there anything that we should sort of wait for as far as the concluesiveness of your recommendation on the fix or was this just a preliminary fix concept? >> i don't believe so because -- was of the fact that this -- because of the fact that this bypasses the area. i think everybody knows the area where the failure occurred, and it completely goes around that area. so no, i don't believe so. i don't know what the scheduling is. i suspect that by the time all these models are revealed in the timeline that mr. vecchio revealed, that will probably be before this fix is installed. regardless, i think, and i think most people who have been looking at this agree that this is a pretty fault-free approach not to have to worry about any

further revelations from the finite elements analysis. >> director chang, i think that the peer review panel is next. he can shed some light -- because we would not move forward until we get their concurrence on the design fix. as bruce mentioned, the preliminary design is being submitted for their review. >> okay. so we'll hear from the peer review panel. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> okay. now that we've heard from our experts, we did want our m.t.c. peer review panel to weigh in on the data received, and for this segment of the presentation, andy fromier from the m.t.c. will present. >> good morning, chair nuru and members of the board. my name is andrew fromier. i'm the deputy director of operations at the m.t.c.

commission. on november 15, m.t.c. was asked by the mayors of oakland and san francisco to find the cause of the cracked beams and to make repairs. i'm happy to say by october 12 we had accepted the assignment and assembled a peer review planl that included a panel of experts. at that time, m.t.c. committed to an expeditious but thorough review of the failure and proposed fix. we provided an update to the mayor's on november 9 that outlined our approach for conducting the review. we also indicated that we got good -- we have gotten good support from the transbay terminal staff as well as their consultants and contractors and that continues to be the case. they've been very receptive to input by the peer review panel. so what i'd like to do is introduce dr. michael

engelhart, who is the chair of our committee. he's a professional engineer, a professor at the department of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at the university of texas at austin. he is also the director of the ferguson structural engineering laboratory. he's got a broad array of background in this type of w k work. he is also to be commended on keeping the panel focused on what they're doing. they're spread across the united states, and they have committed to many meetings, both in terms of getting educated on the scope of the work as well as the structure and its cause. so michael is going to talk to you more directly about the makeup of the panel, how we've decided to attack the review and then, the status of that review. dr. engelhart?

>> okay. >> if you could -- please. >> good morning. as just mentioned, my name is mike engelhart. i'm a professor at the university of texas austin. been there about 30 years, and i have the pleasure of serving as the chair of the peer review panel. just have a few slides to let you know who we are and what we're doing. the makeup of the panel is on the slide. i'm chair. we have several members, including tom sable who's a practicing structural engineer in los angeles, bob shaw, who is a specialist in steel fabrication and welding. and then, when we started this process, m.t.c. let me know that if we needed additional targeted technical expertise as we go through this investigation, that they can bring on additional experts, so

we brought on one additional expert. at this point, it's dr. bill moore who's with the edison welding institute in columbus, ohio. we brought him onto review what l.p.i. is doing in their stage of the work. we have a fairly broad range of expertise, as andy mentioned. we do have experts on fracture investigations and then more broadly, structural engineering, structural design, and with brian cozy, kind of the bridge expertise. we think we have a pretty good panel that's qualified to look at what's going on. and then, again, as additional issues come up, we'll ask m.t.c., you know, to bring on additional experts. we're probably going to bring on one additional expert very soon to participate in the stage of the study looking at other areas at the transit center where there may be similar conditions prone to

brittle fracture where we have the conditions that were similar to what occurred on fremont street to see if there's anything like that anywhere else on the transit here. so we're bringing in a specialist and looking at shop drawings and -- to help with that process and to review what's being done by the tjpa team. so that's who we are. so in terms of our marching orders that we have received from m.t.c. and that we're trying to live up to is to first do an independent review. there's very good people working on the tjpa side, very competent people, but it is our job to do an independent review, and we are doing that. and second, to be expeditious. we understand that this is an yurgent situation, and so all f us on the peer review panel are

committed to making this a priority. sleepless nights and long weekends and things, but we understand it's an urgent situation, so we're trying to be thorough. and to be careful because we understand when this is all said and done, people have to have confidence in this transit center, so we're trying to be very thorough in what we're looking at. we've kept very busy since we were put together on october 12, so constant meetings on-line, conference calls, trips to the transit center, trips to robert's laboratory in new york. meetings with the various consultants, so it's been a very, very active, ongoing process and continues to be so. and mentioned we've gotten very good cooperation with tjpa and the whole list of consultants have been very responsive and provided the information we needed. they're listening to us and so forth. and m.t.c.'s provided us great

logistical support to make sure we can get our work done. in terms of the scope of our review in terms of how it's presented to us and how we're proceeding, it's listed in these five items. one is to review the temporary shoring system on fremont street and first street. the second was to review the sampling and testing being done -- that has been done by l.p.i., the removal of the material from the girders, the testing plan and so forth. the third thing is to, when it is completed, review the cause -- the root cause of failure as determined by l.p.i. and the rest of the tjpa consultants. our fourth item is to look at the condition of the structure that is -- may have been impacted by the fractured girders. as bruce gibbons just mentioned, there was redistribution of load, so try to make sure that nothing else was damaged in consequence with

those fractures, and then, to also look at the repair solution that is being proposed for the fremont street girders. and then, ultimately whatever's being proposed for first street, and we haven't seen that yet. in terms of where we're at, essentially, the first two items are essentially done. wi we've completed shoring review and has concurrence with what's been done. this has been done before material samples were done, where it's removed, what will be removed and what tests will be conducted at l.p.i. the third item, looking at the cause of failure, that's ongoing, so we're reviewing the work of l.p.i. i have to say so far we have general concurrence with the investigations that robert

vecchio mentioned today. other impacted locations, that's ongoing, so this is again, looking at where similar conditions may exist in the transit center that may be -- where there may be the possibility of another fracture, thick materials, intersecting wells, and that's where we're going to bring in a consultant who has a great deal of expertise in that area to review what's being done by the tjpa team. and then finally, the repair approach. what bruce gibbons has presented with the bolted plates, we received kind of the official report from them on tuesday, a couple of days ago, but they've presented preliminary versions to us, and we're in concurrence with that. it's a very reasonable approach, and we're still reviewing the details. we'll get them -- our report on

that soon, in the next few days is our target. so that's basically where we stand and what we're doing, and i'd be glad to answer any questions. >> questions from board members? yes, director reiskin? >> so first, i want to thank you for kind of getting this up and going quickly and for the short nights and long weekends. i think the three ad jekttives that you used, access, -- ad k adjectives that you used, access, thorough, and slide are what we want. i think what our concern or desire was that this review would look at all structural elements because we only learned of this incidentally because somebody was doing some work and had the good sense to flag something that wouldn't have otherwise been seen or

known. so i think what this board is seeking and ultimately the public will be seeking is really a clean bill of health for the entire structure. so i don't know if i misread or misinterpreted what you were saying, but i think what we're really seeking is a review of the entire structure. >> right. and so what we're working on is beyond sort of -- we've taken a liberal interpretation of our mission here to be broughter than what is -- broader than what's actually written. so we identified four additional areas that we think should be studied that go beyond just the immediate area of concern. so one of those we've already talked about is just to look at any other locations in the transit center locations where it may be prone to brittle

sections. there's a lot of heavy steel in this project, so that will be the entire transit center in terms of heavy steel. the second place is the girders that go down to the bus deck level and support them. we feel that they're quite critical members, so we want to have a very close look at their integrity. the third item that we identified and bruce gibbons already talked to it, and it's more along the lines of our scope to say when those girders tracked, did it release a scope, and the fourth issue we looked at was just the issue of fatigue since there are buses rolling in and out of the center. so we have broadened our scope to try to just say as good engineers what we think should be looked at and have passed

those recommendations on. >> okay. great. thank you. >> thank you so much for your work and that of the panel, professor. is there anyone taking a look at the design of the terminal in terms of just independently looking at the design of the terminal and is that part of your scope or perhaps is that a question for your executive director? >> yep. >> well, two things. we had a peer review panel during the process that looked at the design, and m.t.a. has been presented with the design and looked at the design. >> we're not doing an independent review of the entire design from a to z. we are looking at various specific aspects of the design, and if we see any reason to be concerned that there might be a broader review required, we would certainly say so, but we

have not seen that. >> okay. >> so yeah, we don't plan to look from the foundation all the way up to the roof on the design. and from what we've seen, we don't see that as being necessary. >> okay. >> director chang, what we can do at the next board meeting, we can bring in the peer review for the design, and have them tell you about how they reviewed the design if you wish. >> colleagues, wish. >> thank you. chairman? >> well, thank you, and i hope i'm not shooting the messenger. i want to clarify on that previous point that i'm asking for somebody to look at everything are, electrical, plumbing, fire, life, safety. as i can emergency, someone has to do something when it rains heavily on the report. if it's not your assignment, perhaps you could recommend who and what should be looked at. my concern, i'm fascinated at

what caused the forensic analysis of the fracture, but it seems like this access hole was a commonly accepted practice, but i'm sure that somebody was supposed to come along and check the access holes and the welding was properly treated. did it in fact happen, are there records and what else were they supposed to look at, and did that happen? >> our panel is not looking at who's responsible or what was missed or whatever. we're just reviewing, do we understand the technical cause of the failure, what caused those fractures to occur. in terms of why did it happen, you know, why did these conditions occur, that obviously shouldn't. this is not something you expect happen. i don't know if you view that as the responsibility of our panel. >> so i would just like to

register my request that that also happened. basically, we're talking about the quality assurance. >> director hursh, may i elaborate on this because we've kind of wandered outside a little bit, but i do want to underscore. as i mentioned, we're trying to do a meticulous review and be informed by data. but if i can speak as to the general health and state of the building beyond this spot, beyond structure, the framework that i mentioned last month that we're striving to do is develop criteria that will give us guidance on where to work, what's important, what's not, and that's what this group is starting to develop as it relatives to the structure. the remaining of the building validation plan would include reafirm the structural integrity of the building,

which is what we're speaking of. we would be reevaluating the fire and life safety systems, most of which are operational and fine. you know, there are life systems that inform us as to their state of -- live systems that inform us as to their state of performance. other systems, we had to peel them away to deal with the immediate area, but at the end of the day, the fire department, fire marshal and our inspectors will go throughout and ensure that the fire and life safety systems are operating and functioning as designed. and beyond fire and life safety systems, somewhat less critical but if you recall, the building has a building management control system throughout, so if there's something going awry in that area through beyond the conditioning, the building will inform us of what may be awry. but then again, we will be, you

know, looking at all those systems to ensure that we have a good start point for operations and opening. so the broader question is being addressed in the appropriate sequence and format. so i just wanted to underscore that to narrow down your concerns a bit. >> thank you. >> yes. vice chair chu? >> yes. thank you for the update. these are great reports today. mark, i'm just curious, could you share with the board and the public your concerns about how if we just focus on safety, the repair, and opening the transit center what the approval process will look like. you know, who approved, who decides -- will the board decide based on -- what goes first, second, third, and who approves? >> first, we will receive the approval from the peer review

panel that will let us know -- approve the fix, provide us with recommendations to what to look for, and provide any other approvals that we need. then, we'll undertake that work, and then, we'll present -- and then, ron talked about reverifying the fire-life safety system with the fire department. and then, we'll bring to the board that -- in plenty of time when we accomplished, how we accomplished it, and explain to the board why we're confident that this has all been accomplished and that the building is sound and safe for the public to inhabit it, and then, the board will wish to take any actions they want. >> and it we take it to another -- maybe a little lower detail. so we've heard this state of the forensics. it's fairly on its way, but not complete. we've heard our engineer of record say here's our proposed solution and then, the design

and calcs have been submitted to peer review. who decides that that's the right fix, and who approves the fix at that level? >> yeah, yeah, absolutely. yeah -- no, we're -- the peer review. we're deferring to the peer review to approve the proposed fix by the designer. once that's done, then, the fix will be implemented by the contractor. that's -- the peer review will also inform us on what areas of the building we need to look at and what should we do if we -- what do we look for, and what potential remedies we need to do. >> the gee are wiengineering -, the peer review says the design will be completed. is that also being submitted for a permit? >> yeah. we'll be working with d.b.i. as well on whatever permits we need and whatever approvals we

need. >> and once the permit's issued and d.b.i.'s approved, then, the subsequent repairs are -- >> yes, but i'm hoping that things are done in parallels, as well. >> thank you. >> so as we submit the final report for fix to the peer review, we'll be getting approved by d.b.i., as well. >> do we have an estimated timeline for that whole process? >> once we get the approval from the peer review of the fix, we will be in discussions with the contractor. we are in discussions with the contractor on lead time to procure the material and installation. so i'm sorry i don't have a definite date for you, but i'm really hoping at the next board meeting, we can clarify you some clarity as to the interim steps. maybe not when we open the transit officer, but when this particular fix -- the girder fix will be done and other efforts we need to reopen the building.

because whatever other investigation we need to do will inform us on when we can open. >> and i just wanted to underscore the importance in terms of permitting and all, we also have i.s.i. and our special inspectors on board. so it's not d.b.i. alone. as you know, the tjpa is the authority having jurisdiction, so it's a collection of internal engineers, i.s.i., as well as d.b.i. participating and advancing review and approval each step of the way. if i could backtrack a little bit, i failed to address director hursh's question had everything been looked at appropriately before, and the answer's yes. you may recall there was a very rugged q.a. -- q.c.-q.a. program in place. if you look back at the board

meeting of november 2015 that kind of spoke to all the steps that were implemented, and turner and pete and our other consultants are reviewing the records as to what transpired in each of these steps to see if there's any red flags coming out of that. short -- we have been doing the q.a.-q.c. program, and we will continue along that route. >> i guess i would ask outside of the girders, and in all your discussions, are there any other items that you believe that we should be looking at at this time that you know of? >> not at this time. again, there's some discussions about what criteria to follow. as i think mentions earlier, there may be areas susceptible to similar loading and

conditions, but the check list hasn't been fully developed, but i would imagine it would include areas that have plates that are over 2 inches, maybe a concentration of welds, areas that have access holes or weld termination holes. so we're going back and forth on how long is that check list, and what is critical to be an indicator of concern to go back and look rather than go back and look at anything and everything just in the sake of retracing steps that were already traced two or three times already. >> any other board member questions in. >> one last thing. it seemed like there was some indication the peer review could use just in terms of the scope and the presser. i'm hoping that executive

director zabaneh, you can take that feedback and do what needs to be done with respect to the m.t.c. peer review scope to make sure they have the right direction and resources. >> we're fully engaged with m.t.c., and we'll continue to look at that, but really, we're deferring to the peer review panel to let us know. they're the structural engineers, they're the experts, to let us know what to look at in the building. >> thank you very much. >> okay. thank you. >> that completes our agenda item, i believe. >> clerk: you did have two members of the public that wanted to comment on this item. we had robert hazelton and rafael zabelli. >> hi. i'm robert hazelton.

i'm president of the herrick corporation, and we fabricated the girders. thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak today. i don't have a lot of comments related to the report. [please stand by]

are not shown in the design drawings. they were added later on, on approval and subsequent r.f.i. and the peer review, when looking at the design drawings, they would haven't seen the access holes that we're looking at right now. thank you for letting me speak. >> hello, i'm rafael sabelli with walter p. moore. thank you for hearing my comments. i'd like to speak to two things. first of all, i'd like to clarify the scope of what was presented today and then suggest some questions for you to ask the peer review panel

and other experts. first of all, the presentation today spoke about a root cause assessment. really it was the first step of a root cause assessment. this was just proximate cause, the mechanism of how the crack formed and propulgated. the root cause assessment has to include investigational loading, fatigue, design and specification issues. a root cause assessment often results in a change in practice. i will point out that the fabrication methods used have been used can on previous projects and will continue to be used on future projects. the design detail is not one that is used from previous projects and probably will not be repeated on future projects. some suggested questions include, with respect to the sharpie v-notch toughness, which is very important in the

propulgation mechanism, is it low compared to the details. the mechanism presented focused on so-called pop-ins that were evident in two of the fractures, but not evident in the third. and that needs to be explored a little bit further. what explains the crack that happened in the third fracture. the micro cracks and hardness that were reported were similar in the whole region and on the cut surface, the outer surface of the flange. so there is -- those things alone do not explain the initiation of the crack and it is that in combination with the stresses in the detail that needs to be investigated. and finally i appointment out that 1st street is currently short and there is discussion of a retrofit for 1st street.

so, if the mechanisms that were discussed with respect to the cracks at freemont street, those conditions are not present, most of those conditions are not present at first street. and that was my final point. thank you. >> if i could address maybe the board. we've asked the subs if they have any comments or reports that they want to submit to the peer review. we welcome that and we'll submit them to the peer review. if you have any comments you want to make? give it to us and we'll consider an analysis. that affects all team members, including bob -- that includes herek as well as steve humphreys who is here. yeah. ok? >> thank you. >> thank you. >> all right. my name is lynn -- >> oh. we have another member of the public that wants to comment on

item nine. >> thank you. what i'd like to talk about is what's missing from the conversation and i was going to give you the [inaudible] at least your answers. this whole structural health monitoring s.h.m. and it is a system that you install on the building that [inaudible] to save in realtime and we'll warn you of any developing cracks a long time before the cracks actually happen. it's very simple. you essentially look at the structure. you have all the steel elements and you need between two and three microphones per [inaudible]. that's your number of microphones and then you plug this equipment into your communications backbone. i have a major advantage than anybody else. the only question is whether the backbone has sufficient bandwidth to do this. at that point in time, you will

know that the building is safe and we can use it. and as far as i'm concerned, if anybody's pushing back on this, it is because they are afraid that this system may actually discover issues with the building that nobody is currently aware of. thank you very much. >> all right. i think that concludes members of the public that wanted to comments on the item. >> we have a couple of board member questions. >> yes, director. >> following on the first few items of public comment, some of the previous discussion, it sounds like the scope of work for the peer review panel does not determine culpability which i think is ok for them to focus on what we need to do to fix this so we can re-open the building. but in parallel, there is significant costs that transit agencies, the agency are incurring as a result of this issue.

so ultimately we want that accountability as well with suggestions that perhaps it was the design that tolls were added, subsequently not in the drawings and added through an r.f.i. or some of the other issues mentioned. that is going to be an important thing for the agency to determine. so i just wanted to make sure that that process is happening in parallel somewhere as the technical work is being done. >> director, absolutely. absolutely. and i think that the peer review will inform us, even if it did not specifically site -- it will give us an [inaudible] on what the --what should have been done differently. or what should have been done to prevent it. and that would tell us who the responsible party is. >> it sounded like that might not be the case. that the example of the sharpie v-notch test determining that there was adequate strength

relative to design whether the design was adequate relative to the actual conditions. it didn't sound like -- i'm not sure that anybody was looking at those kinds of questions. so just maybe if you can continue to work with the peer review panel or whoever the appropriate folks are. we need know those things ultimately so that the public can be made whole for what's happened here. >> absolutely. yeah. >> director riskin, i can assure thank you that all of these elements brought up are in discussion and we'll be following that thread as the data indicates where we need to look. so we're not ignoring any of those aspects that were brought up. it is a bit of a deep dive for this forum given the level of data that we have. but all of the above has been brought up and discussed and will continue to be investigated. >> thank you.

>> thank you. >> all right. go ahead and call your next item, item 10 is approving a resolution to certify the final up supplemental and environmental impact statement and environmental report to the previously downtown rail extension component of the 2004 transbay terminal redevelopment promise and the transit program. >> directors, this presentation will be done by rodney dong and meghan murphy. rodney is the environmental lead for us. he is with aecon and so is meghan murphy. >> good morning, directors. and happy holidays. as the executive director said a little bit earlier, this is milestone meeting for us. we really appreciate being here. it was a very noteworthy event when f.t.a. signed the final environmental document and before i begin, i do want to

thank the c.a.c. chair -- is he still here? for their endorsement of the environmental document. so, tonight -- ?onlt this morning, i'm very pleased to go ahead and present a series of topics. primarily to provide you with a whirlwind tour of the journey that we've been on and to discuss the various actions that are before the board. the dading has five particular topics covering the environmental review process. they have been evaluated as part of the supplemental environment document. the impacts that were aye fied in the environmental analysis, some of the major comments that were received during the course of the public review of the draft document and then the recommended board actions and i'll be covering the first -- fourth and fifth items and meghan murphy will be covering the refinements. the environmental process, which i'll go through rather quickly, consisted of four distinct phases. the first phase kicked off with

the notice of preparation and essentially covers scoping. the second phase was the preparation of the various technical studies and culminated with the release of the draft environmental document. three years ago in december 2015. the third major phase has been to respond to the various comments to coordinate closely with the federal transit administration to receive the various environmental approvals that they require in order to issue their record of decision. and the final phase is really the approvals and the certifications of the documents. so, as previously noted, the federal transit administration has already gone ahead and approved the environmental document, they signed that on november 20. that was posted to the federal register on the e.p.a. federal register website last friday. and sdwoenlts that, the f.t.a. will be issuing an amended

regular decision. on the ceqa side, on your part, we've gone ahead and released all the public comments and responses to those public comments. on november 26 and the tgpa is taking action today. those actions include certifying the final environmental impact report, adopting the findings that go with the ceqa requirements, adopting and incorporating the mitigation measures, along with that, adopting the mitigation monitoring and reporting program that describes who's going to be responsible for implementing the mitigation measures when that is going to happen, how implementation is going to be verified. and then hopefully approving the project. the agencis that have been participating heavily in this -- and in leading the effort has been the transbay joint powers authority as a ceqa leave and the federal transit administration as the federal leave.

because of the keen interest of the federal railroad administration in having high speed rail come into the transit center, they have been dubbed a cooperating agency and have been involved actively in all of the decisions and reviewed the documents throughout. as required under the federal environments at the outset of the program, we invited all public agencies with the potential interests or stake in the proposed project. this long list that you see on the slide are all those who participated and accepted the invitation and most notably are the sitting county of san francisco and the office of community investment and infrastructure. so, each of these various agencies were provided with copies of the documents early on and actually the federal transit administration would not review the environmental document until each of these had commented and provided their input to the federal transit administration. so, with that, i'd like meghan to talk a little bit about the refinements which have been the

focus of the supplemental environmental document. >> good morning, directors. as rod said, these are refinements. the program was approved in 2004. so i'll be going through them from north to south, so bear with me. this is a good overview, though. you can see in pink, the elements that were added in the supplemental and in yellow are the elements that were just modified in the supplemental document. to starting up in the north, you can see market street up there at the top. we have three elements that are included in this orange box. the first is an underground pedestrian connector that connects the embarkadero stations to the lower concourse level of the train box. this is under beal street. there is an extented train box which will extend the train box from the eastside of field street to beal street and on top of that at grade, there is an inner city bus facility proposal.

the next element as we work our way south is a widened throat structure. the original throat structure in gray has been shifted and slightly widened as is shown in green. this does have the effect of infecting two new properties, 589 howard and 235 second street. both those properties are proposed to be underpinned and will not be otherwise affected on their facades. just underpinned. s the benefit of shifting the throat structure as we did is you see this building in yellow in the upper left hand corner. that's 171 second street which is a historic building and in the original environmental document, it was slated for just demolition. however, do to the shift in the throat structure, we're able to save that building and underpinning a small corner of it so we're pleased to save that historic building.

the next element that is added is the ventilation and egress structures. theres one located at 2nd and harrison on parcel q, a state owned property that is currently a parking lot. the other is at 3rd and townsend street and that is currently a one-storey liquor store. there are also ventilation structures at either end of both underground stations. next, at the request of the city, we have realigned the fourth end townsend station into public right-of-way under townsend street. previously it was a skew through the cal-train yard. so, this will alow for any future development that the city and cal train agree upon at the yard and will values fewer impacts to caltrain's operation during construction. working you are way to the

southern portion of the alignment, there is a new maintenance of way track which simply means that's where the railroads store their equipment that allows them to maintain the track work. there is also turn-backtrack which will allow for off peak, not during peak hours a.m. or p.m., movements between the existing surface yard at 4th and king and the d.t.x. and transit center. these movements will be off peak and will allow cal train to source some trains at the yard or require any movements during an emergency scenario. the last refine suspect what we're calling the tunnel stubbs. this will alow for future connection to that pennsylvania avenue extension which was recommended by the mayor in a letter on december 4. this will allow for a more fluid connection between bringing the trains in earlier

to the transit center through what we call a u-wall and then putting in this tunnel stub which will allow us to build the tunnel without disrupting those train operations that are ongoing into the transit center until such time that we have the pennsylvania avenue extension up and running. i'm going to hand it back over to rodney now. >> thank you, meghan. one important thing i want to stress is that the supplemental environmental document focused slowly on those specific refinements that meghan just described. the intent of the supplemental was not to re-examine the entire d.t.x. and other elements of the transbay program. it was to look at the refinements that have come about since the 2004 approval and the subsequent addenda that went through 2011. so, when you look at those specific refinements that meghan just described, there are only five resource topics

for which new, significant impacts were identified. or we felt that they needed to be further examined beyond these were examined 2340904 environmental document. so, those five topics are outlined on this chart. the first topic concerns transportation and that primarily came up because of the turnback tracks that meghan described. there is an at-grade crossing at 16th street. there's a lot of concern about the amount of congestion, how it might conflict with the muni forward improvements along that stretch and so we worked very, very closely with the city and county of san francisco to fashion a mitigation measure that was accept tonight the city and involves cal-train and involves the cpuc. so, for that reason, we've identified that particular impact as being mitigated to less than significant. in terms of land use and socioeconomics, meghan described the widened throat structure, but the project also

includes an extended train box and it also includes vent structures which will require additional land acquisition. there are standard mitt investigation measures, state and federal relocation laws that have to be implemented and for those reasons that impact was identified as being less than significant with mitt investigation. in tomorrows of water resources, the issue really had to do with climate change. and so climate change is going to have two effects. one, it is going to increase the surge, storms and the elevations and the 100-year flood. that type of impact can be mitigated and it can be mitigated through the amendments and review of the d.t.x. design criteria to ensure that the system is not vulnerable to that type of inundation. however, climate change introduces concerns related to sea level rise and in the environmental document, we use very conservative assumptions going out to the year 2100. at that point in time, there is

considerable inundation in the waterfront area in san francisco. this is not an impact that pgpa alone can resolve. it's something that requires a regional solution t sea wall protection along san francisco. so there is a climate adaptation mitigation measure that has been concluded in the tgpa document, but there is also recognition that it needs a larger set of agencies to participate. for that reason, it has been identified as significant in an unavoidable. in terms of noise and vibration, there was the likelihood of nighttime construction. it makes stones avoid distroupesing businesses and access to properties and businesss who might otherwise be adversity affected during construction during the day. there were five or six mitigation measures that were recommended in that environmental document. those same mitigation measures have been incorporated into the

program here. however, because there's so much more residential development now within the vicinity in the corridor, that has been identified as a potentially significant unavoidable impact in spite of some of those mitigation measures. and then finally, there is the potential now for electromagnetic fields to affect some of the sensitive equipment in medical facilities in mission bay. and this again results from the turnback track which has the effect of shifting the cal-train overhead electrical lines, when electrified, to be closer to some of those medical buildings. we don't know how far it is going to be moved but we acknowledge that there is a potential for some interference with some of their equipment. there is a very detailed engineering solution that is included as a mitigation measure and for that reason, that impact is also identified as mitigated to less than significant. around as the executive

director mentioned earlier, we received a letter from ucsf, they acknowledged that that particular mitigation measure and look forward to coordinating with the tgpa. now once the draft document had gone out in 2015, there were a number of comments received and i won't stay on this particular slide because i'll go into them in more detail. the first one had to do with the amount of new development that's occurred in the mission bay area. primarily things like muni forward, things like the warriors arena, the u.c.f.s medical center, the south bay mission redevelopment plan. so all of those documents, all of those projects had come online or approved subsequent to us beginning the environmental document for the tgpa. what we've done sin corp rated all of that information, it's all been acknowledged and in particular it's helped inform some of the traffic analysis that was updated in the final environmental document. cut and covered construction is something that was very, very

closely evaluated and examined in the 2004 environmental document. if i didn't say it before, i'll underscore it now. all of the mitt investigation measures that were identified in 2004 and were adopted by the tgpa have now been incorporated into this project. and for that reason, when i showed earlier, only five new impacts, that's because all of those mitigation measures apply now. so things like geology, things like cultural resources that you might have expected, they're not expected to have significant impacts because of those previously adopted mitt investigation measures, because of the d.t.x. design criteria and because of things like the memorandum of agreement with the state historic preservation office. so, in this case, cut and covered construction has been examined and there are -- one way to present that impact is the amount of cut and cover that is currently showed along the corridor represents the worst case scenario.

it has the greatest amount of cut and covered construction that is anticipated to occur. if there is an opportunity in the future that the tgpa wishs to explore, where they can reduce the amount of cut and covered construction, that's just going to reduce in lesser impacts than currently identified. we mentioned the circulation at 16th street as being a concern that continued to surface during the course of the response to comments period. the notable thing about this is that cal train specifically sent a letter indicating that they would not be using the turn backtracks during the a.m. or p.m. peak hours. previously they had not made the statement so that all of the trains were expected to pass at grade along 16th street with revised information regarding the ability to restore cal-train trains at the

transit center. they were able to commit to no a.m.-p.m. crossings. as a result during the course of the entire day, there's only 28 crossings of the at grade crossing of 16th street and the duration of each crossing at most would be 70 seconds which for those of yous who are familiar with traffic analysis, that would be the equivalent of waiting for a red light at a busy intersection. so, we don't see the impacts as being substantially significant. and requiring additional litigation measure. nevertheless, in working with the city, we did craft a mitigation measure, the tgpa and the city worked out a measure to monitor the events that were occurring at the intersection and then in the future, if cal-train does elect to use the turnback track during the a.m.-p.m. peak, then

there's certain performance metrics that need to be satisfied. a number of comments were received regarding the inner city bus facility which would be cruxed atop of the extented train box. the inearp city bus facility -- actually there were two sets of comment. one had to do with the bus plaza that was cruxed and the second had to do with the inner city bus facility. those comments concerning the blaus >> sandra: we essentially explained in the final environmental document that that is an existing condition. that was something that was constructed as part of phase one and doesn't have any bearing on the supplemental environmental analysis being prepared now. so, the focus really was on the inner city bus facility and so the concern was to what extent might that affect traffic circulation along beal, along freemont and particularly for egress and ingress along businesses on beal street. when you look at the driveway

configuration and the street configuration, the inner city bus does not line up opposite any other driveway for any of the businesses or residence denlszes. so, there's not going to be any conflicting turning movements that might create some congestion. even if the alignments were such that the driveway exits for the inner city bus facility did align with a residential or business driveway, the number of buses that would be exiting the inner city bus facility during the a.m. or p.m. is only going to be 10 buses per hour. neither the volume nor the alignment configuration was going to result in any adverse effect. meghan has already explained this pretty thoroughly. so i'm not going to belabor the impacts associated with the widened throat structure. but one of the concerns was whether or not we needed to look at other alternatives.

could it be possible to consider a tighter curve because it had already started that 900-foot curve and then through the negotiations between the tgpa, high speed rail and the federal administration was a variance granded to a 650-foot curb. so if we even tried to adjust the curbs, the analysis showed that there would be greater impacts than what would be -- than what would occur with the current curve. so we kind of hit the sweet spot, if you will. and timely in terms of other construction methods, in response to the public comment the tgpa on its own took the initiative to go ahead and start a studies option report back in 2017. the f.t.a. was interested in understanding what other methods could be deployed to

reduce some of the impacts for cut and covered construction. so, all of the information from the option study has been incorporated into the final environmental documents and has met with f.t.a. satisfaction. the actual preferred solution is something that will occur after 30% design and other factors have been considered. [please stand by] [please stand by]

action if approval, a notice will be submitted to the county clerk down stairs, and we'll also do that at the state clearinghouse in sacramento, and we'll be expecting the m.t.a. will be issuing their amended memo of decision. thank you. any questions ? >> questions from board members? >> not a question, but this is a pretty important milestone. advancing d.t.x. is a huge step forward in bringing high speed rail to the salesforce transit center. i just want to congratulate mark and the team to getting these steps done, and looking forward to the next steps in

the process. >> thank you. >> i just echo the comments, thank the staff, thank the team. much effort went into this work. i think we were happy to contribute in some small way at the transportation authority. we're hoping that the resumption of the design process will help to continue to refine those plans so we can minimize the impacts on the adjacent stakeholders and property owners. i think in some cases that's part of the challenge, so i just want to thank everyone for their hard work. we are also keen to ensure that we minimize that cover, avoid as much of it as possible. i think the e.i.r.-e.i.s. supplemental work does a good job of ensuring we have the

right path forward. thank you. >> clerk: all right. you do have members of the public that wanted to comment on the item. we have daniel krauss and james tomlin. >> good morning, chair nuru and members of the board. my name is daniel krauss. i'm a principle planner with caltrain. i just want to say that caltrain supports this action to approve the seis and seir for the downtown completion project, and so we urge the body to move it forward today. this is very integral to caltrain's future plans and increasing the capacity in our service. so we really see great value in the project.