eir and overriding considerations and mitigation monitoring and reporting plans. directors, staff would like to offer an amendment to your resolution for several areas and i would like to read those to you at this point. >> so, in the 7th whereas clause. the language would be eis,eir, the right side platforms and single and medium terms. in the new language in performance attributes of a center running brt, faster more reliable services to require

left and right door to quickly rebuild the median. that's new language. as environmentally superior build alternative and the only fully funding alternative. new language and is therefore the preferred alternative for project implementation. the 9th whereas clause is a new whereas clause, where as the vallejo northbound station variant for the northern park of the project corridor. moving on to the next whereas clause, the 10 where as you clause would say the sfmta certified and adequate objective and reflecting the judgment of sfmta adding new language now including amendment to include the vallejo northbound station variant in the approval of the

lpa. going to your first resolve clause. resolve that the san francisco municipal transportation agency board of directors approve in the final eis,eir in the project. adding the language, including the vallejo northern variance. those are the proposed changes. >> thank you very much. >> peter who is our project manager will give a brief overview. this is something that's been before you before where do you live i think really a great point now with the transportation authority commission having certified the eis and eir, i want to acknowledge that we've been joined by the new director,

chang and michael schwartz who led the environmental effort. it's great for us to be working with them and be at this point in this project. >> good afternoon, nolan, directors. we are here requesting approval of item no. 11, the van ness bus transit project as analyzed as a local preferred alternative in the final eis,eir, adopting the quality act and mitigation monitoring and reporting plan. the purpose of this item is for the sfmta to approve for the project adopt findings under the california environmental quality act. the project is a large scale plan to implement full featured bus rapid transit. one of the busiest

transit roudz in the city and major north south transportation corridor within san francisco. when it's completed it will be an integral part of the munis transit network for all of san francisco. as recommended under the ceqa guidelines this should be a coordination of the preparation of environmental review documents whenever federal and environmental impact statements and environmental impact report under ceqa are required. the sfmta is prepared to join eis,e ir for this project. the san francisco municipal transportation agency board of directors an approved it in 2013. the estimated cost is

$125 million. the funding will be $75 million federal funds, $36 million prop k funds and roughly $4 million of other local funds. any questions? >> does the board have questions at this point? >> if i may before we call public comment, i just want to clarify the amendment was making one kind of small technical correction, also making a change to reflect a change that the transportation authority commission made when it made it's approval last tuesday. i would also like to ask if she would like to have tilly chang from the transportation authority address the board before we go into public comment. >> thank you. >> miss chang, congratulations. >> thank you so much. nolan and

directors. thank you for that kind opportunity. i'm really delighted to be here on behalf of the whole transportation authority organization and joint staff. thank you so much for your leadership on the project as we join you for approval of this item. this is a significant milestone for both of our organizations. this project would not have been possible without the leadership board commitment and this board and past boards as well of the mta as well. we've been working with your staff on this project since the early 2000s. we took an action and so did the board to adopt a fees ability study to this environmental stage. through the work of the two staffs, we've been able to bring to together a wide range

of interest and issues from the communities that were raised from other agencies and through that partnership, i think we are quite pleased to bring forward a project that is innovative and that will serve to improve conditions for all travelers. it will increase pedestrian safety on the corridor which we all know is folks who work and live and travel on van ness constantly. this is really an important need. just a basic need to feel as any traveler whether you are on foot or bicycle on transit or driving that you have a safe corridor to use. i would also like to of course thank director reiskin for dedicating the resources of the entire organization to help meet this milestone and to deliver this project in a timely way. my counter part is not here but i have extended my thanks to him

and the deep congratulate gratitude and his staff and all the division managers and deputies at the mta. a project like this is a system that requires the capital projects, the finance group, sustainable streets, traffic and the rest of the organization to work together to really define a new mode of transit for san francisco. i'm pleased to say we have the support of our cal trans partners as well. we would really like to thank directors and his staff for working with us through these issues up and down the corridor for helping with the tree lots and making sure the stations are comfortable for our riders. golden gate transit as well. we'll be utilizing them too. this corridor for regional transit services and the

community m -- members who have served for so long and i understand the mta will be sta establishing a new mtac. >> apologizes we need to make one more language change before you take public comment on it. i am going reread the first whereas clause to you. so that whereas clause would read "whereas the final, eis; eir platform. new language in the term that it that is adequate performance of the brt, faster more reliable service while avoiding the need to require

left right door vehicles and completely rebuild the median. the following phrase will be struck." as the environmentally superior build alternative and the only fully funded alternative "and then you add the project implementation. >> thank you, members have any comments or questions before we go to the member of the public. if not, members of the public can come forward to talk about the amendment. >> george philly. michelle rembrandt van rijn. >> good afternoon, my name is george sierra. we have lived at the corridor for 25 years. i have spoken to the group about this. i want to summarize briefly for the record what some of the facts are for the program and our concerns. first the 30 percent saving or with

the 40 percent of reduction and stops. nearly half of the time savings can be limited with these stops. you can achieve this without the negatives. increased rider ship by 70 percent. the benefits come from auto. auto transit time is only 66 percent of the brt time even with the comprehensive plan. highly unlikely to change driver behavior. some of the routes out of the 19 routes. dimension of biker routes does not make sense. most are already walking the corner. that's how i got here today. it's a wonderful place to walk. we need improved pedestrian safety, absolute. pedestrian count down signals, curveball upgrades. none of these require

brt system. does this improve safety? reduce munis operating cost for van ness avenue service. providing a cost of $2.4 million. is this fiscally responsible? there will be costly local chaos in our neighborhoods. van ness cannot afford higher density per traffic lane. studies were not completed. a complete evaluation of a no build alternative. substantial benefit could have been achieved by implementing the elements which are going to be funded or could be implemented without a costly brt proposal. >> thank you very much. next speaker please. >> phil chin and michelle

brand. >> good afternoon, phil chin on the project. we would like to thank the mta for the work on this project and would also like to commend the hard work by the transportation authority. we are in full support of this item and we urge your approval. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> michelle brand. >> my name is michelle brand. i would ask this committee to postpone voting on approval due to inadequate eir at this point. i would want to confirm that everybody has received this for adequate review. i

just want to highlight the things that i personally have real questions about. first i question whether the broadway tunnel that is capacity to absorb all the traffic going south and the comment that it's unlikely the trucks will deviate to golf street. trucks are already there. no one enforces that trucks over a certain tonnage. i have never seen that enforced. how are we going to deal with that? that's not even mentioned and there is no plan for truly handicapped people which is different from the elderly. no special shuttles during non-peak hours. and no discussion of the danger are of

right hand turns which is greater for pedestrians. this has been mentioned sefrlt -- several times. but somehow it never gets into reports. there is a sign which afterwards which will guide people where to go during peak hours and no specific commitment to do anything, just a vague, we'll see where we go. thank you. >> stephen taiber. >> i'm the transportation chair for russian hill neighbors. russian hill neighbors has been involved in this project since inception represented on the city advisory committee. we are strongly in support of this project. we are very concerned that our neighborhood as most of the northeast neighborhoods is essentially isolated in this city with the corporate

transportation running three 1/2 miles an hour resulting in market street. we welcome this project as well as the extension of the central subway to washington square. an effort to get good rapid transit into this neighborhood. we support the project very strongly. i have two caveats. one is that we do not support the addition of the boyar street station. this might seem counter intuitive since it serves our neighborhood. the boyar station comes within a block of the union street station and seems to be superfluous as well as slowing down transit services. secondly it's my observation on exclusive rights on the munis

metro on embarcadero on third street that for some reason exclusive right of way transportation is slowly considering the fact that it's supposed to be running fast and hopefully you will be looking at why those services run so slow and get some good speed up on the van ness corridor. but beyond that, we are strongly in support of the project. >> thank you. >> steve vu. good afternoon. we house a senior center. we would like to thank the staff for working to amend the resolution resident before to you ensure consistency between what was voted on at the mta board

earlier and by you today. with the amendments that were read earlier which include the northbound vallejo variant. we fully support this and congratulate everyone on this monumental effort. >> adele goldenberg. good afternoon. my main language is russian. i'm in the notre dame apartments. i want to thank you for your decision to let us have bus stops. because we need it very much. we try to be

active and because senior people to move is to live. so we are very very thankful to you for your decision. thank you. >> next speaker. >> zeal an situ. [speaking foreign language] >> ladies and gentlemen, i'm the resident of the notre dame residence in the section of baldwin and van ness." our building is from china and

-- we depend on 47 and 49 bus. >> we go north and south to exercise and see doctors. the 47 and 49 bus to be terminated. this will reduce time for the traffic. but there will be a problem for seniors of the building. for the new system,

we'll be able to walk down 3 blocks to union street to take the new system. for now we have to go to jackson street to take the system. the munis bus turns left and turns right. seniors across the street. it's really

to get residents. if used as a stop, you have to consider the traffic time and there is safety. >> safety is really important. this is a responsible. seniors have signed a petition. we have to have northbound and southbound stops by van ness.

hope you will consider our safety and approve the proposal. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> next speaker will be sam young. >> good afternoon. >> hello, we understand that this new system is to have communicate -- communions for the public. please don't forget our seniors and taxpayers. so when we are old, we don't want to be deprived of our traveling privilege. and deprived of our

social resources. because the bus stop around our residence is about 5 blocks east valley far away in the city. so i strongly request to establish the vallejo bus stop. okay. thank you. next speaker. >> shelby. hello i'm from the san francisco transit riders union. i'm here to do two

things: one deliver our version of van ness rapid transit petition which we now have 132 signatures. we are very much in support of the van ness bus rapid transit and we want to thank you for your work on think. to have a better bus system we have to have this. we are pleased with the lanes and i will say for the very short pilot program we are doing on church street, we have seen that having lanes that transit does speed up. we limited stops as few as possible, traffic lights and more frequent bus services and high quality shelters and buses. the moment is 5 miles per hour is the average speed

of a bus. you can more or less walk. i do on the treadmill, actually. you can walk and 5 miles per hour. we have to get faster than that. they are very crowded, the buses. i love van ness. i live 1 block from van ness. we need to get less crowded. 70 percent of the 47 is a crush load. we have to go ahead more people on buses and out of cars. the faster we can get the buses and the safer we can make it for the bikes and pedestrians, we can get them out of their cars. we thank everybody, the ta and cac and sfmta. >> herbert weiner. i encourage you to stop and pause and not move this quickly as possible.

for one thing, how does this affect cars? you are going to have a spill over of traffic from franklin and hyde street and eleven worth streets. they are going to be more heavily populated by cars. i realize there is an anti-car culture in this city. the reality is that everyone drives cars including communist. so the thing about it is, you have to really start balancing your thinking in respect to cars. and you cannot give cars short trips. they are part of the problem. as far as i can see, this agency has done nothing about the problems of cars. parking is even worse and you are supposed to address parking. the other thing about the bus stops, i say retain all of them. this business of speeding up traffic of buses, you can do this by putting more

buses on the lines. you should not eliminate bus stops. there are people in addition to the people on vallejo street who are fragile, who are handicapped who are going to have to walk longer distances. people under 50 are saying, tough with seniors, let's throw them under the wheels. you should have a more compassionate approach to this. you are here to serve the public as a whole. you are not here to serve certain constituents. you are not supposed to do that, otherwise you become hired guns. you don't want to do that. you better start thinking things over because this is going to be a disaster. don't say i didn't warn you. >> tim donely. >> i have been following this issue for years. i live on van ness, at the meetings the

neighbors have suggested to make the 47 limited and keep the 49 because you need that and keep the bullying out to eliminate the merging and make the bus only lanes on the right. try it out, if it works, leave it, if it doesn't work, take it away. you would save $125 million. but they weren't interested at all. i found out why. they are getting 150 -- 15 percent of the cut on this project. they a lot at golf street as the main vehicle for south. a third of it is steep hills and one way at each stop. that's impossible. the achilles heel of this project sfo

parking. they spend 1 hour studying parking. they went from 5-6:00 after business hours from clay to mission street. they determined from that that there is no significant double parking issues on van ness. that's crazy. so i urge you guys to relook at this. it's ridiculous the way it's stated that eir is not complete and i think if you guys accept this as it's written, it's really questionable why. >> thank you. >> next speaker please. >> jeff simco. >> thank you. i just, this is not a point for me to reiterate the points made earlier about the problems with this program. i will make a few of