that you have acknowledged donor iss really first class. >> it is nice to come and play and we have been driving by for literally a year. >> it is kind of nice. >> all of the people that are here. ♪ >> good afternoon and welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors' land use and economic development committee. i'm scott wiener the chairman of the committee and to my left

is supervisor malia cohen and committee vice-chair jane kim will be joining us shortly. our clerk is andrea ausberry and i want to thank sfgtv for broadcasting today's meeting. madame clerk, are there any announcements. >> please silence all electronic devices and completed speaker cards and documents to be included in the file to be submitted to the clerk. items will appear on the december 16, 2014 board of supervisors' agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you very much. madame clerk, item no. 1. >> a resolution granting permission to occupy a portion of a public right-of-way at 157-24th avenue. >> the department of public works is here for item 1. >> good afternoon chair wiener and supervisor cohen, nickelsen with the department of public works. this is a request to basically construct portion of a garage

in the public right-of-way. this is a very unusual portion of the public right-of-way. it's on 24th avenue between lake and west clay streets. there are two other properties, which have a very similar situation, where there garages enroach. the actual public sidewalk is located about 8' above the roadway. so the sidewalk -- oops -- extends above the proposed garage. it's over the proposed garage. we've received the request. this was ruled in conformity with the general plan with the planning department, public works had a hearing on this back in july. and there were no objections raised. so we recommend -- there will be an annual assessment fee charged, and we recommend approval of this encroachment. >> thank you, mr. elsner. if there are no questions, we'll open item no. 1 up for

public comment. i have one public comment card. brent mcdonald, come on up. >> good afternoon, committee. my name is brent mcdonald, the architect for miss kristina baker. i am here to answer any questions, but i think nick explained everything. >> thank you very much. is there any additional public comment on item no. 1? please come forward, if you have public comment? >> good afternoon. thank you. [speaker not understood] the land use -- of the city plan progress step-by-step -- such a match of this trend because i must say of all

people -- it's making it better. [speaker not understood] >> is there any additional public comment on item no. 1? seeing none, public comment is closed. [ gavel ] >> colleagues, could i have a motion to forward item no. 1 to the full board of supervisors with positive recommendation? >> second. >> without objection, that will be the order. madame clerk, could you please call item no. 2. >> a hearing on the transbay transit center and downtown extension platform compatibility. >> thank you, supervisor kim is the author and i would like to add my name as co-sponsors to the request. >> thank you, chair wiener and i'm glad it's becoming before the land use commission because it impacts transit for the region and certainly for san francisco, but also because on land use committee we have members of the caltrain board and the mtc as well.

i think it's quite appropriate that this is going to be heard before this committee. so as many of our transportation players know, as we move forward with high-speed rail and electrification of caltrain, there has been a lot of discussion on how we can ensure shared compatibility of vehicle and also platform heights. in the near-term procurement to help us supplement and drive capacity and operational reliability and flexibility of a blended high-speed rail. caltrain service at transbay and for the entire caltrain high-speed rail blended service corridor into the foreseeable future. caltrain and the hawai'i .r.s. high-speed rail and regional partners in cooperating and developing both technical and operational solutions. this again is just a hearing.

it's an informational hearing with our multiple agencies. certainly i know the city and county of san francisco has a strong interest in policies and imperatives moving forward and this is an opportunity to hear from all agencies on how discussions have been going thus far. we know that a lot of headway has been made over the last couple of months. i want to appreciate all of our agencies for working so closely together and through the presentations we'll understand both the technical complexities of making this a blended system with compatible vehicle and platform heights. but also figure out what the pathway is to get to space where we're really building a system that is going last us for decades and decades into the future. and so i just wanted to recognize the effort that has already been made on a regional level by both agencies and we look forward to the update that will be happening today. i did want to give an opportunity for my colleagues on land use committee to make

opening remarks as well >> thank you, supervisor kim for calling this hearing today. i think it's a very important hearing. and this particular issue about the compatibility of the vehicles is important in and of itself, but i think it's also part of a broader picture of the critical importance of all of the changes that we're going to be seeing with caltrain with the electrickfication of the system and the blending of high-speed rail. caltrain is ultimately incredibly important regional railline. it's only going to become more and more important. we have seen the ridership increase by something like 50% in the past number of years and that ridership is going to continue to go up. it is important that all three counties and the region as a whole work together with all of

the agencies to make sure that caltrain is meeting the needs of the system. we know we have a lot of work to do to get the system electrified and the vehicles replaced and to make sure that the improvements and the increases in capacity for caltrain, as well as high-speed rail are driving housing production as well. so that we're working together all three counties, to make sure that all three counties are really helping to meet the housing needs of the bay area. we have a dire situation with housing and what better way to really plan for housing than what we are doing a massive upgrade to an important rail line in terms of having more transit-oriented development. we know we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we have the 4th and king railyards developed and address that situation. it's just a lot of work for us to be doing together. when i heard about the possibility of having incompatible vehicles between

high-speed rail and caltrain, i was surprised, and i met with caltrain. i know that there are certainly real challenges to that compatibility, but it does seem there is a path forward. so i'm really glad that we're going to be talking about these issues today. again, thank you supervisor kim for calling the hearing. supervisor cohen. >> for those who don't know i'm a member of the joint powers board that connects san mateo county, as well as our neighbors south and one of the issues that we have been dealing with on this body has to do with the low floor/high floorboards of the potential cars and why compatibility is important. one thing that this body, this land use body has in common that you have three people that sit on the body that are

concerned about regional transportation. supervisor kim and supervisor wiener. i wanted to give one acknowledgment to the mayor's office, trying to find some parity, some common ground on the best way to solve this problem. also wanted to encourage folks who are watching at home and just to be mindful it's my commitment to you that everything that we are doing has transparency and sometimes that is more difficult than not to actually be able to honor and to perform. so this hearing, supervisor kim, is definitely the right step -- step in the right direction and look forward to hearing this item. >> thank you.

>> supervisor kim. >> thank you. and so we do have several presenters here today. and i will be listing the order in which they will be presenting. first ryan dykes from transbay joint powers authority and lisa fisher an urban planner with aecom to talk about lessons learned with high-speed rail and casey francen will present from caltrain and we have dave couch from caltrain as well and then ben from california high-speed rail will be the final presenter. and i just wanted to mention again because i sit under two hats, under my hat as chair of transbay joint powers authority. we certainly have a lot of concerns about compatibility, given that we have a number of rail edges under the terminal station. while there might be flexibility at both the airport, millbrae, and san josé for building additional tracks

because there may be more land or an opportunity to build underground, we're certainly limited in san francisco in the number of lines to bring in under the terminal. so there are concerns in the train breaks down or in terms of redundancy, to ensure that our trains are able to come into the terminal and the issue of using rail edges and that has come up from the san francisco side. that being said, it's a regional transportation system. and i think this will be a good opportunity to have that discussion and explore both the costs and the benefits of the different options that are before us. so mr. dykes. thank you for leading us off today. >> thank you. supervisor wiener and cohen. it's my pleasure to be here.

thank you. i'm the principle engineer at tjpa and i have been involved in this design and project for seven years as a member of tjpa. and for some years before as a consultant. just a quick recap. elements of the project, the downtown extension starts at grade down near colman street and the tracks, two tracks are peeled off parallel to 7th street and reach of the beginning of the tunnel portal beyond 6th street, having go underneath the 6th off-ramp from the freeway. this is now fairly shallow cut-and-cover work to build an underground station at 4th and townsend and then still

cut-and-cover until we get to 3rd street, where we are turning left into 2nd street and arrive at rock or soft rock rather than water and mud, which we have had up to this stage. so it's a mined tunnel. actually the best rock on this sandstone. it stops being a mine tunnel when we run out of rock at the other end, beyond folsom street, halfway to howard street. also at that stage, the 3-track tunnel starts to widen out to 6 track s to get into the station. so it more than doubles in width and no tunnel machine would touch that. the transbay terminal is presently under construction and the train box in the orange section is, in fact, almost finished and we're now coming

up out of the ground. there is a green section at the end, which i will talk about later, but that is the extension to, in fact, accommodate double-length high-speed rail trains. that is two sets of 220-meter trains to make a 400-plus meter train. now the downtown 4th and townsend station, we have done recent maneuvering to improve the land and to build it with a single platform in the middle and bypass track on the south side. this station is only for caltrain trains to stop and start, not for high-speed rail. so it has the ability for high-speed rail to bypass, should there be a station -- caltrain. the station is now under townsend street as opposed to previously it went into the

yard sooner. this allows for more development within -- if it happens -- within the yard. the current design has three platforms. so there are six tracks. this was designed in accordance with the design criteria. >> quick question. just want to make sure that i have your handout that you are presenting. did you make copies? >> i can give you my copy. you haven't gotten copies of anyone. >> i don't have what you are presenting on the screen. >> i have it electronically, and so i'm not sure if my committee members do. >> if you could forward it to us. >> why don't we do this. >> i can pass this over. >> here is one.

>> you have everything? >> thank you. >> this is the layout in the current design. and the extension on the right is, in fact, the 2.5 platforms, so most platforms is not low enough for a full-length high-speed rail train. there was nothing in the business plan to have every high-speed rail train full length. it protects the 3-story building which is, in fact, my office. didn't want to demolish another building for another platform. >> now that i have the slide in front of me, you are discussing the caltrain platform on the right, correct?

>> yes. the next slide will help to show it. this is the current dedicated platform design, which is what the two railways are working on for a long time, until we are now all talking together. >> okay. >> it's in my opinion not very efficient, because you have two platforms for high-speed rail trains only, which was to the criteria of 50" above top of rail. and describe criteria came out of high-speed rail. we need the trains in my opinion because in effect you can only put caltrain into the top platform. initially we have different operating sequences over periods of ten-year periods. so let me say what i would

prefer to see, which is ptc with shared platforms. that is to say that all the platforms have the same height and we already built the bottom of this building and put all the elevators and escalators for anything, between 25-50. so we can accommodate anything, as along as we don't go back to an 8" platform, in which case we can't get the elevators down. so my plea is the benefit of this is that we have probably a 10-year phrase before we put extra trains parsing tracks down the peninsula, with only two high-speed rail trains. two high-speed rail trains don't need more than one platform per hour. so you can get a lot more caltrain trains here. so the flexibility of how you do it over time, because then they go to 4 trains. you still don't need four

platforms for four trains. so we should be able to share this thing. it has an advantage for start-up, because any train can get into any platform, so we can store trains here overnight to get started in the morning. it becomes more efficient. it gets us higher caltrain capacity, which for the initial phrase is what we're looking. it's flexible to bring the different phrases of high-speed rail in. and one other benefit it doesn't need the special curved crossovers, because once a caltrain train breaks down in the original system, there is nowhere else to go. you can't get back out, if that approach fails. it's what is known as a single-point of failure. that is the plea i have been making for years and now i'm pleased to say that everybody is meeting together and have been for the last two, three months to genuinely look at solving this problem and coming

up with same-height and also the same width. because it's very important not to lose that. the width affects the gap between the train and the platform. if you have two different widths, someone is going to have a big gap. so i will hand this over for the next presentation to lisa. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. dykes. >> i believe that we have forwarded the powerpoint presentation to both members. let me know if you have gotten it. >> we actually added a few more slides to the end of this and we're happy to share it to you and i have saved it to this laptop. >> if you could send that to us, that would be great.

>> thank you for having me. my name is lisa fisher an urban planning at aecom in the urban planning group. hopefully this presentation will be helpful and inspiring and also welcome this to be a start of a larger dialogue, if you need our assistance moving ahead with other examples. we have the benefit of working around the world and pretty much every discipline that has to do with the built environment. and what we have done today is compiled some lessons learned and some visual examples from mainly projects in europe, with one japanese example. i think the main thing that we would like to show in these images is -- sorry, is that better? okay. the main topics of accessibility, flexibility, capacity and efficiency, that come from these sorts of blended stations. of course, the lower costs that are associated with that.

then i think we'll end today just with a quick example from london about the land use and planning kind of spinoff that can happen from having a more compressed footprint when you think about not only the enhanced real estate opportunities, but the urban regeneration possibility and even the walkability and distance for people getting to the train is greatly enhanced when the station itself has a smaller footprint. all of these things kind of having a way to capitalize on these sorts of investments. other reason that i would ask to come here today, we recently organized a day and a half workshop with the british consulate and cambridge university at our office and brought together global experts about rail innovation. so we have great connections and there is actually going to be a book published about some of these findings, if you are interested in any other points. quickly, some images. waterloo is one of the stations that is

being connected to the tunnel through high-speed one. so here you can see the blended configuration. in spain and also in madrid and other places their tracks have other scales coming in at the platform heights. and in germany, and in berlin, this picture is from 2006. this is blending actually three different train lines, the high-speed rail, the s ban and regional train. two photos from japan showing the more regional trains and the high-speed rail in the middle. these last two examples are showing how these footprints can lead to these amazing also

architecture footprints both in london and in belgium. quickly, for high-speed rail, this is a little bit about king's cross; which if you are not familiar is with the london station in the upper corner linking to the tunnel. and also high-speed one is responsible for reaching out to the kent existing rail. all of these stations are experiencing some level of urban regeneration. the presentation that we had at our workshop was really focused on king's cross and strafford, where the london olympics occurred. so just quickly, here at king's cross, a photo from 1894 and you see the footprint that this sort of station took up in a very central part of london. in 2007, still a large amount of kind of open, underutilized space. and this is basically the approach that they took, looking at the development parcels that could become

available within the station footprint as they uprr upgrade the facilities. today this is the master plan, about 8 million square feet of mixed-use development, including 2,000 residential units. maintaining historic structure and google is one of their main anchor tenants. 40% of the site is public realm, which is 27 acres. and here we're showing how it kind of revitalizing the long stretch of canal side development. these are some great photos today looking north, that basically downtown london and the river is to your back. and then how it's envisioned with this amount of development coming in. and then again, looking south, you can start to see the financial district, et cetera, and then in the future this is the potential. so i'm not going to run through the olympic example, but i'm happy

to share those with you. but this slide was provided to us by the london authority. and gave some kind of quick numbers to the regeneration potential from these high-speed one investments. stafford city with the olympics and king's cross that we just looked at. a total of over 22 million square feet of development. 63,000 plus jobs. almost 8,000 housing units. >> i have a question. what type of housing unit are we talking about market rate housing, below market rate, subsidized? >> it's a mix. i'm happy to get the exact breakdown, but they have very similar to san francisco looking at affordable housing issues. >> this part of london where this build-out took place, is it -- was it in the industrial part? was it in an abandoned part of the city? or was it already an economic hub? >> king's cross was an

existing station and it was already part of the metroline and more developed part of london. where the olympics took place is the largest urban brownfield redevelopment project in europe in recent history. so that was a very industrial, very polluted, very low-income neighborhood. the legacy actually aecom designed the plan for the olympics and the master plan and i'm happy to provide that as well. >> so now that the olympicks have come and gone, how is the site used today? >> so the legacy plan needed to be developed actually as part of the competition for london to win the site. so it's already transforming into a mixed-use everyday primary community. so everybody was built with that in mind. that was actually a more important part of the project. and we actually had a complete sustainable framework that went

with that redevelopment also, that looked at the social and environmental kind of benefits of the development in the legacy, not in the olympic part. >> thank you. >> and this last slide, this just shows high-speed 2 is kind of the next part of this is that is going to be spinning off to the different stations. the rail agency is working very closely with all of the local authorities about how to maximize the benefits of each of these. thank you. >> through the chair, i wanted to ask a question of you as well. when you presented all the previous slides, which i had looked lou through last night, you are pointing out stations where there is platform compatibility. so they are all at level platforms. >> yes, and i wanted to show you examples of existing or stations that are retrofitted, as opposed to the ones that were built with that in mind from the beginning.

>> i'm sorry, examples of what? >> the two stations in belgium and lisbon were built with the level platforms from the beginning and knew where high-speed rail would be part of it from the beginning. >> so in terms of vehicle procurement for some of the regional trains. was it an issue to find companies that were able to produce the higher-platform regional trains as well? >> i would have to actually get back to you about that specific question. >> all right. thank you. >> i'm happy to find out more. that would be great. thank you. >> thank you. my name is casey and i'm co-presenting with dave, our delivery director for the program. this is a little bit of background on the system -- i know you are well-versed in it, but for folks that are watching. the caltrain system runs from san francisco all the way down to san josé.