>> chair peskin, members, alita dupree for the record. i come to you simply as a user of transportation, representing only myself. and i see the importance of this project to build a railroad into downtown, for i have much experience with that. consider grand central, a legendary and historic railroad station in new york city. and i have not just gone in admire the architecture and eaten in the oyster bar, but i have ridden trains in and out of it. and they can move about one train a minute, in and out of there during rush hour. and they haven't even reached capacity. so they have four tracks of main line into manhattan. consider new york 100 years ago, built multiple tunnels in and out of that city. and we can see one reason why new york has become a city of over 8 million people. so we have to have the political stomach and if the will and -- and the will to build ourselves a great and legendary downtown railroad, just as our forbears in new york saw the need to build a grand central and a pennsylvania station and a subway system and a

>> chair peskin, members, alita dupree for the record. with general public comment, i enjoyed my meeting with you last time. so i thought i'd come back. i'm looking for a lot ir feel that -- i feel that this agency can do more. as i think about new ideas of navigating this challenging landscape in san francisco, and i see things in other cities that are helpful. i'd like to have here in san francisco. first, i speak in the importance and i feel the need to a veteran's medical transportation network, a system that will help veterans to get to and from their medical appointments. and some say why veterans? well, with the recent enactment of the mission act and more places where veterans can go for medical care, and the challenging landscape of hills in san francisco, which can have many impediments of reaching public transportation, the fact that there are about 4 million veterans that are receiving service-disabled compensation. i want to see this city become a place that will be welcoming to veterans, especially those with disabilities. w

. >> 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 li