recognize commissioner jane kim who was at the event.

present were not only the governor but the high-speed authority chairman who were clear about their commitment to bring high-speed rail to the trans bay transit center. i know that commissioner wiener and i have been working to make sure that happens. i also want to note that we have another piece of good news yesterday. we had the deputy administrator for the federal transit administration who was in town to deliver good news for the municipal transportation agency. we are receiving to grants in san francisco -- one for $15 million for the replacement of 40 diesel buses with new hybrid electric load floor buses which is a very important step in the renovation of our fleet which is aging. another grant was also pretty significant -- $6 million to

fund the service which is part of the rapid network and -- which is intended to improve service to many neighborhoods in the city. i know that in my neighborhood, that will be tremendously impacted by this investment. we want to thank all of the members of the family and our gratitude goes to the transit administration for recognizing the significance of these projects in san francisco. that concludes my report. i would like to ask any commissioner who has a question or any member of the public would like to speak on this item to please come forward. i see a couple. you could please come up. you each have 03 minutes. >> good that afternoon. my name is mr. dillon and i have

lived in this city for many years. i have enjoyed the streets of san francisco. what is most enjoyable about the streets of san francisco is being able to drive on them and to get from point a to point b without being in a traffic jam or having to deal with critical mass or having to deal with construction projects. i have noticed an increasing amounts of traffic ingestion, areas where construction is going on in traffic is not being managed around those sites. i met one lady who was on her way to the hospital. she was trying to negotiate around a project and and at driving into the project.

damaging her car. my point to the transportation authority is i don't think you are really doing your job. you need to think about the public residents and tourists in this city. that's your biggest priority. to have all of these construction jobs going on at the same time has really reduced the quality of life in san francisco. secondly, we used to have a very nice system of traffic coming -- traffic calming done by local people who went into the city and drove their carriages. that was our traditional model.

carriage horses are also solar powered. they eat grass that is powered by the sun and that propels them in their travel. i don't see any money in any of your budget or even in the $4 dmv tax increase that goes into any of that. which to me is pretty shocking because who are we in san francisco? what type of community are we? historically, we are a carriage driving community. here we are since 2000, like we don't exist. yet you are spending all of this money -- [tone]

supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker please. >> i listened to the director's report and i want to address two issues. the first issue is governor jerry brown signing this bill. you did not witness the signing of this bill on tv because you mentioned some persons who were present but they were not. i can talk to you about that offline. the situation we have today, board of supervisors, commissioners, and you from the san francisco transportation authority, is that our state is broke. three in spite of our state being broke, no money for education, no money for health,

nominee for safety, some folks because they have the power and jerry brown should know better, by a very close margin, millions of dollars have been allocated for the high-speed rail. jerry brown said at one time when they decided to have the bart, the bay area rapid transit, some neighboring counties were against it. maybe they were against it and that is their concern. but we can make no comparison whatsoever in these dire economic times comparing the high-speed rail to the bart system. i just want to get that out

there clear for those people who should learn to represent and be leaders. in the second issue is the moneys allocated to muni. every time we allocate moneys to muni, we have no accountability and no responsibility. if they get this grant, that is fine, but we need muni to be accountable. [tone] we have a gentleman who used to be with muni and hopefully he will do the right thing. but again, to the high-speed rail, it's going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and we really do not know the standard of that

construction and how that will, around. thank you very much. supervisor campos: thank you very much. is there any other member of the public to would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. could you please call item no. 4? >> the executive director's report. >> good morning. my report is on your desks and i have a few things i would like to highlight. we have already heard from the chairman on a high-speed rail bill signing and the visit of the deputy administrators, so i will skip over those. let me simply highlight in the interest of time i promised at

the finance committee, a road map to the new federal highway transportation act which you can read at your leisure. if using a seven-page memo is long, think about a 650 page bill. this is a manageable about. in the interest of time, i will not address that at all today and i will bring a short power point presentation to each of the committees at the next meeting so that you have a guided tour. there are some wrinkles in this bill that surprised me and some of the other observers that this process because i have been predicting there would not be a bill until after the election. there were some compromises that were necessary to get the bill passed and not all of them are to benefit san francisco.

i will address them at the next pair of committee meetings in more detail. in the environmental impact report alternatives for the plan bay area were approved last thursday by the metropolitan commission and the association of bay area governments. these are key to the analysis that would be done and we are generally supportive of the free market. it's never exactly ideal, but we will remain deeply engaged in the process. the final eir will be certified in may of 2013, so we have a little time still and we will remain very involved. i want to highlight 19th avenue transit steady which got some

initial work underway already. this is a study that will explore moving the ocean view library line to the west side so that it can be more user friendly and more integrated into the land use fronting that area. this is a fantastic opportunity that has come out of the planning proposal and it gives us an opportunity to focus on the west side of the city in a very significant way. i am hopeful this will be an important effort and expect meetings with the community to start in the fall. we are organizing the outreach and technical work now.

the study that has been underway for a long time is now reaching its final stages and i wanted to report that we have been coordinating with the city and community's effort to restart the program of developing this site -- this has been really incomplete for some time now. we have been working with the planning department to make sure they are integrated into land use that makes sense for the infrastructure investment. i am expecting at this point that i will bring a final report detailing the proposal to the board and for approval this fall.

after the approval by this board, we have been gauged actively with the npa and we are collaborating with sorting out -- we have been in engage actively with the mta and are collaborating with sorting out the alternatives and it planned to conduct extensive outreach to stakeholders when the final analysis are completed. that will happen with the final certification of the document. there is extensive information on our website about this. the central freeway circulation study has issued a draft final report. it's a very interesting study.

i expect to bring it for approval in september. of course, it identifies a number of the shortcomings we knew we had to deal with after we put in place the beautiful urban design concept we had. we always knew there was going to be a follow-up on the traffic and circulation issues. and other aspects of this study. we have had a significant amount of activity -- the bridge continues and we've had a significant amount of community input through outreach conducted by the authority's staff in april and we have found support for a future caltrans station and some corresponding concerns

and we are working with the department and communities on that. there are some funding issues with keeping the street open because building a bridge there is more expensive but it's the appropriate thing to do. we will have more details for you in september. the other thing that's happening in district 11 is the hunters point mobility study where we have a significant amount of activity. on august 21, the team will present at a meeting from 1:00 until 3:00 that i want to alert the community. this is at 1800's oakdale avenue and people are encouraged

to attend. this would really leverage the resources that community already has in place. shared resources to really improve mobility in that area. we have a fairly extensive i am about the program allocations of proposition k. i want to point out that the board appropriated debt total of $118 million in sales tax for transportation and there is also a comparison of the% allocated versus program and in terms of programmatic categories which are not huge projects, for things like traffic signals and so on, we have a 71% ratio and

29% has not come in for allocation. operations and maintenance has claimed everything allocated to it. there are some details in the report about which programs have had the most problems allocating funds. i want to focus on a couple of things that are important to your understanding of how the program works. we have had many originally allocated by action of the board and was not used and wasn't needed anymore. of that money, 1.8 $6 million is the direct result of improvements that have been made -- $1.86 million is the direct results of the improvements that

have been made. this is a significant milestone because back in 2003 when the program was approved, there was a sense that double the amount of money would be needed that here we are receiving money back. this is a $20 million program. this is good news and there is another thing worth mentioning -- about $3.3 million from the completed presidio-19th avenue project. a very significant thing that came from taking advantage of the climate that allowed us to get the job done cheaper. we always talk about cost overruns so when we can talk about how things can happen cheaper, i don't want to miss the chance to highlight it.

our commercial paper program, we have been dealing with replacing the facility, the german bank underwriting our commercial paper. we have had some changes in the amount of subsidy the german government is providing all of which resulted in a much more extensive facility. we negotiated and got wells fargo to take that. as a result, we're saving almost $1 million a year. we have more than 10 institutions ready to buy our paper and this has been a good turn for the commercial paper program and i want to thank our deputy director for leading this effort. this is a very good outcome for

us. that concludes my report. i'm happy to answer questions about anything in it. supervisor campos: commissioners, any questions for our executive director? seeing none, why don't we open up to public comment? anyone who like to speak on the executive director's report, please come forward. >> i have a number of issues. first and foremost, as i have requested before, the san francisco county transportation authority, we the people of san francisco would like to know how the present legislation in washington d.c. favors us or does not favor s. this is often times about a number of projects and we want to see how many of these

projects to the republicans are democrats favor a sore adversely impact us? to come here and generally speak about something and say to save time or whatever -- we want to know because we pay a certain people to do their jobs and we want to know whether our representatives, highest level representatives really do us a favor or disfavor when it comes to transportation projects. this on van ness, we have been discussing the california pacific medical center. right now, it is rife with politics, corrupt politics. we had a counsel from the center

come here to this podium and tell our legislative members, are so-called representatives that they were not privy to certain financial documents and reports, and helping them. we want to know what's going on with that hospital and what's going to happen nothing much is happening. nothing much is happening because of funding. you have a developer -- don't waste your money -- spend it on traffic lights on san bruno. don't waste your money on an

eir that's not going to go anywhere and don't make statements if you don't know who's going to be the developer. as to that community meetings that you want more information about hunters point, time is running out so i will stop here. supervisor campos: next speaker, please. >> good morning, commissioners. i'm a member of the citizens advisory committee for the transportation authority. regarding one item the executive director brought up, the item about 19th avenue, this item was brought before our committee a couple of months ago. i voiced concerns there and i will share those concerns with you. first of all, as far as relocating into the middle of

19th avenue, i -- it seems ludicrous because as it is, when you have to take the 28 bus line going northbound, you have to cross 19th avenue and there is a light there. if they want to realign it into the street, and of doing that, build a bus bridge over the 19th avenue so that people with walkers and canes and wheelchair's can go over 19th avenue safely.

realigning to the center will just cause more traffic and problems. thank you very much. supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker please. >> i would like to address the report we just heard. i noticed the report basically talks about fact we are getting all of this revenue from all of these different areas and supposedly we are seeing an increase in the quality of our public transportation system. all of these organizations have been grouped into one organization and it sucks all the finances of -- out of all of these previously separate

organizations and it disappears into a black hole and then we have nothing to show for it. my response to the report is you can basically jump up here and say what you want because you have taken the public for such a ride over the past few years that we don't know what you are doing with our money. that has become so blatantly apparent that it has come to my attention and many people in this city, where is the money going? who is responsible? who is reporting it? i see a huge black hole in finances and all of these different projects and you have certain areas that are completely allowed to fall into disrepair