hour on average and the tp is designed in large part to improve those speeds and brt is a key part of that. specifics of van ness -- i, as a fairly regular user of the van ness lines during the day, during non rush hour, during rush hour, i think anyone that using the van ness lines will know it is a salute disaster. it is a traffic cesspool. there are times when i'll be coming back from city hall from somewhere north of here and i will get off the bus to walk because it is -- the bus is just not moving. it has to go through multiple cycles even to get through a traffic light and there are times when i'm

kicking moist -- myself for not getting ting off the bus because we have been sitting for ten minutes to go one block. i am thankful -- i hope approving the middle lane option -- it is -- i think to make this work it needs to be in the middle lane and putting in a side lane, while i understand the desire of some to do that, means the buses will get caught behind every right turning car and i think it'll be much less effective. i also think this particularly for any brt project where we're investing significant public money and making significant trade offs in terms of parking and traffic and trade offs that i believe are /wo*t worth it, but we are making /traeuld offs

and spending public money, we need to get it right in the first one out of the gate. i have some concerns about the addition of the northbound vallejo stop. i completely understand why folks are advocateing for this and i am sympathetic, but i have some concerns. i have a question for staff about the addition of the northbound vallejo stop. what is the additional cost of adding that stop to this project? >> the high level estimated is about $500,000 for another station. >> and we're already short on the budget for this project? >> there are currently a budget short fall, yes. >> okay. can you -- if we do this, are you able to guarantee that there won't be additional

requests for additional stops on various parts of the line? >> i cannot personally guarantee that that would be the case, no. >> okay. has there been discussion about whether this -- what kind of precedent this might create in terms of adding additional stops? >> yes. it's a very good point and something that staff took very seriously was the precedent knowing things -- like, the transit [inaudible] on a number of lines and we noted that we are removing about a third of the stops as part of this project. that is partly why the southbound, from a technical standpoint, was justify dude to the ridership. we did clear environmentally

[inaudible]. >> so the stop is not in the locally preferred alternative. >> just to add on to michael's response there. i think we're unique on several levels. we deliberated for a while on how this context may apply city wide. we have a few other factors that have unique to this particular location that maybe may not make it a precedent for the city wide for for stop con consolidations. we also have a remaining double left turn which is the only one we are retaining on the corridor in the southbound direction so we are able to take away and the left turns elsewhere, we are leaving this large movement here and that

presents a challenge. finally we have some folks using it, but there's not a large number of folks on the bus at that point, so we don't think this will be particularly burden some from a travel time standpoint? on the southbound side we did, in recognition of the five block gap that would have been left had we taken away the gap. >> the agencies made a /khoeusz not to incloud it on the lpa? >> that is true. on the north bound. >> now, in terms of /pres /tkepbts, precedent, we have a very significant senior population throughout san francisco. we have a lot of hills. is there any analysis in terms of implementing the

brt, where there are significant senior populations in relation to hills? one thing to say we looked at the city and really this is the only place we have this [inaudible] of senior housing, a particular grade, but we see that throughout san francisco. >> sure, let me invite some mta colleagues. the double left turn is a pretty substantial movement and everywhere else many in the corridor was a very unique situation. >> how confident are you that this isn't going to be a precedent as we roll out other brt's /stphr ?

>> i recognize that. >> i am not in any way saying this proposal is somehow ill founded or irrational. i understand the basis and i'm sympathetic to it. i am concerned that this is the first brt outta the gate and

we're at the beginning of tep implementation. i'm concerned about the precedent it's going to set. one of the points of brt is to separate it and don't stop at every block so we can get efficient movement of the buses. this will increase the cost by about half million dollars, which is not insignificant. we don't know if there are going to be other requests on this brt line. as we know in san francisco, the closer you get to finalizing the project, the more people tend to focus on the details and come forward and say hey, what about this? that's just natural. i'm concerned /thao we do this and then we're going to have other requests as well so i don't know how global this consideration would be. i just -- i don't understand brt, the tep is going to be very politically challenging in

terms of implementation. it's /tpoeupbg going to be hard for all of us when you reroute line, consolidate bus stops. i'm not suggesting we can't add a bus stop here or do a consolidation. i know mta's still doing out reach about that, but i'm concerned about the /pres tent -- precedent that this sets. >> thank you. i know commissioner farrell was trying to get on the stack. go ahead. >> as one of the supervisors, along with supervisor ciao and i believe kim and breed, who this -- and i think wiener at the end here -- these districts are impacted by some of the brt. i just want to make a few comments as well. in terms of rent dents in district two who

have commented on it, i want to thank them for their input. i see george here who has a letter here from. so thank you for your continual input here. to echo what my /kol colleagues have said, i believe cesspool is an appropriate comment. anyone who's local in san francisco -- if you can avoid it, you avoid it. i think that's really unfortunate. i absolutely believe [inaudible] the project has taken a long time to implement and i agree with supervisor wiener's comments about project delivery. a long process like this -- this won't be a perfect project

from everyone's point of view. i will absolutely be supporting supervisor chiu -- van ness stop at vallejo. there's a principal concern for those in russian hill, certainly the local neighbors. i think these have to be evaluated on an individual basis and they do have very significant impacts on residents living in the neighborhoods. from my perspective, it is time to move forward. i hope we get this out today. >> as we think about van ness brt and from my perspective in district two as the gateway of san francisco we are going to have that /ud /aud parkway in a number of years and my focus is going to start to be on lombard and what happens and reenvision

that street and we need to now think about lombard street as well. again, thank you for everyone involved in district two and certainly staff for all your full-time -- time and /harpd work on this. >> i think /hropl lombard is a very important intersection and we have to connect the improvements we're doing throughout the city. i am very, very excited about the certification of the cir and checking off a milestone on this very important project. one of the things that i think

that we've done a decent job at here in the city is our horizontal options. i think because of the historical nature because of the west to eastbound traffic, something that i think we have been sorely lacking in is our vertical transit, going north and south. the van ness brt is going to be an incredibly important piece being able to move through san francisco going north and south. i'm really excited about this plan. i want to say i came in in the last couple of years of the project planning and i thought this was a great example of the transportation authority and sfmta working together to be creative about the deseens and /shaougss that work for everyone. of course has been pointed out, there are a couple of kinks /thao won't make

everyone happy, but i think overall we have a really beautiful plan that was able to incorporate lot of peoples' /tpoed back and you address a lot of concerns. i wanted to echo, exhibitioner chiu, i will also be supporting the amendment on the northbound vallejo stop. i don't think it's a bad thing that this creates some sort of perez tense. i think that level of senior citizen community -- notre dame a huge project. i know on van ness in general we have a number of senior housing along the door /taor. the seniors ride the 47 and 49. i think we need to think about our current ridership and not just our future ridership. i think that /pwer intersection

is very difficult to cross. i think the double left hand turn just adds to the danger of that intersection. that is something that i will be sporting as well. i think it's also exciting about van ness is we're seeing a hot of new development on van ness all the way from triple a building, up to [inaudible] on clay street. there's cpmc hospital as well. there's going to be a lot of residents and workers along van ness so i'm glad this project is moving alongside of that. i look forward to support, certify this eir and then move on to so many of our other priority projects. i just wanted to thank the ta and sfmta. i'm really excited to support and

ride the brt when it's finally implemented. >> thank you. commissioner campos. >> thank you. i won't repeat the comments that have been made. i want to take this opportunity to thank the ta staff as well as all the other say general is, the mta in particular as who have been working on this matter when we saw where this was a couple years ago when /sph-pl some of the new members to this body had been elected there were a number of questions that remain. i appreciate that in a very short /poerd of time the various agencies were able to engage this commission and the constituents that are represented to get to this point and i think it took a great deal of creativity of the ta staff to come up with a solution that brought people together and i do support

consideration for addressing the needs of seniors with respect to this project. i'm very prod that we are where we are and, you know, just again, thank you to everyone who made it possible. i want ton acknowledge [inaudible] who was largely responsible for thinking outside the box in terms of how we got here. thank you. >> commissioner breed. >> i actually have some questions because of the proposed revolution to add an /aeu /teugsal stop. i didn't think i heard clearly in terms of the efficiency of the brt with this change in terms of percentage wise to add an addition until stop. i haven't gotten a specific number to that. >> sure. so the tep has

developed a set of rule of thumbs for what additional stations, additional stops would be in terms of travel time. so it could be up to 15 seconds. /theupbs since >> based on this project, the percentage in terms of increase in efficiency was mentioned at 33 percent, so as a result of an additional stop, what does that change to? a: >> i don't have the number off my head but it was going from 32 percent to 31 percent, something along those lines. >> were there any surveys done

to figure out how many seniors we're talking about specifically? it's my understanding that in this -- if /thr-fts any information or was there any outreach to determine how many of those seniors actual /hru used the buses along the van ness corridor. i don't have any information or feedback as to the people who could potentially be impacted as a result of moving forward as is. i'm just trying to get more information to determine whether or not this is something that i can support because i don't necessarily feel i have enough information to make a determination as to whether or not i should support an additional stop. >> okay, commissioner chiu.

>> thank you. i wanted to respond to some concerns. supervisor wiener had expressed a concern about creating a precedent and let me state at the outset. i understand that concern. it was one i posed for the better part of six months about this. i think adding this one /steugs doesn't really create that much of a precedent for a number of reasons. we're talking about the steepest grade at this particular site, a dangerous intersection by the one major double left turn along van ness. staff just laid out from a time standpoint of about 15 seconds. from a cost /staeupbd point, while it is true that this is going to cost about

$500,000 for the stop, in another part of the plan there was another stop that was taken out. i understand that's a wash. i understand the point that's been raised about the senior population all over the city and the fact that it's growing, i have the highest number of hoe income seniors in our district and there are hundreds of them that live that near that corner and don't have cars and need to reply on muni and hopefully van ness to get around. from my perspective we do have several hundred individuals.

>> commissioner breed. >> thank you. i just wanted to give facts and you think part of my concern about making decisions as member of the board is that yes, we get told that there are a lot of senior, but there's also mobility support where many of these mobility vans that we contract with go directly to the doors of these seniors to pick them up. the fact that it's not clear to me the number of seniors that actually mun i as their primary source of transportation just makes me concerned about making a decision so significant, especially when we don't have

enough money to pay for the project completely. does this decision have to be made today. can we look at making sure that this makes sense as a decision. and we talked about the hoe amount of riders from the stop which may decrease the amount of time that it impacts the project, but what is that number? what are we looking at? what types of transportation that the people we're talking about actually use to get around san francisco. i want facts to make a decision to spending an extra $500,000 for an additional stop and also to /te crease the amount of efficiency in the project in general. >> yeah, i think your questions are spot on and definite live

at the heart of the matter. when we were looking at the anal /aeu analysis, we don't have specifics on who those people are, but we are aware that the notre dame senor themselves did do a poll amongst resident there is and perhaps during public comment you may hear more information about that, buff we haven't validated that data or ascertain that it's fallen under any scrutiny of analysis, but we do know the actual number of writers. >> is this the decision as board that we need to make today -- the amendment? >> is your question whether we would have another bite at the apple to make a decision on

this? >> do we need to make this decision today or do we have an opportunity in the future to make an amendment? >> think what we're hearing from our council is that you would not have to make the decision today. if it got made later, it would be an addition to the project, but it would be more of a minor approval action to put it back in litter. >> thank you, commissioner kim. >> yeah, i just had a question on the /tkeu that piece that you talked about in terms of the boarding count. you said there were 450 for the southbound vallejo but roughly 70 from the northbound vallejo spot. i've heard from seniors

that they want a safe place to get off the bus. >> that's a good point and i don't have that number off my head. i can check -- my mta /kol /haoegs may know it, but that's the other half of it. the boardings are near the end of it >> there's a stop at north because there's not a southbound at broadway. >> okay, let's address this

after public comment. i do want to address any member of the advisory committee who are here. members of the cac for van ness brt. and other than that we can open up for general public comment. i don't have any cards. are any cards over -- start reading some names. if you are a member of the van ness advisory committee, please come forward, and i will read some cards. >> hi, i'm michelle grant. i was on the citizen's advisory committee and i think you all have the material received from the coalition on adequate review. it's about 30 pages and was sent out september 3.

this challenges the environmental impact report and hopefully you've all reviewed it. i think at this point it would be very helpful to postpone the /sro*et on vote on the entire eir report until you read it. as was pointed out, the closer we get to doing something, the more people will become aware of this project and the more you can clarify, that would help the situation quite a bit. also, there is this confusion about the senior citizen impact which could also be clarified more before it's

approved. wiener and breed brought up some very good points. i think the environmental impact probation report has some real holes and ambiguities and make statements that there's no factual basis behind it. i think you need to review this before you make a vote. >> thank you very much. i'll read cards: george, john abraham, tim donely, stephanie change, sylvia. and we'll stop there. >> good afternoon. my name is george, my wife and i have lived in the van ness brt for 35 years. we love this area. it's perfect for walking. we like the aspect [inaudible]

pedestrian safety, but we remain concerned about program. the concerns are [inaudible] the chaos due to construction when all traffic the pinched into two lanes in each direction. interesting [inaudible] trip to review the mexico city brt. actually a comparison of the van ness proposal helped illustrate what is wrong with the plan. average stops facing at least twice that of the van ness system. times savings up to 60 minutes, versus 7 for the van ness. van ness cars still average 10 miles per hour. in the short van ness corridor with high density