committee members. chufter fung with the authority. this is a status update on improvements to balboa park station. we are bringing this item. it's a multi-part presentation with participation of my counter parts at bart and mta. we know there is high interest in the community and on the part of commissioners in improving balboa park station. the timing is also good. the authority approved funding from prop k and the life line transportation program and other sources for improving balboa park station. this is a chance to see how the improvements are advancing and also there are upcoming funding decisions including most immediately an application for the one bay area grant program. as i mentioned this is a multi-part presentation. i will start by providing background and context and then i will ask

my counter parts to come up and talk about their projects. >> before you start let me just i was going to add some comments to begin with and i had a water spill on me and i cleaned it up and now i'm ready to go. thank you. i really appreciate this item coming forward. i have talked a lot about balboa park station and we need great investments to go there. i see the station as full of amazing resources from cal trans to bart to muni. we have bike access, a lot of pedestrian access. a lot of it doesn't work well. it's constrained environment. the infrastructure is out dated and not much improved since the original design and structure of it as things were built. there were incremental changes recently and conflict at the site between the transit and

transportation modes. i see one of the basic conflicts there. there is a sense that this site is maintenance yard, maintenance facility for muni as well as a place for tens of thousands of people go through on a daily basis either in their cars or on foot and bike, but mostly by transit riders and that's the basic conflict, but there are many other conflicts that go on there. pedestrian issues are difficult especially if you're a person with a disability. there is limited signage how to get around. it's limited. we don't have electricity to run next muni there. the list goes on and on and it's something i committed time and effort to actually make sure that we can have something move forward. it's really hard to coordinate all the different entities from cal transes to bart and muni to work together. it's something i want to see happen. actually i

have been working with many residents in my district and districts around the area and we have a advisory committee and i am excited and the membership being approved by the board of supervisors last week and we will have the first meeting and that will bring coherence into how we're planning around the station and bringing things together and i want to thank the mta and the ta for bringing that together and i commit my office and working with the residents and departments to make sure that we can move this station forward into the 21st century and somewhere right now in the 1970's so we can do better and we will. thank you. >> thank you chair. you actually given a lot of my presentation. so with that in

mind i will skip through my pieces and hand off to my counter parts. as the chair mentioned there are complex multi-interactions here. there have been efforts to improve the conditions via multiple studies that the agencies have been involved in. some improvement ideas emerged from those studies and are under way or construction but there are more to come and there are funding decisions on those potential improvements, so just a quick update on some of the work that is being completed already. about a year ago the west side walk way was open and on the image to the right. that project was sorely needed and allows pedestrians to access the station from points north and west to get to the bart part of the station. the remaining item there is get those pedestrians

to the muni light rail boarding areas and there is a project actually under way to make that final connection that bart will be talking about in just a bit. there has been a new crosswalk installed at the intersection of the 280 northbound on ramp and ocean avenue to help pedestrians access the station from points north and to the west. i mentioned before that there have been previous studies by the agencies involved to really think about how we can improve this area and this facility. some of them have been funded by the authority and they have resulted in improvement ideas that are now moving forward and we will hear more about today. the work specifically that we will hear about today is the east side connection project that will connect the walk way to the sfmta portion of the site. bart is working on

signage improvements and by counter part from bart will speak about that. sf mta has advanced improvements and funded by prop k and my colleague will talk about what they call the fast track improvements and other improvements as well. finally there has been some movement on the idea of transit village on one of the pieces of land right around balboa park that is called the upper yard. sf mta will talk about that as well and at the end i will talk about a circulation study the authority is conducting in the area and give me details about that. the chair mentioned the new balboa park advisory committee so i won't talk much about that but i know they're constituted, pointed have been made and looking for a first

meeting in january of next year. so with that at this point i will ask my colleagues from bart to give some updates on the projects that they're working on. >> chester just briefly. january of next year? we have a committee constituted. i guess january is not too far away. >> it's not too far away. we have been in contact to get something done in december but my understanding is that schedules are a little conflicted so january seems to be the -- is that right? january seems to be the first available date. >>i thought we were still in summer. it's only two months away. thank you. >> hi good morning mr. chair and commission members. i am todd morgan and with bart and the capital development group. i am here to talk about our project under way and as was mentioned we're a year past completed

construction on the west side walk way and well used these days. our current project -- let's see. i guess it's up on the screen -- has four elements. this is the base project. this project started kind of small. our director has been involved in this. the director's desire has grown the project and the four elements up there are the crosswalk which is item one takes us from the west side to the east side and a pass through and you don't have to guthrough the trains or the paid area to get there. definitely needed and ada accessible. it would bring you to the other side of the station and where we would construct a new key stall and

demolish the existing and the new and work closely with mta on thiand that is element number three is the new key stop. element number two would be a cover to the new walk way and nice in the elements and it's going to look nice and not just functional and esthetic is the intent and then you will see -- i will point it out, from essentially item number three to item number four is a salmon colored linear figure on the graph or the picture and that is going to be a new walk way so we will bring people over across bart for free and it will be a true ada constructed or accessible constructed and new improvement for the site and gets people

walking where it's not such a great area to walk so that is our intent and that is our project. we are 35% complete on the engineering design. we have an estimate and design drawings and we are coordinating with mta on this. we started small but i guess i am pleased to announce beyond the $2 million of life line money approved by this body for this project plus the programming of about $870,000 of prop k which hasn't been allocated yet bart is adding -- state share revenue money we're adding $5 million to the project because the need is that great, so that's our east side connection project in a nut shell and broad brush. >> so that east side project -- let's see. 2 million -- $8 million all together. does

that cover all the aspects of the project and all these four? >> it covers those four. we have a few desires beyond the graph here and if i can speculate we will be adding more money to those as well. there's a new geneva structure there and integrate with bus stop. >> so everything else is fully funded. >> yeah. no small thanks to our director for that. >> that's great to hear. the time line with that overall? >> so the timeline and i guess -- chester can you help me? thank you. i need a little coaching here. there is a timeline here in the following slide to where we would like to

be complete with design by this coming spring and advertise in the summer and get going with construction mid to late next year -- probably not late. >> who is in charge of that? >> we have a principal planner and tim chin and myself. i'm on the money side. we have a few other team members throughout the district that work closely with the director on this. >> thank you. so the project manager's name? >> steve capler. >> thank you. >> he's joined me today if there are questions about that. there is one more element that is included here and i can address if you're ready. >> go ahead. >> that is the weigh staging and signage and we have approved by

this body a million dollars of life line funding for this project which we have a tentative date of february to go to the bart board to award and weigh funding and signage and we like you and want to work with the community groups and the supervisor on this and we want to prioritize balboa to move ahead -- amongst the first stations to go there and the funding has been identified. the one down side of the recent bond sales the life line funding didn't come through so bart has to identify a solution to cover the million dollars for a short time until the state sells

sufficient funding. >> great. what i see conceptually is great and we have been in communication with bart and i think there are a lot of elements that will work for folks and moving quickly and making sure the fund suggest available is key and i appreciate the work being done and i know the director from bart is very helpful on that. >> played a very key role yes. >> that covers the bart elements i was going to cover before sf mta comes up and with that they are here to talk about their components. >> thank you very much mr. morgan. >> okay. thanks todd. good morning chair avalos and commissioners. i'm going to report briefly on some other

improvements that we expect to deliver in the next few years. generally came out of recommendations from the balboa park station capacity study. todd was already talking about of course the pedestrian bridge and walk way that is in the center of this slide, but you can see there are other improvements for bringing the station area that will improve safety, accessibility and comfort and convenience. here are the key tracking improvements and starting in the upper left. we have the weigh finding signs. bart is going to be putting some on their property but of course there are needs for the overall station area to help people make transfers, to help them find neighborhood attractions. you

have a handout i believe that includes a couple of maps of proposed locations right around the station area within one to three blocks where we intend to put in signs. some of those will go in hopefully by the end of december, so there's also need -- >> i actually took a tour with ms. walton last week. we had the signs going to go -- yeah, i think it's a good plan with that and i am glad to see it's going in so thank you. >> also need for weather protection, especially in the bus boarding areas, the transit plazas on geneva avenue, both sides, so we are planning shelter canopies to help with that need. there are needs for

improved lighting, and we are working on the pedestrian scale lighting. that is the sidewalk and cross walk entrance and lights closely together. important need to widen sidewalks and improve accessibility, widen the sidewalks on geneva avenue, the bus loading areas. ocean avenue also has some problems with curb ramps and this image is showing where the sidewalk has a significant cross slope problem. we're going to correct that. >> what's the plan for that and how soon? right now it's inaccessible. >> yeah. that should be done within the next about two years

completed. we have life line funding which is for corridor improvements and used for those accessibility improvements. >> thank you. it's on ocean but on san jose as well where it's inaccessible sidewalks and ramps that are actually very dangerous. >> right. so i think san jose crush ramp improvements are done by the green yard rail project and fully funded. our board is going to be approving the contract this afternoon. moving on to -- speaking of that contract one of its key components is a new accessible boarding platform on san jose for the j and the k where people are now boarding in an area that is very close to the tracks. it has major safety

inaccessibility problems so this will help address that. >> are those tracks actually going to be moved? right now there is the bench point i put on the screen last week at the board of supervisors meeting so the tracks moved and the poles taken out? is that part of the project? >> we are moving to move the poles to remove the pinch points. there isn't enough room to change the track alignment. it's so tight and part of the overall big squeeze, but that is something i will talk more about. >> great. >> finally on this slide in the lower right flashing beacons. with more people walking on ocean avenue on and from city college and crossing with high speed traffic and a flashing

beacon should be funded to make it safer to cross that off ramp. >> the way they're crossing right now is called willy-nilly. >> hopefully we can take care of that. so chair avalos you were talking about the problems -- we're calling the k j walk way and go between the san jose geneva northwest corner and the bart mezzanine entrance, and you can see those poles in yellow. it's kind of hard to make out, but there are three poles that create the pinch points. one is already funded and designed to be moved and we're working on concepts to take care of the other two besides putting in other measures that would

separate the pedestrians from the tracks. like a very low berm with flexible posts and discourage people from walking next to the tracks. they won't need to get as close anyway because they won't be getting on the j and the k at that location with the new san jose platform. >> that walk way is used by people coming up geneva and to bart and the place with the lowest slope and if you have a wheel chair or stroller that's the only way to go. >> right. that presents a dilemma and best for safety to close it off but exactly as you're saying that is the level part that people need

to use. another area that we're dealing with and the ocean view platform. right now the northern most stop when you're coming up from sf state and the ocean view is -- sorry, near niagara, near the lower left corner. the image is distant from the bart entrances. it has safety and accessibility problems. it's not visible at all from the bart entrances. the station capacity study recommended moving that one -- that final north bound stop across geneva to basically the middle of san jose avenue, and we are studying that in more detail. it would have some major advantages for safety and accessibility but there is a

lot of issues. things like driveway way conflicts. >> >> your hawnd out also has a table going over the status of the fast track improvements. wondering when are these improvements going to be delivered? the green is showing going through detail and final design and being constructed and you can see we have a number of them they're under way. they're due to be either delivered within the next year or the next two to three years, and the red star is showing work that is under way right now. >> just a quick question. >> yeah. >> we have the way finding and transit signs next to muni and we have canopies going up. is there any way to link those

with the canopies that are being planned? >> yes. >> and when do we expect that to actually happen? i have 2013 -- end of 2013 the canopy is completed and the way signs and is that when we expect to get the next muni -- >> the canopies actually going to take longer the green area is showing when they're completed. however we agree with bart we're not waiting for the completion of the canopies and depending on the funding to put in the next muni and next bart signs, at least on a temporary basis. they can be attached to bart building on the north side and wall on the south side and get that in in 2013. >> what part of 2013? >> i think that will be a question more for bart. what i heard was more towards the end

of 2013. >> thank you. >> so you can see on this slide the jk platform is pretty near term. the walk way in the m line terminus move. that is a little more challenging. we need to get that done soon, but a little bit of study further on that. some other improvements to be completed shortly. new traffic and pedestrian signals on geneva and visibility improvements at san jose and geneva and the sidewalk widening on geneva, both sides of the bus loading areas. the final slide

i wanted to present. we heard about the conflict between the storage and maintenance needs, and the use by thousands of travelers and of course right there with residential neighborhood, so the upper yard which is our satellite light rail storage yard historically is now recently it's been used for employee parking and that is in the red outline. we are looking at how to make that available for conversion to a transit village probably along with the bart kiss and ride roadway way to the west and that is in line with the balboa park station area plan that the board of supervisors adopted that calls for reusing that site as

a transit village with affordable housing being a high priority, maybe support retail. a lot of potential benefits for example in increasing the transit rider ship and the station capacity study looked at the transportation feasibility of that, and found that it would work well from the transportation standpoint. there have been a number of other studies under way in terms of the potential land uses. i'm not going to get into that. it is a challenge for the sf mta to meet the needs for increased rail vehicle fleet, but we are committed to being a good neighbor and are looking at improvements that our other major storage yard, the muni

metro east, to take care of that, so we can get along without the upper yard and that can be used for neighborhood and community friendly uses. this afternoon our sf mta board is going to be consider a resolution to support in principle the sale of the upper yard to support community and transportation goals, so that is my presentation, and i know we will have q and a shortly. i just wanted to mention that we have senior managers from the sf mta are available for q and a. timly, deputy director for strategic planning and john hailey, the director of muni

and transportation and maintenance available. thank you very much. >> just real quick and the walk way and the terminus. when we do expect those to be complete? >> we're hoping to get that done in the same 2014-16 period. we don't have a commitment yet. they're under actively under conceptual design and analysis and it's high priority for us. >> and funding for the projects? is that o bag? >> right now they're worked on with the prop k funding and we can say o bag as a potential funding source for the actual physical improvements, but they can be pretty substantial multi-million dollar improvements. >> so we haven't actually found the funding? >> that is not nailed down but that