study or the many other projects we support as part of the engineering effort within the authority to our staff and augmentation to the consultant services so those are the reasons we need the services of a consultant. now, basically we advertise and receive about five proposals on may 29 and out of those five, two were qualified -- met the qualifications. those two firms that were collected [inaudible] are here and they're present if you have any questions for them. they're both bde firms as they lead the leed consultant firm. cd is obviously a team that has been around for a long time and

knows authority very well and they have history with a lot of the projects. and vice has done this type of work for the county [inaudible] we have on the other side of the bay and they'll work with doing program management and engineering services. so those are the two firms that we are recommending and what we are seeking here today is your recommendation to award the one year consultant contract to the two firms with an option to extend to two years for the amount of 1.8 million dollars. you have any questions, i'm here. >> i think i see one question. commissioner wiener. >> thank you and thank you for that presentation. so i just have a question -- it's not really just for this, but it probably goes a little broader and that -- we discussed this

before about the use of outside consultants. backing up in terms of what the ta does, obviously the ta is not the implementing agency. i know sometimes with doyle drive where the ta takes a greater roll than it does otherwise, but in terms of subway or tjta, the ta really provides funding, provides a level of oversight to make sure that the ta funding is being spent properly, but is not the agency delivering the project. i guess i have a -- sometimes when we have consulting projects it's a very specific thing -- construction management on [inaudible] island or awarding an outside

-- the next one is /tpaoez feasibility study. i guess it makes you raise a little bit of an eyebrow of where this is almost 2 million dollars a year for on call consulting services when the ta is not the implementing agency and we have very talented enengineers. that raises question for me. it's a broader issue we've discussed before about outside consulting services when our capable ta staff... >> we basically have myself and we have bob, who's gonna be

presenting shortly and we just hired our senior engineer [inaudible]. so we're a small group of people and what we do is in support of the engineering solution for defining the very group of people, we look at solutions, we evaluate and review and provide opportunity for how best to design something at a planning level that when it gets to be part of the work that needs to get beyond that level for implementation and building coalition and support for the project going forward we actually participate more heavily in the actual planning studies for our roll. the goal of this contract is to have each [inaudible] to be an individual contract so the way it will work is that whenever we find a scope of service, for instance, we need eric for

being a project manager for ybi, that's one scope of service. but that work, we will negotiate the cost of having him on staff to support the ybi ramp implementation. and he will have that task order under this contract. >> all right. >> similarly, when we have other projects like the full ton interchange or anything like that, that will identify and participate in and we need support for those -- tim is another example that we work with whenever we participating in doing analysis for engineering solutions, that's where we get extra help from our consultants. >> right. and i'm not questioning. it just always raises a question for me, but i

appreciate that explanation. >> thank you very much. are there any other members that would like to speak? seeing none, thank you for your presentation. like to open now for public comment. >> yes, good morning again commissioners. i'd like to tell you that i've been familiar with this firm for many, many years, having served on the cac since '97 and every year when this contract comes unfor approval in front of the cac i strongly recommend it and it always gets passed. i strongly suggest that you do the same. hank you very much. a: thank you very much. are there any other members of the public that would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. i would like to entertain a motion. seeing a motion by commissioner tang, seconded by commissioner /khao*u, without any objection this motion

passes. thank you very much. madam clerk, could you call the next item. >> item number seven in an amount not to exceed 250 thousand for [inaudible] feasibility study and authorizing the executive directors and contract terms payment terms and [inaudible] action item. >> thank you very much. >> good morning chair cohen. this item begins on page 73 of your packet. this is the consultant /aeu wart for the county [inaudible] leading. it's a new bus line and it has been envisioned as a new east/west line in the southern part of the city connecting balboa park station, the bay shore station dipping into san

mateo. this is to develop some improvements and outreach to raise awareness in the community. this is a study that's been funded by multiple sources, including prop k as well as grant from the cal-trans with also contributions from our partners, some of them in san mateo county which is the congestion management agency for san mateo. cal train is also contributed some funds to the study. the scope is in your packet. the selection panel for the procurement including zach from the

transportation authority as well as the sfmta and from cal transand ccag. the panel selected three of the teams for interviewing. after the interviews the panel selected the [inaudible] team as the top ranked proposer. based on that teams very strong urban design and complete streets expertise and services. it was the only team that dedicate edd urban designer. the team also demonstrated some strong out reach capabilities and /aeu poach. we think that's important for parts of the

community who have not heard of bus rapid transit before and will come in handy as we go through that outreach. all four of the teams that submitted met or exceeded the dbe requirement of 9 percent. the selected team has a par test /paeugs rate of 9 percent. representative from the team fair and pure is here today, steve, he's in the audience. and we're seeking a recommendation to award this contract to fair and purees in the amount of 250 thousand. i'm happy to take any questions. >> thank you. seeing no questions. let's open up for public comment. are there any members of the public that would like to comment on item number seven. seeing no public comment, it is closed. looks like there's no objection so this motion passes without objection. clerk, could you please call item number 8. >> item 8 recommended

[inaudible] by 1.329 million for environmental analysis services for the geary [inaudible]. >> good morning again. chester, principal planner with the authority. this item begins on page 85. i have a brief presentation that will provide some background on the project, talk about our resent progress and talk about the remaining work to be completed within the proposed contract amendment. just by way of background the the proposed [inaudible] on the geary corridor including a dedicated lane for buses, also including

enhancementings for the pedestrian walkway. we've been revising the project definition and the alternatives. we've got full conceptual designs for the entire corridor now for all of the original alternative for block by block. the new news is a new variant that was developed by the project team in response in part to some of the community outreach we've been doing. what we call alternative three consolidated. the buses run in the center, as with the original alternative three, but we're consolidating the local and vrt service together so there's one service that runs -- runs down the street. this eliminates the need for bus passing lanes, which were featured in alternative three. this allows us to reduce the amount of on street parking that would be removed. by way of talking about the remaining work we'll

be taking all these alternatives and will be documenting the results and environmental impact statements slash report and [inaudible] work ahead a also includes that we're ready to prepare for the /shr*ebgsz of a locally alternative. this lpa will likely be a combination of side and center running bus configurations in the corridor. we expect to update our full cost estimate for the project and our funding strategy and will be working to complete the final eis,ir in relation to comment. just a couple more slides. >> no rush, take your time. >> the remaining work includes work on the community and agency coordination side. then

we'll be doing outreach with the release of the drafting environmental document. the schedules for this remaining work includes the focus on the locally preferred /al tern /w*euf the /o ut /raoeufp in the fall of this year followed by a draft environmental document that will be released in the spring of 2014 and then certification of that document in the winter. coming back to the proposed contract amendment, we are seeking a recommendation to increase the engineering contract by 1.3 million dollars. we will consider a request for 2.7 million dollars in prop /k-bgs fundsment part of that would be

for the jacob's contract and the remainder of it would be >> why are we always -- why are you here today for an increase? a: i can give a little bit of background for this project in particular. when we started the environmental phase of the geary project, the estimate to complete the phase of work was for about 6 million dollars. but we didn't request all that -- those funds at once. we requested installments as we did the work and as it became /khroerer what remaining work needed to be done. so we've cock come back to the plans committee and the full board

periodically throughout this phase as we've made more progress and clarified what, again, more work needs to be done. the total phase of this work where we're estimating now at 6.7 million dollars, which is within -- near 10 percent of the original cost, but again, we are requesting this work in installments. >> requesting it in installments. hello. >> i do want to clarify because this is an authority led contract and geary is one of the bigger ones and cash is pretty tight. we purposely asked for the money in installments to help cash flow it, but i think the positive

benefit is the transparency by forcing us to come back to you for approval. we knew that the likelihood of us discovering more things that needed to be done, more outreach, technical issues we didn't think would come up [inaudible] coming in from one big number up front but in pieces with the sfmta what we needed to do. >> i want to add that as we've gotten into the project we've started to identify some of the issues that in other projects are identified in later phases, in the conceptual engineering report. and in investigating some of these issues where the utilities are located -- some of that work -- we think we're able to remove a lot of the risk from the next phase of the project so we can go faster in that next phase and we can also get some cost savings from that

next phase. >> okay, commissioner chew. >> thank you. my questions are really around project management when it comes to scheduling. this is a project that has been in discussion for years. i know initially there was some targets of trying to complete this in the middle part of the decade. those dates have slipped. now it's looking closer to 2019 or 2020 when we'll finish it. i know there's been a city wide conversation why our transit projects -- why it's difficult to hold them to /skaoed jewels. i know a number of our colleagues recently went on a trip to another city where we saw exactly how quickly other cities can move forward on these projects so my questions are really, you know, what sort how we manage projects or how

others manage projects. how the svrt, how that delay could have been short /-pbdz and what sort of lessons are there there. what type of questions are you having with the sfmta which will have to take over aspects of this to shorten those timeframes and what can we expect to try to speed up the project schedule? >> i think those are really good questions and i think one of the things we've done is we've been watching the van ness pro/skwroebgt closely and try to use them as kind of the trail braise blazer. this is new territory for san francisco. bus rapid transit is not quite a bus on the street and it's not a dedicated light rail line. it's something different from that and i think the agencies have been working together to try to figure out what that is and i think we've taken lessons from

v ness in pulling we think we've gotten their eyes on the project and its details sooner in the process than they have for instance for the van ness project o we're saving time there because we're getting them in tune with what the project details are. one thing is with respect to the process with the van ness project, again, i think because of the newness for both the agencies and the community, they did things kinda sequentially. there was a release of a draft environmental document and then said let's focus on what will be the lpa and so sequentially it was a release of a draft document and then another process to figure out what we want to adopt as the a lpa. in

the geary process we're looking to do that in concurrence. as we develop the environmental analysis, we want to start the lpa discussion. we know something about vrt and the different con configurations. hope is we can compress the time it takes to get to the draft environmental document and selection of an lpa and so we can get to the ends of the environmental process sooner so we'll be ready to start design. we've been talking closely with our counter parts at the sfmta about how to speed up the part of the process they'll be taking over -- the final design process. for instance, one of the things we could do is we could start their work after the selection of an lpa before we get to the certification of

an environmental document. they could start that process for final design. we think that could save some time as well. we're definitely looking out for ways we can compress the schedule. >> and i appreciate there is some thinking on this. is there a written analysis or have you form /alized what you're trying to do to make sure you're standing to your schedule? >> we can provide a written process. right now we're trying to build off the momentum from the mexico city brt trip. we're working with your offices and trying to meet with mta and director risk and this is a conversation about how can we support the city, how to work together to make this faster and i think as soon as we nail that down we'll be happy to document that and hold

us all accountable. >> thank you. i'm personally, on behalf of my constituents and very concerns add /th-bt what i think is most frustrating to many of us is there are often project schedules and they slip and it's difficult for for me to find what those original project schedulings were. there doesn't seem to be any accountability for holding project teams to those schedules. i'm not pointing i thinkers at the ta in particular. i think this is an issue throughout the city. but how can we do everything we can to minimize our budget and maximize when we'll be able to deliver when we tell them we'll

be able to. i look forward to hopefully a briefing in the coming weeks and month, along with supervisor mar an others. >> thank you. commissioner wiener. >> thank you. i'm going to be slightly less diplomatic than commissioner chew. so we are the ta, the authority awe prove the geary quarter brt in may 2007? >> correct. >> that was over six years ago. how long did it take to build up to that approval vote in may 2007 by the authority? >> predates me just a bit so i need to rack my brain. >> probably a few years? >> few years, yeah. i think -- to complete the -- two years.

/stpwhr and >> and when did the ta first get involve in terms of getting this process started for geary brt. >> i think it was with the 2004 /propb k. >> so we're at about nine years now of this process for geary brt building up to the feasibility study, approving that and now six years later? i'm just -- eight, nine, ten -- you know, that's a long time. and we are -- and i say this as -- i'm an intensely strong supporter of geary brt as i am with van ness and i hope many more brts and i don't want to compare us to mexico city from an idea in somebody's head to

the -- it took three years, you know. i understand this california, this is the u.s., we love process here and things take a lot longer than they do elsewhere, but it's one thing to say three years from idea to project delivery is not realistic here but to have a situation where we're nine years into a project and we have really nothing to show for it except for ongoing analysis. that is very frustrated to me and i think to a lot of people. and with vanness brt and i think now it's possibly being turned over to the mta -- so it can take [inaudible] eventually, you know, build the project. i'm being a little

sarcastic but it's very frustrating. and so this contract -- it's 6 million dollars total and that is for environmental analysis and preliminary conceptual drawings. how much of that is for environmental seqa analysis. how much of that 6 million is for seqa work? ballpark. >> approximately 2 million dollars. >> this is a 2 million dollar eir. i think that that is absolutely ridiculous that we're spending 2 million dollars on an eir. i think it shows how broken our system is. that is an enormous amount of

money that's not going into implementation but going to environmental analysis. and i guess the question is, i know that geary brt is more controversial than van ness brt and i don't begrudge anyone their opinion about whether brt on geary is good or bad. my sense is that -- this is true with a lot of things in san francisco. instead of saying we're going to have a public process, we'll delineate it's going to be a six month process or one year or two or three year process or whatever we define it to be and we'll get feedback and a collaborative community discussion, we allow the community process to go on [inaudible] if someone comes forwards and says i have an issue it sort of restarts

everything and i -- as we can see through the extreme drama around the very modest seqa appeal legislation that i did which is nothing more than set deadlines for when people have to file appeals and that has caused, as you know, a sig miff cant controversy. i know it's hard in san francisco not to have an open ended process, but to have process that goes on years and years and years, i just think that we don't do -- it's a disservice to the taxpayers and to the riders of san francisco that we allow this combination of unended analysis, unending public process to take what should be a several year project and turn it into a 10, maybe 15 or 20 year project to deliver one brt line on one thorough fair in be san francisco and to spent

millions of dollars on environmental review, which i just don't think is warranted. i think an eir does not need to cost that much. we're not talking about the transbay plan or something like that. so i'm -- i don't accept this process as being the way we should be doing transportation in san francisco and i -- i can't support this item. >> you touched on [inaudible] mull symposiums and it's a big problem, not just here but in a lot of places. i want to recap some of these issues [inaudible] large scale with brt represents in the transbay type projects but things should