shortly. >> president farrell: good morning. welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the government audit and oversight committee. my name is sean elsbernd, chair, we are joined by supervisor chai and today we have supervisor mark ferrell sitting in. our clerk is alisa miller. please read one and two. >> alisa miller: item 1 is a miewn operations performance, item 2 is urging muni to prioritize eligible funds for maintenance. >> vice president elsbernd: do

>> supervisor wiener: thank you, mr. chairman. i along with supervisors farrell, and carmen chiu to hiement this for muni to maintain its vehicles and invest in the system. muni service has been deteriorating and it has to stop and it needs to stop now. muni is part of the life blood of san francisco. it carries approximately 600,000 people every day. for many people, particularly low income people, working class, people and seniors, muni is often the only way to get around. given critical importance of muni to the day-to-day life the voters in '99 voted to make sure sheun's top priority is to provide safe and convenient transit service to all neighborhoods. this isn't priority two or

three. it's the top priority for the system. i'm sorry to say that muni has not been fulfilling that voter mandate and we as a city -- this is not about point fingers at muni

vehicles and often have no backup vehicles when they break down. when broken down we've been slow to fix them, fix them inadequately and sometimes don't bother to fix them at all and they sit for years and years, unused. we've significantly reduced our rehabilitation of vehicles, including overhaul critical to the vehicle. switches and infrastructure are aging÷2jp? and fail. and we don't have nearly enough drivers. these deficiencies have dramatic consequences for the system and its reliability fr for the riding public. in august muni had a 52.7% on

time performance. in the second half of october, muni missed 602 runs due to lack of operators on advantage 43 runs a day and 5% total runs. on no single day did muni reach 98.7% of scheduled runs open muni completed 90%. riders see this every day when there are gaps in service, when they're forced to get off a vehicle when there is no replacement for a driver who is finishing his or her shift or when they have to jam themselves into an overcrowded vehicle. muni recently was approved for 6.7 million in regional transit performance initiative funding. this funding is to be used for improving reliability. there is no more effectiveádz-zy

to chief these goals, this funding should be dedicated 100% to improving muni's deteriorating reliability by purchasing muni vehicles and improving muni's operations. the resolution i sponsored and that is before us today to provides. the mta board of directors is considering a proposal to use a portion of this region a funding not for improving muni's reliability for the youth. i've been public in my skepticism of the free muni for youth program. my skepticism is based on the funding needs and deficit and my belief that the funding will come from muni operating money. worry now seeing that's the case, that muni is considering using some of this maintenance

money for the free muni program rather than to invest in the system, purchase vehicles, rehabilitate vehicles, and over-wise make the system more reliable. once a free muni pilot program ends there will be enormous pressure to extend the program and that pressure almost certainly will include using more funding using to improve muni's reliant. >> vice president elsbernd: i need to interrupt. we have a overflow room that is open across the the hall in the board chambers. these first two items on muni's performance will take a good 45 minutes to at least an hour. there are folks who are standing, that are here to testify on these items. if you are not here for these items, but are on the other items, we would really appreciate it if you would let those, who are standing, whoer here to testify, have your seats. you can go in the other room. it's on tv. when this item is done you will be able to come back in. it would help for a smoother

flow and allow folks to testify. thank you very much.

>> supervisor wiener: as i was indicating once the muni pilot program ends, the pressure will

include using for funding to include muni reliability. reasonable minds can differ on free, but even if one supports youth that's different than supporting the use of scarce and critical maintenance and operational funding to pay for the free fare program. the most important thing we can do for all san franciscans and particular those those who are dependent on muni for their transportation needs, is to provide a reliable system, a free muni pass isn't worth much if the bus doesn't come. mr. chairman, we do have mr. risken and mr. haley from mta who are here to present if there are no additional comments from colleagues. thank you plrks risken. >> thank you. good morning, chairperson elsbernd, members of the

committee, supervisor ferrell, ed risken transportation director in san francisco. this hearing, and for the support for public transportation in san francisco. i know that everybody's here, no matter how they feel about the resolution are here because they want muni to be better. i concur with much of what supervise wiener said in his opening and i want to thank him for being a greater support of not just at muni but in terms of taxi reform, in terms of transportation funding and his role at the mtc as well as at the ts. so i think he framed the issue very well, and while i think me may have a slight difference of opinion in terms of this particular funding, i think most of what he said holds true, and we're grateful for his support and we're working in the same direction to make transit work

the way it was metropolita metre board adopted the transit first policy in 1973 and when the voters established the mta in 1999. i have another board meeting, that i'm already late for now so i'm going to try to move through this quickly. john haley, transit director and john ruers, finance, is here to answer questions. to try to speak to issues that were raised in the two items, and in some questions we got, i'm going to walk through, if we could go to the slides, just a quick overview of capital funding, a discussion of muni performance, and then speak about the tpi program, which, as supervisor wiener said, one of the purposes of is to increase ridership. so looking at the big picture of

our capital funding, and sorry that that's not showing up right on the screen, we have undertaken a comprehensive' quy capital planning process that starts with a 20 year unconstrained plan that lays out all of the needs for all of the assets that mta has. from that, we develop a five year capital improvement program, which is a fiscally constrained program and a a two year capital budget. the constrained budget is almost 24 billion to bring it into a state of good repair, calls for expansion and enhancement needs of the figure, nearly $6 billion, we would need every five years. when we bring that down to a five year cip program we have about $2 billion identified,

outside of the central subway to meet our core needs, which are articulated at a project level detail in the two year capital budget, which the core of which is bringing the system into a state of good repair which directly impacts the reliability of the system. so a way we've been trying to look at our needs, and prioritize is starting with the overall needs, as identified in the 20 year capital plan, looking at the asset life and other criteria in terms of safety and performance for all of the assets that we have, and really then being able to focus down to what we call the transit dependent assets or mission critical assets that we feel are the critical ones that we need to invest in to bring the system into a state of good repair. that need is roughly $250

million. so our goal has been, through our capital budget to identify in the order of $250 million a year, annually, for the state of good repair needs. this does not include things like the central subway or other expansion or enhancement projects. these are the core needs of the these are the core needs of the system. five year cip and two year capital budget, we are able to more or less meet those needs, looking just within transit, we have about $220 million a year of core funding. and if you add in some other critical infrastructure such as traffic signalsrjsjz we're up to about 274. >> supervisor wiener: when you say meet those needs, are you suggesting all the different maintenance is cleared? it's that for the mission critical assets, we're investing at an annual level that would be

required to bring those assets into a state of good repair. there are other needs of the system, some of our facilities, some of the kind of support systems that have, and will continue to have a become log -- >> supervisor wiener: but in terms of the actual transit assets, how many years would it take for muni to have enough vehicles in good enough shape with enough operators to actually have the system be as reliable as we expect it to be? that's not going to happen because, in one year -- and i want to complement you for increasing that number. but it's not like we're going to get there with this one year -- >> right. so this is not a one year program. this is our five year cip, and we believe we'll need to continue to invest in this level for different asset classes, rails, versus overhead wires and signal switches. how long will it take, some have

greater deferred needs than others. >> supervisor wiener: mta has informed me is -- >> the vehicle maintenance is significant. >> supervisor wiener: of the vehicles we have, that's not including the fact that we need more light rail vehicles, of the vehicles we have $420 million in deferred maintenance. >> right. >> supervisor wiener: thank you. >> supervisor elsbernd: gruft to follow up, the numbers i'm hearing, 420 for example, this is what you need to have everything perfect. what i'm hearing you say on your charts here is about 221 million per year is what you need not to get to perfection but mission critical. >> it's mission critical for the core transit and assets. these are the vehicles, the rails, signals, switches, overheadlines. it's not the buildings, it's not these other systems that are outside -- >> supervisor elsbernd: so the big thing is how do you define

mission critical? does mission critical mean, okay we're going to have 20% of our buses break down every day or we'll still have 80%. you can have definition of mission critical in your eyes -- that's a very amorphous definition. what the at what point are we okay with things falling apart? >> we're never okay with things falling apart. >> supervisor wienerapart. >> supervisor elsbernd: at what point can things still break down? >> what is mission critical or not isn't the level of breakdown but the asset class that we're defining in our capital plan. so you see here, transit fixed guideway, which are the rails, the overheadlines, the things that the vehicles run along. that entire asset class is in the mission critical category. transit fleet, that entire asset class is in here. so what we're saying is that we

need to main this level of investment to get our transit fleet, to get the guideways that support it, all into a state of good repair. supervisor wiener is right we don't spend 221 million this year and everything is good. this is an ongoing investment to bring it into a state of good repair. we will continue to have a backlog on say our facilities, and other areas, you know, other buildings we own, including administrative buildings and other things that will continue to have a backlog, that this is really just the core of the transit system that we need to invest in. >> supervisor wiener: so in terms of your definition of mission critical, that doesn't mean that once we've met mission critical we're then going to be at 85% on time as mandated by the voters. >> so the 85% number, that was incorporated into prop e, as i understand it, had no kind of

operational, technical, scientific or analytical basis. it was a number that was somewhat arbitrary, and to be honest, i don't know what it would take for our system to achieve 85%. a system that runs in the kind of operating environment that we do, mostly in mixed traffic, is going to make that 85% number difficult to achieve, even with all the investment that we have. however, we believe that this level of core funding, this $250 million a year level, will have a significant impact on muni performance and not just the ontime performance, but the spacing of the buses, the reliability of the buses. and i'm going to talk a little more about that. you know, would we like to have twice as much funding, could we do a lot more with more funding,

yes. we are trying to be smart and strategic with the resources that we have, recognizing that we're not going to have $500 million a year to build a new subway station for every station under market street at the end of its useful life. we're trying to be strategic and focus on things that will directly impact transit performance. >> supervisor wiener: i understand. i think the question and the point i think we're agreeing on is that the current plan level of investment is not going to sort of complete the task, in terms of getting muni's vehicle fleet into the shape that it needs to be, to meet our needs. there's still more work to do beyond that. >> this level of investment would get the current fleet into a state of good repair. i don't know over what period of time. this does not account for additional fleet needs that we have to accommodate growth of the system. >> supervisor wiener: so it will get into good shape after a jpgz-q not sure how many years? >> yeah. i don't have that data with me.

>> supervisor wiener: but if not after a year, it's after a number of years. >> that's correct. >> supervisor wiener: the point being, one of the items that we're talking about today is the gpi money, and i know you'll get there, that can be used for things like vehicle habitation. >> it can and we're recommending that it does, a portion of it does. >> supervisor wiener: not like the portion being recommended for the free muni program would be somehow wasted if we dedicated it to vehicles. there are still immense needs there. >> that's correct. >> supervisor wiener: it would be better if riders had reliable service today as opposed to three or four years from now. >> i guess respectfully where we have perhaps a slight difference of opinion is i don't see this as a either/or. either we support one need or we support another. we have a multitude of needs. we have needs in our transit fleet. there are needs out in the community that you'll see what's happened to youth ridership. one of the goals of this particular grant program, this

is $6.7 million out of a $250 million annual capital budget, just for comparison, is to increase ridership. so we have ridership goals, we have the other goal of the program is productivity. so we're trying to use these dollars to address both. >> supervisor wiener: and i'll have questions for mr. haley about what different levels of funding can buy you in terms of new vehicles or rehabilitated vehicles. >> okay. on to performance, i think supervisor weer wiener gave a gd overview of where we've been. 85 percent, we're far below of what is acceptable. all i can do is concur with supervisor wiener that this is not acceptable and that this is -- our main focus as an agency, to improve this, because

until performance improves and whether this is the best measure or not, it's probably a reasonable proxy for the performance that we all experience every day on muni. and we don't find this acceptable either. is percent of service delivered you can see we're much closer to being able to meet this. there's different factors that keep us from being able to meet this need, some of which are capital, some of which are not. you can see on the buses, motor coaches and trolley coaches were pretty close. we've had challenges of late with cable car. this is more of an operating budget issue. budget issue. so while we do6 acceptable, and that we have barriers to improve performance, don't want to leave