starting to vet ideas with representatives and stakeholders. it was great feedback skprks, really helped us shaped where we're going. that was the workshop phase of the -- of the reporting process. and then, we cdid go to the sfcta board as we noted at the beginning of this update. as director chang noted, we have moved forward and wanted to provide an update today on those recommendations. this panel really saw itself as focusing on technical and policy issues. we really consider ourselves

technical and independent. there are a lot of issues, and we really wanted to make sure we stayed independent and brought that objective perspective. we also wanted to make sure that we reached a consensus which isn't easy for ten people. we want to make sure that our recommendations have been thoroughly discussed and vetted and that we agreed on them. i just want to take a minute to read our initial finding because i think it's important and it's -- it's -- it's a key starting place for us. the d.t.x. rail program offers critical mobility value to the bay area-gilroy-sacramento by area and country. and it should continue to be pursued with important

advancements on accountability and services should be realized at salesforce transit center as soon as possible. this took a little bit of time to craft, and i just wanted to read it to this board to underscore the effort and commitment by the panel, that we are committed to this pan project. that was the basis for which we kicked off this panel. so with that, a few of the consensus recommendations that i just wanted to highlight for you today. and director chang mentioned this in her opening remarks. you know, this is a project, right or wrong, that has been seen as a san francisco project, and i think as -- as has been rielted, it is more than that. it is a -- it is a regional --

realized, it is more than that. it is a regional project, and it is a partnership amongst agencies for these big projects. we, too, see that a highly collaborative interagency team would be best suited for delivering this. and really, this is a project of regional and national significance, and that is n not -- that may be of course. this is not a throwaway line. this is a federal and region statute, that with advocacy, is an opportunity to leverage federal funds in terms of meeting that bar. there's some work to do, but i think that project is a great candidate. the next recommendation is really redefining this value

proposition, and i think this -- a lot has happened since this project has been adopted into the r.t.p. in terms of the region. there is a hunger for more rail service, and there are a number of small to medium to large megaprojects that have initiated development in their own right that this project has been opportunity to harness and plan for, and those are just -- if you look at the intermodal station at dierdorn, and obviously in the b.a.r.t., ccjpa, and caltrain planning and discussion for a second rail crossing, and the opportunity to have connections between at salesforce transit center make a whole lot of sense. but that doesn't just happen on its own, so that's one of the recommendations of redefining that value proposition and the

benefit statement for this project. and then finally, i think there's really an opportunity to rename and rebrand this project, and it is. it's a program of projects, and so when you look at 4th and king or a new rail yard or a 22nd or 26th street station rail yard or extension, there's an ability to talk about these programs together. the regional connector project in los angeles is a good example of being able to kind of harness this. it's this idea, and i think it's also easier to frankly market to supporters in the public and also elected officials. so that's one of the other recommendations. as i mentioned, megaprojects are all unique, but one comm

commonality is they take a long time to fund and produce. we need strong support from federal, state, and local elected officials. not just the current ones, but the next generation. so that really takes a lot of coordination and working with federal officials in washington to make sure they see this as a preferred project. we're competing against projects not just in new york, but projects in los angeles. the other recommendation is we need to engage the public directly and make sure that the value proposition and that the shared goals of this program are known around environmental

remediation and protection and environmental development. we heard a lot of this from the shake holders to have the operators agree on the scope of this project, both timing and what will their contributions be and ultimately how it will serve their customers, so that's a really important aspect of this. at this time, i'm going to turn it over to my colleague, ignacio, to walk-through the rest of our recommendations. so relating to the rail program funding, which is one of the major components of what the

expert panel was tasked to look into, one of the main kind of findings or recommendations of the program's already strong claims on existing sources, any project of this nature, y. as john will know, we have very ambitious emerging rail projects, both caltrain on the peninsula, as well as transbay crossing project, high speed rail, so it's a very ambitious regional and megaregional project that this is the linchpin.

so in terms of the revenues, the funding plan that we looked at, there's an existing plan that has a number of funding resources that are planned to be used . so establishing a long-term financial plan is one of the

main recommendations of the panel. one of the key aspects of that is the federal participation in the funding plan, and one of the things that we were able to ascertain is that really, there's a strong need to maintain the project in the greater stream at the federal level, and that it's high on the national priority list so that the congressional delegation fully understands and supports that task of keeping the project high on that priority list. and it is one of many projects nationwide that is competing for those limited federal resources, so it's a critically important thing, and we believe there is work to do to successfully compete for those sources, federal funding sources through the type of positioning that john was

explaining. there's, of course, a number of efforts going on here in the bay area and in the megaregion. for example, the other efforts being led by various parties. now in terms of governance and oversight, i know this is the most titillating part that

everyone wants to hear about, i know that most of the work is still ongoing in this regard, and we're looking forward to having a final set of recommendations and a presentation to the sfcta board in september where we'll be able to talk more specifically about this. but i'll just recap what i said previously in our previous presentation. first of all, the panel did review and study what are the best practices and lessons learned not only from around california but nationally and internationally so we would build into our thinking what those best practices are. and from that, we identified a set of common key criteria for success. i won't go through all of them, but some of the keynotable ones is definition of roles -- key notable ones is definition

of roles, and project transparency. sometimes we take it for granted, but it's important it always be front and center, which is a focus on the customer, on the end user, and that should be a guiding principle in thinking of delivering outcomes for customers. but there's also more granular issues such as, for example, the need for independent assurance, independent advice that really challenges the thinking ahead of major decisions. and this is a really important aspect, and i think it's consistent with the review panel made a similar finding and recommendation that we should be thinking about. but there's also other things such as project delivery and operational expertise, the importance of having those in a very strong way. any of these aspects that i

just mentioned, and there's many others, can easily make or break the success of a project. and in fact, there's a study that was done by the mackenzie company that led this study, sort of managed the panel, herding the cats there, and that study indicated that two thirds or roughly two thirds of megaproject cost overruns and delays are directly attributable to governance and organizational issues, so that really kind of emphasizes the importance of making those decisions and having the right strategy with respect to that. i would say that, just to echo previous comments that have been made, there is no single recipe for success. yes, there are common characteristics across the case study that john mentioned and many others, but ultimately for a megaproject such as this, and

especially if we think of it in terms of are real program, you have to look at it in terms of financial and other realities of the program. so just to recap in terms of organization, our definition is of the architecture of the team and organizational structure is an approach that sustains the support at the regional and the national level is ultimately the goal that we're -- that we're looking to achieve. moving on, one of the things that the panel was asked to look at is, say, okay, that's all very good and fine with these big picture strategy issues. what do we do in the next two years? what is it -- how do we go

about implementing this strategy? so this work plan that you see here on the screen is -- is a -- something that the panel developed as a panel in response to that. and really, ultimately, regardless of who executes on that strategy on the work plan and whatever work plan ends up being adopted, the most important thing is that it should be -- it should prioritize expediting and energyizing the delivery of the project. so -- and we believe as a panel the best way to do that is with a strategy as reflective in the previous remarks and that would be implemented something along those lines. now in developing this work plan, we recognized that there were two critical path issues

for the project. one relates to funding. this is a multibillion-dollar project, and the funding identifies we could say very high funding sources, a lot of it, but not all of it, and the delta is significant. and then, the second thing is a resolution of a number of key issues with the two rail operators, high-speed rail and caltrain. so with that in mind, with the goal of achieving rail service to the transit terminal at the earliest possible date and specifically thinking of a goal of achieving that by 2029, which has been the published date for start of service, we worked back from that and then identified a -- and this is what you see in this graphic, the next -- what would be the next major milestone to make

project toward that -- the ultimate goal. and so working back from that, we identified that the key milestone is the start of procurement or the start of the process of contracting the construction contracts. and so we -- we looked at the -- the plans as they had been laid out, and we saw that mid2021, i believe, is the date when -- or roughly the timing or the start of that activity. the two-year work line is working back from that milestone, which is the red diamond in the lower right hand corner of the diagram. and then, we worked -- we developed a series of tasks that are aligned with the recommendations of the strategy. we made a series of four key

decision points, which are the blue points in the diagram in a certain sequence. so without painting it with too much of a broad brush, i'll go into what that is. so the first series of tasks would be related to whether to adopt these recommendations of the extra panel, whether it's all of them or some of them, and then, there's a number of decisions that would have to be taken also in relation to governance as well as the actual tasks themselves. with a number of agreements and m.o.u.s and so on that would have to be worked out in order to implement certain tasks. so that would have to be an early task in that process that would be related to that. that would then allow that project to proceed with the start of the next task, which is the repositioning and

redefinition of the project. that involves a series of tasks really related to the funding plan, looking at the potential for phasing, looking at what are the realities for start of service, looking at california high-speed rail in the d.t.x. and transit center? and those would culminate in a selection of phasing and funding strategy aligned with the work of that task. that contains in it a number of tasks related to engineering, completing -- there may be aspects of the engineering design that has been done to date that needs to be further developed, cost estimating, risk analysis. there are a number of things that are embedded into that set of tasks. the second one and happening in parallel with it would be

related to governance and oversight. the -- the thinking being that the decisions being taken in the first task is really -- pacific numb task number two, in the yellow bars, what that governance and ta organization would look like. that would be -- the task itself would be to determine those things. and then finally, also in parallel because these things, they have a certain sequence, but they have to be developed currently in an integrated way, is the very important task of the selection of a project delivery option.

and i will talk about that more in the next slide. but that sequence of tasks would allow you to eventually make that decision on a project delivery method that would then support the milestone of start of procurement. okay. so moving on to project delivery. like i said, first and fore -- first and fore -- first and most important factor relating to the projects is governance. the second choice and the project delivery method. so this is a really important set of tasks that needs to be developed very, very deliberately and really applying best practices. so first, i would say a structured market sounding process is really important.

time and time again in my career i've seen infrastructure projects that we thought that the project was well defined and well selected and we went to bid. and then, a contract came along and offered a completely different idea that actually saved a lot of time and money. and so this -- the ability to do the market sounding is a way to receive that type of feedback from the industry and it can be done in a structured fashion from early on, but to do it as part of the project delivery selection process so that is informs not only -- it informs not only the project itself but also the selection of the delivery. second is conducting an analysis of delivery options. doing that with no bias and rigor. and then, once that is done, the idea here is of course to target all of the every day ongoing on delivering that

option, and that includes the scoping of preliminary engineers so that the -- that project delivery is aligned with funding and in thinking of the rail delivery. so just to finalize, the final item in this is the agreement of providing the services to the rail operators. all of this is to really build a goal of set of specifications with a high level of confidence which would allow the project to be delivered. so these are the recommendations that we will be building on in our final report

which will also of course include, as i mentioned, the recommendations of governance. so with that, i'll pass it back to john. >> thank you, ignacio. so this is the timeline of really where we're at today before you. the plan now is to go back to the t.a. board with our final report on september 10. that's obviously subject to change, depending on a lot of ongoing discussion with stakeholders, and we -- you can see in between now and the 10th, those are still continuing. so we're really not wanting to come out with any breaking news today or any surprises on the 10th because this has been a real iterative process with the stakeholders. i think that has been very valuable for the panel, and the panel has really embraced a lot of the input from active

participants to date. so with that, i'm happy to answer any questions that you might have and appreciate the opportunity to give you an update today. >> great. thank you for the presentation today. any questions? director reiskin? >> director reiskin: so one question, and then some comments. the question is on the funding slide, there was one subbullet that i didn't understand what it meant and it set something like said affordability limits for initial operating phase. can you explain what that means? >> this one? fl are wi well, i think that as i go in as o as -- that as ignacio says, we

have to match the funding phase with the high level of competency that's available. i think there's an affordability limit is, that's maybe a technical way of just saying math. >> director reiskin: so when you say initial operating phase, are you saying what we've been calling more or less d.t.x., just the compensation of the transit center? >> it could be. it could be something less and could be something different. i think part of what we're also reflecting is the timing and need of the two operators has changed, and so i want to make sure if there's a -- if there's a available path to do something less now that doesn't preclude high speed rail, that should be something less than what we're outlining today. also, though, looking at what

exactly the decisions are going to be made around those other complementary projects and the need to advance them enough to know. but -- so it -- it has to match at least what's viable on the funding side, you know, with caltrain's needs. and then not to preclude high-speed rail, but you may be doing something different when that service is ready to come up the peninsula to d.t.x. or whatever you want to call it or whatever it's called. >> director reiskin: okay. aside from potentially deferring the townsend street station, it's kind of hard for me to see what you want to do, extending the tracks from point a to point b. it's a little hard to see to kind of how to downscope.

again, this may be separate from what's called deferring the station. >> at 4th and king. >> yeah. >> at townsend. >> director reiskin: i know there's a lot of work that went into that. i think the presentations on recommendations are great, without the understanding of what that affordability and initial operating phase means, solidifying the funding is something very important. it needs to be done. i think the focus on project delivery needs to be done. i think there's the potential of dovetailing for some of afsma projects.

the overall recommendation that we do, what we'll get, train service to the transit center most expeditiously, i think, is the most important and overriding. and so with that in mind, the recommendations that you have yet to make on governance and oversight with what give me some concern. i think you had said that it could be just kind of adjusting what we have today and maybe on the line of the afsma funding, and sfmta and project controls and other areas. that's kind of one end of the spectrum. the other end of the spectrum would be a radical reorganizing of the organization, maybe creating another organization, bringing in other entities to take over parts of this

organization. that's where i think your timeline gets blown out of the water. you show a year to kind of noodle over this question and then three months of transition to the new -- if the new is kind of taking the existing framework we have as the joint powers authority as existing state laws and kind of history and context that have created it, if it's modifying that, i think that timeline is reasonable. if we're talking -- and just as a little example, we had started discussing that we really need a california high-speed rail authority by a member of this board. there was no objection by the j.p. members, the state. it probably took a year from that first conversation to when it was done, signed off by all the j.p. members.

so very common sense. everybody supported change, took a year. at a radical restructuring of this agency, this program -- the governance of this program, i think runs the risk of actually killing the program. i think there's now momentum with phase one done again, done finally, with getting the record of decision for phase two as it's currently defined. i think this momentum is important, and we should advance the technical work which supported all of it, i think your recommendations now, but i think any kind of radical restructuring that requires a whole new consensus within the region and the state i think potentially kills this project. and you said there were confidential discussions with the consultant, i will share publicly, that was my recommendation to them. i think that's great.

but to the extent creating all-new entities or to the extent wholly changing this, i think there's a risk of significantly underestimating the time it will take to get regional consensus, if it ever comes, which could end up being fatal to the project. so all good recommendations so far, and as to the ones that are coming, i hope that they end up on the modest side. we're not starting blank slate here. if we were starting blank slate, that would be different. we have an existing situation that we need to make work so that the rest of the program can be successfully delivered, so that's my last soap box on the tjpa. >> if i could respond to that. two things. i think there is a lot of sensitivity. i think the panel realizes, but there has been a pause in funds, and there is an urgency to get the project, keep the

project going. so i will also say if -- you know, we have taken a little pause to make sure we're understanding the caltrain business plan that was released. if you've seen that, almost a 100-page plan, there's a conversation around the regional option. we're not doing that in a vacuum, and i think we're mindful that it's important to recognize this. it's not just for d.t.x., but it's the caltrain plan. so we will put out recommendations and hope that just fosters, you know, adds to the dialogue that's happening, and it's up to the policy makers to really act on them. >> thank you, director reiskin. director hursh? >> it feels like the governance is being done in a back room,

the governance study. the stakeholders are interviewed, but they're not included in the back room discussions. my comments are somewhat selfish in that we can't overlook the $2 million achievement that's been achieved. and candidly, my concerns of the operating efficiency of the existing terminal and a.c. transit's relationship with that. we're proud to be on the board. obviously, we have concerns about how the operation of the facility goes forward. we certainly want the success of d.t.x., we certainly want rail there as soon as possible, but i would remind tilly and the constituents that i report to a board. any discussions around high-speed rail is not easy. i would encourage them to engage in those boards -- not just mind, but c.t.a. and

caltrain of california so that we can continue to move forward and not have recommendations sprung on us. >> director? >> yeah. i'm a little concerned on what you said, john, kind of not to preclude view of the world here, because from our standpoint, you know, nothing in our timeline has changed. we're continuing to advance our work to bring high-speed rail to northern california. certainly, this part of the program has not been fully funded ever, and we recognize that that could cause potential delays down the road, but that's not something we're facing at this stage. and i'm not sure what you can't change when you're building what amounts to a tunnel. why you can't change to something that makes more sense when it comes to operating.

but i don't think our timelines are that different when it comes to the two views of the projects. you're going to see some reaction from us depending on what that looks like. the other thing i wanted to just touch on and this is a bit of a question because i very much agree with many of your recommendations around repositioning the program. i think it's been a long time since there's been a big advocacy push around the downtown extension. i think it's been because we're in delivery mode on the transit center. now i think we're closing that chapter and opening this next one, so i think all of those things are spot on and really important. to echo a little bit of director reiskin's comments and pose this as a little bit of a question, a lot of what you laid out is looking into the

transition and sort of the delivery options, looking at the government that had its own kind of delivery forces. what i didn't look at, in your executive director report, you laid out some of those things that needed to be ready in order to layout a procurement from a technical standpoint. do you see some of those things happening one right after the other? do you do them one after another, technical, or do you see them kind of parallel? >> there are a number of technical steps that -- that need to be taken, and we can walk-through those now. we're also going to include that in our report, so it'll be a little more detailed, but i think it -- i think that is the priority, is to understand, you know, how we receive that input from the private sector, how we're looking at delivering

this a little differently that has been contemplated to date. and so that -- there are a number of steps to that, and that's meant to continue the momentum of the project, and i think we're not making a -- a big statement today about who's doing that, and i know that tjpa has that plan. i think there's -- i think we in our strategy are recommending an emphasis up front at relooking at the delivery options, and that may include ancillary projects, and that's different. that hasn't been done to date, and it should be in our opinion. i also just want to address -- so not to preclude. maybe not the right word. i think what we were trying to emphasize, and ignacio hit on this, is we need agreement among the operators, and we need some certainty on the commitment of funds, on o.n.m.,

on all of that. and it's also not coming tomorrow, so we can we make sure we work through in continuing to advance this and also making sure it's part of prop 1-a, and i think we're aware of that. i think that was not the right way to frame that. it's more saying we've got to get to the table and get agreement on that, on the operating side. >> yeah. maybe i'll take your second framing on a much healthier place for that conversation to continue. you're right. it's important for us to get to some sets of decisions for us to continue on the project and have that contribution commitment of what we actually need, how does that work, how does the two systems work together which has implications, not just here as d.t.x., but frankly, it has implications up and down the rail line.

i think anything that can help sort of drive towards a push towards having that sort of regional and system wide conversation, i think that's helpful, and i think we would certainly be interested in. i know there's been lots of talk amongst our partners as caltrain around expanding those types of agreements. i think it's important to know how those would get shaped out here, as well. it gets to your other point which i think is also spot-on. this project has certainly local, but then also regional and state and federal significance. and i think understanding that and understanding those link ages and what those are and how that ties across and how those are connected are something that's going to be really important to understand for advancing this project. so i think you're -- in some

ways, maybe part of the frame is how do we advance the project, do things to move forward to procure when funding is lined up and everything like that, and then the local and regional and state-level conversations -- what does the future look like, and how do all of those interactions lineup and how do you access those moving forward? >> well, let me go forward. we're at the end of our time. i've got a whole bucket of questions. if we do have follow up questions, how do we get that to who and when and how? >> you can get them to me and i'll forward them to tilly and her team. >> we're more than happy to sit down with each of you. as, you know, appropriate through brown act,

individually, perhaps -- or our team. it's not really the staff, it's the peer panel. >> i would like to do that, but i do want to ask a couple high-level questions. how long do we have the room to? >> we have to get out of the room by 12:25. >> how long do we have closed session? >> we it make it ten minutes. >> i'll make it real short. there's a timeline in here. i suggest a timeline, but there's some obstacles to moving forward, and in the director's report, there's a whoil li whole list of activities. as you move forward, how do you move forward without funding. >> great question. i really appreciate all this thoughtful comments and i know put and want to address a whole bunch of other things also that were raised earlier about process and ensure that we're hearing you and will follow up. on the funding, vice chair, the

transportation authority has suggested that by pushing out the second piece of the work, the governance and environmental recommendations, if the panel keeps working particularly to incorporate the caltrain governance work that art has helped develop that piece of work, that work will hopefully end up sort of advancing our ability to end up with an agreement that the transportation authority can bring to a september, october board meeting, so the idea is not losing time to have an extra month or two on the structural and organizational pieces together with a funding item be presented at the same time or right around the same time so that the board could allow some funding and work to resume on the assumption that we're on the right path as far as regional consensus, stakeholder and party agency

consensus on how to work together. >> which leads me and sets me up on the second question, which is the timing report and all that link age. th -- linkage. >> it was commissioned by our board at the transportation authority. we absolutely would be coming to other stakeholders thereafter. we may push it to october. i think i've heard from other stakeholders that there is a desire for that. you know, we want to make it clear though, all of this deliberative work is really important, and our chair has said so, and we actually don't believe it will impact the overall project schedule. i think there's maybe some difference of opinion over

what's the critical path, the critical design. we believe the critical path is funding. whi by the time we go through that, and mark wants to pursue 30% design, we may find it's exceeded that. the idea that i'm learning from the peer panel and then to marry that with a top-downti top-downtime -- top-down timeline to figure out what's going to happen. we want to take the time to partner with executive teams and staff and board members. we want to ensure that it's a productive conversation. >> i can appreciate that, but i

can also tell you that the connection between time and money is very real. >> yeah, yeah. no, that's why we appreciate that. that's why we've made an initial proposal that we move toward a funding area with partner agencies. that might include caltrain at the rail yards to help come together and perhaps fund that work to kind of catalyze the work that's already been made out in a multiagency m.o.u. that might include tjpa funding to resume some of the work that's been on pause. >> no, i appreciate that. i just get concerned when i see the suggested timeline from a technical merit that is absent the stakeholder processing that may be required with part two emerging. there seems to be a potential serious disconnect between making whatever changes, whether it be at this level or other levels to get to

procurement with the timeline suggested. i don't see them in alignment yet because i haven't seen timeline two yet. >> fair enough. fair enough. we have a few meetings already scheduled with the stakeholders later this month. we have a call with all the folk folks involved to date. >> and i'd like to dig deeper into that. so the part that professor engelfield dug on, why should we believe and your panel? >> well, the panel was selected because they've been through the war zone on similar projects. also, the deep dive that we did on other megaprojects, but this also -- these recommendations include a lot of

recommendations. as i said, my initial remarks, our goal, the panel's goal, is to help deliver the project. there's no ulterior motive. but i believe it's emerging, what projects are truly ready. that helps drive the consensus that helps us, you know, kick off other projects, compete against other projects that are not quite ready. >> thank you. >> thank you. we have one public comment. >> clerk: yes, we have mr. lebrun. >> vice chair, perhaps at the earlier suggestion, we could bring the copanel back and have them confer together. >> yeah, that's -- i think it's important to do that.

>> yeah. >> well, this was truly extraordinary, as you only get two minutes. i read a whole bunch of cpuc and rail laws earlier. we say that you have to have six platforms, 14.5 feet long. and your d.t.x. as it is right now is going to make that totally impossible. but then, i see this great planning platform for future connections, talking about the transbay -- future transbay connection. but now, i start rethinking of this wonderful 15.5 by 30-foot-long box. you can have something really extraordinary that's going to

solve all of your problems, including capacity. that's got as much capacity as 4th and king in terms of storage. let me wrap up very quickly. in the u.k., i came from the southeast. in the 80's, i saw the chunnel getting build. the next thing was the connection between the chan tunnel and the company that did this was a company that in 2015 showed the high-speed rail authority -- they wanted the contracts, and they were turned away. these people are gone. they moved to texas. they built a texas center right now with private funding. what i'm suggesting moving forward is we reach out to people, it will be a cross rail. build five stations each the size of an aircraft carrier

under existing building and existing tunnels and see what they can do in terms of government and engineering. these people know how they're going to get there. thank you. >> thank you, mr. >> clerk: the tjpa kbrboard o directors meeting is back in closed session. and with that, there's nothing to report, and we'll adjourn the meeting. -- is back from closed session. and with that, there's nothing to report, and we'll adjourn the meeting.

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