they were touchscreen. so it gives you a split camera, something you don't have with a mirror, where you can see this way down the vehicle, as well as that way down the vehicle. but if an operator touches on either side, it blows up the camera angle that they want to see more closely. we are also looking at putting a larger monitor, again based on operator feedback. so we're currently testing a 10-inch monitor on the fleet. we also have had two mechanical issues related to the cameras. the first was after two seasons of going through our train washer, the way the cameras were sealed with an exterior gasket, was not holding up to our washers. and that was something that shouldn't have been designed in

a more robust way. all of the gaskets were replaced again under warranty. so that we didn't have water in the cameras. the second issue that we're experiencing and that we're still troubleshooting is in some instances, the cameras will freeze or pixelate, requiring them to bring the train in or have a mechanic review it. we would never operate a train without fully functioning monitors. so we are working through those issues, as we experience them. but they are software related. >> chair peskin: thank you for your candor around all of those issues. we have a number of people for public comment. commissioner walton. >> supervisor walton: thank you so much, chair peskin, and thank you for your presentation. a few questions this is just for my clarity, it may sound like a silly question. as we're working through the

improvements and get ising to a point -- getting to a point of ordering new vehicles, are they redesigning and making the improvements on the vehicles we order in the future, that we're currently doing right now so that the vehicles are safe and up to we need to see, as the fleet is rolled out? >> yes. thank you for asking that question. any enhancements that we make to phase 1 will be rolled into phase 2. there's an additional opportunity to address things like the seats, which we currently don't have in phase 1. but we'll be retrofitting phase 1, based on the customer feedback related to the seats. >> supervisor walton: you talked about the excellent customer support from siemens. is this excellent customer support costing us additional money? >> no. >> supervisor walton: thank you. pes thank you for those questions, which were not silly at all. commissioner mar. >> supervisor mar: thank you,

chair peskin. and thanks to ms. kish >> balm for this informative update. this is very helpful and we look forward to having -- receiving these regularly. i just had a few questions about some of the points in your presentation. regarding the modification to the doors, i just wanted to ask, i think the answer hopefully is pretty obvious. i just wanted to ask whether -- if these modifications were in place from the beginning, whether this would have prevented the really horrible accident back in april, where the rider was caught in the door and pulled under the tracks. >> i believe a combination of factors, including the enhanced door, could have led to that incident being prevented. >> supervisor mar: for those other factors that might have

also led to it, to that incident, are there steps being taken to sort of address those issues? which i'm not really clear what they are. >> again because the city is in the middle of active litigation on that case, i think it's -- it's better not to answer it directly. but we have addressed all aspects of concern there, including an enhanced customer awareness about holding doors. mar right. got it. with the modifications to the doors, is it your -- do you have full confidence now that the doors are going to be -- 100% safe for passengers, if they get anything caught in a door? >> i believe we have addressed the design issues. they also require ongoing

maintenance. we recently had a mechanical failure with a bredda, where somebody who was exiting got her hands stuck in the door, before she could leave the train. that wasn't a design issue, it was a maintenance issue, where a loose wire had created that issue. we had not seen that issue before. it's an example of why the bredas, as they become increasingly older, become more difficult to maintain. so we have now reviewed the entire fleet two this issue, on the breda sign and incorporated into a our more detailed six-month door inspections. so i guess what i'm trying to say, in summary is it is always possible that something could break. and we work hard to maintain our doors and to test our doors, so

that we have strong equipment out in service. but i believe that the enhanced design of these vehicles will address your concern. >> supervisor mar: thank you. and then i had another question about the locked brake issue. so you kind of spoke about how this impacted -- has impacted vehicle availability. but can you describe how it impacts the rider experience, like do these problems occur when a -- you know, a car is in use? and then what happens to the riders that are on the car? >> yeah. that's a great question. it allows me to clarify two things. one, this isn't a brake safety issue. but it is a customer service issue. when the trains experience this braking issue, the train cannot move until a mechanic can get to the train and manually release this brake. so we had an incident, for

example, in may where this issue happened in the subway. and we had a 15- to 20-minute delay where we weren't able to move trains in either direction, because we had this one train locked up in a critical spot in the system. so the customer impact, any time a train breaks, is that we either can't get to the end of the line or we can't get through. and when it happens in the subway, it's particularly disruptive to the entire system. >> supervisor mar: yeah. thank you. i'm sorry. i had a few other questions, for the 90-day plan, you mentioned that, based on the hearing that we had -- actually i think it was in the j.o.e. committee on the 90-day plan, you were going to include targets on reducing the number of turnbacks.

i don't see that in reflected in this slide here. >> yeah. my apologies. this initiative was just focused on the lrv4 and the presentation at hand. i'd be happy to share with your office the overall 90-day plan, which included an initiative on service reliability. and both the travel time and the switchback metric that you had recommended. >> supervisor mar: thank you. and then one last question on the phase 2 update. you mentioned that you're no longer going to be pursuing the six-month early accelerated purchase of the next phase of vehicles. is that going to result in a cost savings? >> i don't believe so because the -- the additional cost comes from compressing the overall procurement. >> supervisor mar: is that going to mean we won't need to expend

the additional money to accelerate the purchase? >> it does not. if we decide collectively that we think it's in the city's best interest to not keep the bredas up to seven years, we still need to compress the delivery schedule of the lrv4s. >> supervisor mar: thank you so much. >> chair peskin: all right. with that, we'll open it up to public comment. i have four speaker cards. alvin, james, bob, and alita. if you will -- if i have called your name -- yes, you can come up to either microphone. that is great. if you want to line up to your right, my left, please feel free to do so. and if there are any other members of the public who would like to testify on item number 10, you are welcome to do so. >> excuse me. i'm glad to hear the good news about the retrofit of the siemens door. when i first read the reports

from joe fitz about that incident, at embarcadero, i was very dismayed and disgusted about it. the reason being is that it was a design flaw from the very beginning. and there should have been a sensitive edge on the leading edge of that single-leaf front door, from the very beginning. it was -- it was a known issue from troops on the lower level, that from two years ago. i knew about this from two years ago, that that was -- fundamental design flaw. okay. so one of the things is how did that happen? whose fault was it? was it siemens? was it m.t.a. staff? did m.t.a. procurement set up that design or was it something that siemens had put forward and

m.t.a. management decided to accept? now m.t.a. has testing and acceptance programs. it has the safety committee. you know, and how did this get past the higher-level management, in terms of the safety committee and testing and acceptance. [bell ringing] and my take on it is that when you -- when you do these higher higher-up, what do you call it, testing and acceptance, it needs to be based on reality. and i think what happened is that management went through a bureaucratic procedure of testing it, testing that door at the very end of its closure. [bell ringing] one quarter inch, 3/8 of an inch. a real-life -- a real-life test

that the operators do is activate the door, stick your hand out, let it bounce back. very simple. it didn't need no app to standard or cpuc procedure and acceptance. you know, common sense would have solved it. thank you. >> chair peskin: thank you. next speaker, please. if i have called your name or you're interested in testifying on this item, please come forward. if not, this is the last speaker on this item. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is roland. i live in san jose. i think this presentation was really encouraging and shows what happens when the supervisor steps in and, you know, get -- miracles take place. what i do want to talk to you about is something that seems to be missing from the conversation, which is called the sandbox. if you don't know what a sandbox

is, it's under the seats, behind the driver. and what it does is when the wheels lose traction, the sandbox will drop some very fine abrasive sand on to the rails. and that in turn is suppose to be restoring the traction and preventing the flat spotting of the wheels. but my understanding, that for some reason, the siemens don't have the sandbox. so maybe now, or by the next meeting, somebody could confirm this one way or the other. and if they don't have a sandbox, explain why not. because i don't understand why they won't have one. thank you. >> chair peskin: thank you. next speaker, please. >> chair peskin, members, alita dupree for the record. good morning. this subway is very important to me. and i support having new light-rail cars, because i'm

tired of one-car trains in the middle of rush hour, packed like sardines. it reminds me of being in new york, for those of you who have never been on the new york city subway, it is legendary and historic system that moves about 6 million people a day. and i'm concerned about standards. i was reading earlier, you brought up mean distance between failures. and i remember 1980 when the city's subway in new york was covered with graffiti. average mean distance between failures was about 6,000 miles. so we bring up that we're aiming for 25,000 miles of mdbf here as a goal. but yet in new york city, they are running over 100,000 miles of mean distance between failures to a high of 178,000. now they're down around 110,000. and so we have to ask ourselves, why are we not pushing as hard to the standard of new york to

have over 100,000 miles of mean distance between failures. light rail does not mean light. light rail is just as good as heavy rail. it is only called light rail because it holds fewer passengers. [bell ringing] we must have standards of excellence. i was very saddened when i read about the incident on the embarcadero and i watched the video while i was sitting at home in my easy chair. and it was very saddening to me. because if it happens to someone else, it could happen to me. so i want this to spend the appropriate money to invest in this light-rail system, so i can ride it safely, timely and affordably. thank you. >> chair peskin: thank you for your time. next speaker. >> mr. chairman, members of the board, commissioners. i have a quick question for ms. kishbalm. the wheel, sounds rather

difficult, going to involve quite a few subcontractors and various purchasers. could she clarify why that is not on the warranty? i might have missed her answer. but i didn't hear that fully coifed. thank you. >> chair peskin: thank you. any other members of the public who would like to testify on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel] so miss kirschbaum spoke about why they were not part of the original procurement. i would like to further discuss that as well, as well as the issue raised by mr. lebrun, with regard to the sand box. >> i would like to bring the sandbox issue to the next meeting. i'm afraid that that steps a

little outside of my technical comfort zone with the staff that i have at this meeting. i do believe that we have a sanding feature on this vehicle. but to the extent that it may be similar or different from the breda, we can bring those details forward. in terms of the flat wheels, as i discussed at the last hearing, the siemens braking system is in place across the country. and over the course of a year, a property may hit the emergency brake two or three times. so they experience a minor flat wheel and then the flat wheels get trued. and the reason for that is because our operators are taught to pull back on the propulsion unit, as a way to quickly stop the vehicle. so the operator training is to

just do a quick pullback. on the bredas, it requires the two-step movement. and what we found, several years ago, is that operators could not do that movement quickly and reliably in the face of an immediate danger. so we went through a very big campaign. it was titled, you know, the mushroom is not poisonous. the mushroom is your friend. we basically invested all of this training and muscle memory for our operators to hit that emergency button. i am not willing to try to ask our operators to modify that muscle memory, whether or not they're in a breda or an lrv4. we're continuing to emphasize pushing the mushroom for safety reasons, as we're in this process of using a mixed fleet.

but that being said, given the frequency that we're seeing emergency braking, we had four instances last week alone. we do think we need to pursue a design change, so that we are not losing vehicle availability as a result. >> chair peskin: thank you for those answers. and we look forward to our next update. and good luck particularly around the reliability issue and holler if you need us. >> thank you for your time. pes thank you. >> oh, one last thing. >> chair peskin: yes. >> a lot of the issues, as i said, are very technical and part of how i've been educating myself has been to spend time at siemens and to really get an understanding of the complexity of their organization. we are going to be hitting a major milestone in the next month or so, where the final vehicle from phase 1 coming off

the production line. and i wanted to invite anybody from the board of supervisors, who would like to come and join us, and have an opportunity to tour the plant, talk to siemens directly, ask some of these questions, i'd like to invite anybody who is interested to come and join us, either on that day or on another day of more convenience. so ramos will follow up with your staff. but i do encourage those of you who that can make the time to come up. we're very fortunate that these vehicles are all produced in california, in our, you know, partner city in sacramento. and i think it would be -- it would help your confidence as we move forward, if you had an opportunity to see the production line. >> chair peskin: thank you. and we look forward for taking you up on that offer. with ma, mr. clerk, can you read the next item. >> clerk: mr. chair.

>> chair peskin: commissioner safia, my apologies. >> supervisor safai: i was not going to say anything. i just have to say that the issue with using the emergency brake to essentially, you know, run out the tires, it would be great if we could get maybe someone, a representative from the transit operators to come in here and talk to us as well. i'd like to hear their perspective. i understand that management doesn't want to take that risk. we're also putting millions of dollars worth of vehicles on the line. and not exactly sure if it's true that they can't do a two-arm motion and why we're doing that. no disrespect to miss kirschbaum. it sounds absolutely crazy to me that we're using an emergency brake. if i use the emergency brake to stop my car every time i got a red light, a car would last probably about three weeks. so i really don't understand why this is the method that we're

using. >> chair peskin: commissioner, you are making a very good point. i'm hereby asking our staff to recheat to the representatives, the appropriate representative at the transit workers' union local 250a to see if they would like to come and give the operators' perspective the next time we hear this item. >> thank you. pes with that, mr. clerk, next item please. >> clerk: this is information item. >> chair peskin: all right. who are we going to start with, tilley? all right. >> good morning. >> chair peskin: good morning. >> commissioners, erica cordova, happy to kick off the critical item here, d.t.x., governance oversight on project delivery and finance update. you know, as i reported back in the spring of this year, we've

assemble adwell-qualified, robust team of expert panelists. and frankly i think they've done a very good job for us, in terms of getting into the details of the project, understanding and looking at the delivery, not only of the t.t.c. but also more importantly 9d.t.x. itself. i want to say thank you to them. and also to all of the stakeholders, in particularly t.j.a. and their staff. as it relates to spending numerous hours with us and the team in that regard, in terms of the specifics. i'm going to basically go ahead now and hand it over to shannon with mckenzie and company. she's actually helped lead this effort in terms of bringing the stakeholders together, conducting interviews, et cetera. done a very phenomenal job in that regard. final thank you to you, chair peskin, and to this commission to asking these very important questions. we know this is one of the most critical projects here in san francisco. so we're anxious to hear from our panel of experts and want to

go ahead and respond to any questions you and the public may have. shannon. >> thank you. good morning, chair peskin and commissioners. the review of the downtown extension. a bit of an introduction to the work that we have undertaken over the past few months. the sfmta convened a multi-disciplinary panel to review and evaluate both current and alternative options for governance and oversight, funding and financing, and project delivery, to enable the successful management and delivery of the downtown extension, which we will refer to throughout the rest of our presentation as the rail program. today i'll be walking through the methodology and approach that we've taken to that work. and then members of the expert panel themselves will talk through the recommendations to date.

ten expert panelists were assembled to do this work, across a variety of different areas of expertise, as well as different organizations, to try to bring a really robust set of both experience and expertise in mega project delivery and rail program mega project delivery, as well as a balance of local, national and international expertise to think through again what are the best practices that we know exist globally and how can we bring those locally to the rail program's execution. six of those panelists are here today, ignacio from europe, john from w.s.p., jeff from newsium, jose from i.d.s. and john, also with w.s.p. they'll be walking through, a subset of them will be walking through the recommendations to date.

the responsibilities of this expert panel were three-fold. first, wanting to make sure that there was a thorough, well-developed understanding of the current state and key practices of the downtown extension. and that included an expectation around a detailed review of the materials that exist with the transportation bay, transit center and the tjpaand stakeholders in this process to make sure there was a thorough understanding of the current state, as well as an opportunity to understand areas of strengthen to continue to build on and areas of -- moving forward. the second key element was then to translate this knowledge into a series of thoughtful questions that they'd ask each other and again bring the best of their local, national and international expertise, too, to

understand the third area of responsibility, which was defining key and specific recommendations to improve the real program's delivery, as we think about the opportunity for success moving forward. when it came to keys involving stakeholders throughout this process, we involved a variety of folks, more than 30 senior members across ten different agencies in this work, listed on the slide itself. these stakeholders were involved in a variety of ways. there were a series of workshops on major downtown extension reviews. and we'll talk through that in a few slides, where stakeholders were able to participate. and we were privileged to have very consistent, thoughtful representation from stakeholders across the across the board. we also conducted a series perform interviews with stakeholders, who in some cases

were also involved in the workshops, in other cases were just pointed to as folks who had really great perspective on current and aspirations for d.t.x. moving forward. in terms of how the scope of work was conceptualized and achieved. let me just walk through briefly the work done to date. we kicked off with a broad stakeholder -- broad stakeholder workshop on april 8th, which again was an opportunity for everyone to create a shared understanding of the project and aspirations for outcomes of the work itself. this also included specific presentations by the tjpa as well as california high-speed train and cal train.

also start to understand and point out the places of interdependence, given the criticality of those two operators in the downtown extension. throughout the process, we also conducted the stakeholder interviews that i mentioned earlier. so that happened throughout the course of the -- over the last two and a half months. and then also underpinning the work that was done was a series of five international and national and local case studies. those included the california high-speed rail, london cross rail program, the gateway project, the san francisco-oakland bay bridge program and high-speed rail in spain. the intent of this work was to manufacture what can we learn from best practices that exist, what can we learn from lessons that others have experienced, that we can make sure that we're not making the same mistake twice. and then, you know, again pressure test the type of design criteria and thinking that we're doing when it comes to

recommendations for path forward on the real program. beyond the kickoff, then there were three additional workshops that we hosted across the stakeholder set and then with additional work afterwardswork the expert panelists. there was a governance and oversight work on current ant best practices in the organization. these included topics like the board, board executive mandate, composition, operations, interactions between the board and the management team, how we think about capabilities and capacity needed to deliver something like this. as well as the major processes that inform good governance and oversight, particularly around risk management and performance management. we had -- the next workshop then was a continuation of this governance and oversight of discussion, as well as moving into project delivery and funding and finance best practices. again this also included the stakeholder set to really help refine how the expert panel was thinking about the questions to

be answered, the criteria that we were using to answer those questions and then to make sure that we were drawing appropriate agency and local insight into the output. and then, finally, and most recently, we had what we call a testing the answer session, if you will, on june 5th. it allowed the expert panel to test with key stakeholders, their early hypothesis around the recommendations, to understand unintended consequences to understand whether or not there was good consensus around whether the aspirations and recommendations being purported would appropriately bring best practices and prevent similar lessons learned from some of the case studies, that type of thing. and underpinning all of this -- i should also mention that to build on mr. cordova's call-out to the tjpa, we spent -- the

expert panel spent significant additional time tjpa and additional workshops, where we spent another three-ish or so hours getting into the current state on the project delivery and project finance elements, as well as the current state around governance and oversight. against we're grateful to the partnership and transparency that the tjpa has provided throughout the process. and then finally, underpinning this entire effort has been a very collaborative process across the panelists. virtually through conference calls and subsets to really refine and understand the recommendations, as well as to pressure test potential options moving forward. so it's been a very collaborative and thorough process across the experts involved, as well as the stakeholders who have participated so thoughtfully. with that i'll turn it over to john, one of our expert panelists to enter and share

some of the panelists' recommendations. >> chair peskin: let me just interject that i really want to thank you, shannon. i know many of us were part of those stakeholder interviews. and i want to thank our executive director and eric cordova for assembling this expert pam. and i want to thank the panelists for what i think is a very, very thorough piece of work, that is going to be very helpful for all of the stakeholder agencies in moving forward. i mean, obviously this all started because of our profound concerns about phase 1 and wanting to get it right in phase 2, commonly known as the downtown extension or d.t.x. or the rail program. and i cannot stress the importance of this exercise and look forward to hearing from all of you as to your recommendations. and we'll be hearing more about this at our meeting in july.

so with that, i'll turn it back over to you, shannon. >> thank you. >> thank you, chair peskin and commissioners. my name is john. it's a pleasure to be part of this process. i will say at the outset, as we talked about the recommendations here, that this is truly an important project for the region and the mega region as well. and beginning with some of our recommendations, we really tried to take a technical and policy view towards this project, in light of shannon mentioning, in light of other mega projects around the world, and around the country. and really think about the critical mobility value that this project actually brings to the region, broadly defined. and one of the most important -- i think consensus recommendations, by the expert

panel, is to broaden and deepen the definition of the region, as a mega region. this has been referred to as a downtown extension, it's much more than that. it's serving the larger bay area, sacramento to gilroy, if you will, region. and that's something we'll elaborate on a little bit. but putting it in that context is extremely important going forward for the project. first, we were quickly -- we validated the critical infrastructure improvement nature of this for the city, for the region. and, in fact, for the nation as well. it's important i think to remember that major projects are built on a foundation of trust. trust by the public, by elected officials, by the stakeholders broadly defined. and building that loosely defined, the all-important foundation of trust is what makes a well-conceived project.

it takes it through what are inevitably difficult times for those projects. it's clear also that the train portion of the project would benefit from increased transparency and accountability. i would say it is -- it is more than just a local, it's a nationwide phenomenon, that local projects, there are advances in transparency and in communicating with the public. and accountability that builds public confidence in projects going forward. and that's clearly a priority here. an additional recommendation, and i think a key one, is to really reposition the rail program. so that it's developed and delivered by an interagency team. and it meets the definition, the term of a project of regional and national significance. as i mentioned earlier, while it does deliver local benefits that are crucial, it goes far beyond

that as well. and if you think of major projects as a building block, this is one of the essential cornerstones of that building block of projects, that will help the larger region. the connectivity portions of the train project have really been undersold in the sense that the public benefits of the connectivity have not been broadly articulated, in that's a critical part of the value proposition for a project like this. it's -- it's a regional effort with national economic impact. the connectivity to other modes of transit and transportation are an essential part of what it does. this is a foundational project, in that sense. and it's important to point out that it also maximizes the value and the utility of existing

transportation and especially transit infrastructure investments, that have been made by the region to date. whether it's caltrain, high-speed rail activities, muni, bart or others. so it does serve that local, regional and national function. and as i mentioned before, we're -- we're referring to, as the train project, because downtown extension doesn't really do justice to what this project can accomplish. and doesn't get to the benefit value to the larger region. one of the key initial recommendations is to build the long-term and durable support of stakeholders and local regional, state and federal elected officials. it is an essential element of a project. if you look at the mega-projects nationally and internationally that have succeeded, one common characteristic is they've spent the time and effort up front and

it's often considerable effort to build the broad coalition of support. the value proposition is very clear on why the project is important. and, for example, engaging the project directly here, talking about some of the larger goals. like all transportation projects, this is a means to an end. and if the larger goals are things like social equity and environmental, economic development, affordable housing, whatever the goals are, how this project links to those goals is an essential part of the case going forward. an additional characteristic of projects that have succeeded, through difficult times, is they've built internal and external champions. by internal champions we really mean more than just the project leadership. it's the organizations, plural, that would be required in this

case to actually successfully deliver the project, as the internal champions. the external champions include all of you, but beyond that at the state and national and regional level, elected officials and business leaders and others, that will be there to continue to articulate why the project is important, why it's a priority, and why it's a call on scarce public funds throughout the entire project period. explicitly talking about that value proposition and talking about it across internal and external champions, through the life of the project, is a critical success ingredient for a project. major projects simply don't make it without that kind of ongoing, durable support.

an additional recommendation, that's crucial as well, is with the rail project, we need to strengthen the project's claim on revenues, from both existing and emerging sources. for any project of this magnitude, it means making choices among other projects, the sequencing of projects and how they fit together, as a program of projects. the revenue side of it, we knew that one of the early tasks would be to separate the high confidence level of funding sources from the low confidence levels. and that does change over time. and it changes with the project gestation itself. but it's clear that you can bifurcate the current funding sources into ones that you can have a relatively high level of

confidence in. and ones that we need to work on. in addition, that rolls into a longer, long-term financial plan, that has substantial stakeholder input. it's one that, for example, needs to be on the radar screen at the federal level. it needs to be understood nationally in the national priority list. and needs to be articulated, not just locally and regionally, but by the federal delegation as well. this project is currently one among many nationwide that can make a call on federal capital and make a case for it. it's important to point that that this really is a competition for limited resources, in particularly at the federal level. fon du lac a if you ask yourself today where is this project on the state and importantly

national, federal priority list. i think it's clear that we have work to do. one of the key recommendations is to make sure that we position the project to successfully compete for both existing funding sources and emerging funding sources as well. so, for example, in new york city, the new congestion pricing program is an emerging funding source for the transit program. at the federal side of it, the re-authorization of the surface transportation program and the work leading up to that is a great opportunity to actually put this project in a place, where it has that kind of national stature. the governance and oversight best practices, that shannon talked about, where we've looked at other projects nationally and internationally, we've tried to take those lessons learned, and

in particular, build those best practices into our thinking going forward. there are criteria that are common for organizational success, including how multiple public agencies work together going forward. the capacity, the ability to assemble funding and financing program, and to make sure that's robust enough to make it through the inevitable changes, is going to be essential going forward. project delivery as well is essential to the success of this -- the success of this project. we'll be talking about it on subsequently and in particular on july 23rd, an operations expert. every one of these yardsticks can make or break a project. we tried to apply the best practices to each of these.

we are still evaluating specific models, that's what we will be bringing back to you on july 23rd. there's no single recipe for success. every project may have some common characteristics, but they're also different and individual. and it has to be, to be successful, it has to be built in particular around the organizational, the political and the financial realities of that local project. and where mega-projects have stumbled before, they really haven't taken that into account, in a way that they should. in summary, on the recommendations, this project has enormous value. locally, to the region, to the nation. we need to articulate that better. the project needs to be repositioned, as a project of regional and national significance, to compete for

funds. the project needs to make sure its value proposition is redefined to include the critical connectivity functions, as well as the local utility functions. its linkages is part of a larger system of systems, if you will. and, finally, the architecture of the project structure, the team, the project approach should be crafted to secure support of stakeholders and retain that support throughout the life cycle of the project. but it's a national context as well. that is briefly the initial recommendations. we have to answer any questions now or later.

>> good morning. mr. chairman, members of the board and commissioners. my name is ignacio. i'm based here in san francisco. so what i'd like to start by saying is that the set of recommendations, findings and recommendations that john just laid out, have to become -- have to turn into a work plan. so part of the task of the expert panel was to develop that. early on we recognize the importance of this project really to be completed at the earliest possible date. and so with that in mind, as well as through the analysis that we undertook, ascertaining that really the two critical

path issues for the project have to do with funding on the one hand and also with reaching agreement with the two-rail operators that will use the facility. and really resolving these issues, together with that goal, are the basis for the work plan. so what we did and what you see in the dime diagram here, we set ourselves a goal of achieving a start of procurement, which is the milestone of the red diamond on the lower right-hand corner of the diagram, in front of you. and that means -- start of procurement means the start of developing r.f.q.s, r.f.p.s to go to construction, plans of specification and those kinds of procurement tasks, that eventually lead to start of construction. so working back from that milestone, within that two-year

plan, we laid out a series of tasks that line up with the recommendations that john just described. first and foremost, we started with the need to establish a set of plans and agreements for a transition. and so we think that that's the first task in the sequence, that should be undertaken. and you'll notice that leading up to that milestone of the red diamond, for start of procurement, there are a number of key decisions that will need to be taken, that will in the sequence shown here, will lead up to that big milestone. so the first diamond, on the upper left corner of the diagram in front of you, is related to, and first order of business, to adopt the plans and agreements for the transitional governance and staffing, including also the

ongoing management of stakeholder engagement, which is critically important in every project and this one is no exception. so once that decision is taken, that then triggers the start of three sets of tasks, which are the ones right below that. the first one is related to one of the major recommendations of repositioning and redefining the rail program, so that it's fundable and deliverable. that first set of tasks includes, i want to point out, the technical and engineering studies, that are necessary to support -- that are the foundation to support all of the other tasks. so, for instance, resolves some critical issues between the operators caltrain and high-speed rail, for example. there's a number of technical issues that need to be worked through, would be part of that. but also conducting a risk

analysis and so on. and other engineering and technical tasks of that nature. but more importantly to build to the second blue diamond, which is the selection of a project definition for the rail program, including a facing and then very closely related to that is the funding plan. all of these things are closely interrelated and need to be studied and developed jointly, because one of the most critical drivers, to achieve deliverability for the program, is that the infrastructure that is being designed matches the available funding. so then the next set of tasks is related to governance and oversight. so having put in place a transitional governance and staffing, then there will be a

longer task to develop the governance and staffing for a permanent development of the project. finally, the third set has to do with a selection of the project delivery method. so the recommendation is that that task would work, working with the findings, being developed for project definition, phasing in funding, would then analyze the range of appropriate project delivery methods, including risk management and so on, so achieve finally a selection of a project delivery method. this is the most deliberate and expeditious way of advancing the program so that we achieve the goals that we all share.

so with that i'll invite my colleague jesse to further discuss the next steps. >> chair peskin:. i'm going to call you all by your first names because you all have complicated last name names. thank you, ignacio and welcome geoff. >> my name is geoff, i'm a partner with a law firm, resident of los angeles. the john and ignacio laid out a program that builds toward actual -- the decisions to be made about actual delivery of rail service into the sales force center. speaking generally about rail projects. and the best practices that have been developed around the

country and internationally about how best to optimize the project delivery method, the design of it, and the implementation of it when an agency hires general engineering consultants and other advisers to discern -- to define a project and figure out how to design it and build it. the companies that will actually do it. and that proxy mechanism is an exact, because they're not the people who are actually going to sign those contracts and carry them out. the idea of doing a market-sounding program is to bring the companies to the table, engage them proactively at the beginning of the process.

where are the opportunities for a performance and outcome-based specifications. where are the real risk factors from their perspective? where are the opportunities for cost certainty and schedule certainty that can be derived. so many companies of this -- that engage in projects of this size and magnitude, will happily come to the table and give you that kind of time and attention, in order to help you. and then you can bet those ideas, with your key staff, to decide which of those ideas are valuable and should be entered into the project definition. as we are unanimous in all of our recommendations, this is one that was -- we felt was very important. the second is, as soon as you have a defined project that meets your budget, and then

before you do any more engineering, any more design work on top of that, it's really important to do what we call a project delivery options analysis. and that is most agencies just design projects with a default towards the design-build bid method of delivery is widely used in the united states. but the larger and more complicated the project, the less often it is used. and so the recommendation is that don't discard the idea of design bid build, it may be your best option. but don't do it without real analytical attention to the others. and don't have a bias towards one alternative or another. but put them all to a rigorous value for money analysis, that

leads you toward the optimal delivery plan. and then once you have that, all further engineering would be targeted toward that delivery model. so we're really kind of changing the paradigm away from just preliminary engineering at 30%, designed to 60%, designed to 90%, we're trying to target the moneys that are spent on project definition and specification, to where they are best put. and that's what we're doing here. we're not -- we think that this commission did a real important task when it stopped funding fug this project last fall. this project has reached an important crossroads. the idea to stop and take stock was really a well -- a well-thought-out option.

and what that's now given you is an opportunity to shape the work that you do over the next 24 months, in a more multi-disciplinary way. not just from an engineering perspective, but shape it from a commercial perspective, a funding perspective, and an engineering perspective, so that you're designing the project to a feasible budget and potentially a phased budget. and, finally, the work should not proceed too much farther without comprehensive agreements with the two operators that are going to be using the project. issues on project scope, operation specifications, true capacity requirements, as opposed to aspirations, and timing of capital and how much they are willing to contribute to o&m funding. those issues should be run to ground, so that we're building our specifications, our funding,

our commercial expectations all at same levels of confidence at the same time. and not deferring those other really important elements until later. so that's really kind of the foundations of our project delivery recommendations that we'll be building on next month when we return. and then i guess that is the next slide, the next steps. we have -- we're still progressing our report analysis and our findings and our recommendations. we are -- we will be engaging with stakeholders. there's a stakeholder call set for this thursday, to further discuss them. we look forward to bringing them back to you on july 23rd, with a final report at that time. thank you. >> chair peskin: thank you, geoff. and before we hear from the next speaker, i just want to say to my colleagues sitting through an

extraordinarily long t.a. hearing on a board day with a timma hearing after this, that -- and i do want you guys all to continue, that this is profoundly important and what geoff, because i want to butcher his last name, just said, the decision that we all took, which was a very controversial decision, for which we took a lot of heat, was the right decision. if we spend a bunch of time on this now, i just told commissioner walton, who reminded me that the hearing is going on for a long time, we will all collectively save hours and heartache over the next many years. so i really appreciate geoff's candor about that. and we really are invested in comprehensively getting this right, amongst stakeholder agencies, with the public and the words that you've just heard "reposition, redefine" are really both a comment on phase 1 and a road