Miss chang, thank you for that process as well as your work over the last many years and the floor is yours. Thank you so much to you, chair peskin, and the commissioners and your staff. We are grateful for your time that you and your staff have given to us in taking briefings and meeting as a committee as a whole. The year is marked by fantastic discussions at this body. We appreciated the guidance, input throughout, and wanted to highlight a few of the accomplishments we documented this year. We were able to achieve with your help and guidance. Here is a reminder of goals and objectives set for me and the agency over the past year. I want to start by saying the year was marked by a lot of it focused on infrastructure, policy and revenues and projects that were under development that were being prepared for a big funding opportunities that was the tremendous focus with the measure three setting up next phase investments in extension of caltrain and host of other big projects. We look forward to setting up the next set of Rail Investments for the city. I have appreciated the guidance today. Longterm planning was a major highlight. We had adoption of the county wide plan in update in 20 is as well as mobility and Technology Services this. Is a pie on nearing circumstance shoe pie on nearing issue. It is debated and advanced for the board of supervisors. Highlights. We were continually managing the fund programs. I want to thank the programming staff. We managed 934 million in open grants. Adopted a aa vehicle registration program. We are about to program the federal funds. As part of that had a great country session about school transportation. Very important. We were able to support the passage of the authorization for bridge tolls next year. We were very fortunate to have fantastic delegation in sacramento representing us in that process. With your help we will get the ballot measure on the San Francisco ballot for june 2018. This will set up a whole host of Expansion Projects and Congestion Relief for the pro region and allow the local match and state fund match to bear more quickly. We opened vista point which is another highlight following the opening of the east side ramps last year on the island and were able to secure 30 million. Thank you for the leadership. On Treasure Island we advanced tolling with your help and commissioner kim of the agency we appreciate your leadership locally and at mtc allowing us to demonstrate the concepts on Treasure Island. We were able to deliver the Second Street opening. A lot of Great Projects are on the way and we were able to deliver a host of planning studies starting with the environmental document at the begin of the year. Completed the bicycle study in district nine and the crooked street study and Mobility Services and Technology Study underway and appreciate joanne his team for completing the Research Paper that shed light on the number of vehicles operating in the city. I want to recognize sipthia fong and her team for the longterm Revenue Bonds we sold at a good Interest Rate and very much appreciate chair peskin your leadership for these milestones of the agency and particularly the bond sale which was the first for the ta in our history. Providing board support we hope you are finding we are giving you use full updates in your capacity as Board Members and regional represents and in whatever capacities you are serving. We want to make sure we support you in the ways needed for the ta work and your regional capacities. This is something that will be more important as we make Big Decisions next year to the conclusion of the rail yard and the boulevard study setting up the highspeed rail and caltrain for future generations of rail investment. Indistrict nine we embarked on freeway study work and i thank commissioner ronen with her funds. We were pleased to leverage with private foundation from toyota mobility. In district 10 commissioner cohen asked us to look automobility and we mobility. Commissioner tank and kim and through the recent cop very sessions at the board. Our neighborhood improvement plans and projects are making good progress. We are proud to present in concepts that the community very much supports in district six through the zero ramps and to advance projects in other districts, one, two, five and nine. Customer service and efficiencies. Our priority is to move to online. Our tnc today website and my street. Com. To turn the data out to the public to make it easy to use. Behind the scenes it is making the online allocation request form in 2018 to help sponsors and administering these grant requests. Working in collaboration with agents to Work Together with support on rail yard and alternative boulevard study and rail plan sets up an important moment in the coming year for rail planning. This is intense interest on the part of a lot of folks to set up the next generation of rail improvements to fund what we have in the works particularly in the 101, bart in the south. For our city and county we are very much focused on ensuring the transbay terminal is the term us of highspeed rail to collaborate with santa chair are on the freeway moving forward and allows us to move across the bay to the east bay and tackle the transbay corridor that andy spoke about earlier the number one congested ling in the entire region. Working with our agencies means the state, regional, local level coordinating on these issues through not only the planned area but the studies, on funding. Regional measure three thank you for helping us get that authorized at the state level. This will come in january in order to make it on the ballot in march and be presented to the voters in june. We were happy poinclude the public engagement. We have been partner with city for local hire type strategies, and importantly rede nine the communitys concern to make sure we reflect the communitys needs who are already very hard to bring to the floor because of the nature of documenting some of these. We were proud to get the definition more correct here in San Francisco. That will be used throughout the region as well. We have been advancing our late night transportation study and initiatives and internally we have been participating in a Year Learning Program with other agencies around Racial Equity how we can better operationallize that in the hiring and budgeting and planning. That is very eye opening and very productive at our staff workshops on the topic. State and regional leadership we had the discussion about our alleged priorities. I want to thank you for your help and guidance. We are excited to continue to press for automated Speed Enforcement to vision zero goals. We are advocating for policies and programming requirements and standards for sp1 to compete well. This will be a big year for tnc and policies at the state level. You have expressed strong interest and leadership in pushing for the right policy framework around Technology Services. Thank you for your leadership which is at a National Scale given all of the different folks interested in this topic and looking at San Francisco as a center of these types of issues. Promoting staff and Agency Development is a continual process. We want to remain a workplace of excellence. We updated the mission, vision and values, implemented various training and coaching programs and ensured we have staff working groups to address topics of interest to the staff. Improving communications is a top priority. We launched a Communications Plan which we will hopefully be able to bring a culminate of that will be a new website in 2018. We are excited about that. Beyond that, 2018 will bring a new set of goals to continue the work that we are working on underway and we spoke about today, updating the Strategic Plan sets the next five years of priority for the prop k program. We want the focus on new revenues to continue. Completion of t25 task work is important. I i want to thank the chair, Mayors Office and the folks on that committee for efforts to try to shape what the potential revenue measure might look like. These are important revenues if we are age to pass them to match with regional measure three and the sp1 state funds. In 2018 we hope to launch modal studies in connection with the update of the county wide plan under the longrange planning studies. This is where we will look at the freeway and france it is side transit side where they intersect. I heard the interest on the part of the board in advancing the planning work for both the model and the freeway side of the studies. We will definitely get deeper to that and bring frequent updates to you in 2018. We also want to finalize some of the emerging mobility studies to deliver more research to you, advance work on the east side ramps and west side ramps and continue to provide board support to you in year programs. With that i am just going to make sure that we wrap it up quickly so you can get on to the rest of your day and open it up to any questions you may have. Chair peskin thank you for the thorough presentation and to all of your ever competent staff. Are there any questions or comments from commissioners for miss tang . Is there a motion to move items 14 and 15 . Commissioner ronen. I wanted to thank you, miss tang, for your great work and for your staff. You are accessible at all times and s soand i am happy to make e motion. Chair peskin seconded by commissioner kim. The floor is yours. I did get an opportunity to speak at the Personnel Committee. I want to thank director chang for your leadership. It was an intense process in replacing jose several years ago. You have followed through on the commitments you made in that process both to strengthen the relationships without side agencies and other city agencies. That was one of the big concerns this board had and also figuring out ways to streamline the funding with the grantees putting the projects that are important to all of us on the ground. I did have an opportunity to call a few people about their working relationship with you and how they perceive your leadership. It was great to hear such positive comments about your leadership and communication style. From a personal level you are incredibly responsive and perhaps you have over communicate with us. That is not a negative comment. I just want to thank you for always just being proactive about working with our office and im sure you do this with all of our commissioners addressing a number of different concerns we have and trying to be creative and brainstorming different ideas around the tnc or the Yellow School buses. I just have to say i appreciate the initiative that sftca did to do this analysis on the impact on the roads. That is something you know commissioners were interested in and members of the public were interested in. It wasnt something we asked you to take a leadership rome on. That report was outstanding and provided a ton of information and data we needed to see and we have been hearing about. It is just thank you for your dedication and leadership. You put a lot of hours in this and i thank your family for supporting you to be such a great head of this agency. Thank you for your generous words and i will reflect that to the staff who have done the hard work and heavy lifting. Thank you so much. Chair peskin commissioner sheehy. I want to express my gratitude for your leadership. You have come along ways since we hired you for this position. I have seen the growth of you and your staff. I want to thank the Personnel Committee for doing the work for us to evaluate you. I would say they were spot on. You have been not only a good manger here but your enthusiasm with the issues are just second to none. Some people when they work for the City Government they will be seen at city hall and nowhere else. In transportation in the community you are always there. Very impressive you take your work not just work but a passion. Thank you very much. Chair peskin thank you for your comments which i concur. We took Public Comment in committee. There is no need for Public Comment here. We have a motion and second. Could you please call the roll on items 14 and 15. roll call . Clerk items are approved. Chair peskin congratulation. Any introduction of new items . Seeing none, is there any general Public Comment . Seeing none, the Transportation Authority commission is adjourned. Working for the city and county of San Francisco will immerse you in a vibrant and dynamic city thats on the forefront of economic growth, the arts, and social change. Our city has always been on the edge of progress and innovation. After all, were at the meeting of land and sea. Our city is famous for its iconic scenery, historic designs, and world class style. Its the birthplace of blue jeans, and where the rock holds court over the largest natural harbor on the west coast. The citys Information Technology professionals work on revolutionary projects, like providing free wifi to residents and visitors, developing new programs to keep sfo humming, and ensuring Patient Safety at San Francisco general. Our it professionals make government accessible through awardwinning mobile apps, and support vital Infrastructure Projects like the hetch hetchy Regional Water system. Our employees enjoy competitive salaries, as well as generous benefits programs. But most importantly, working for the city and county of San Francisco gives employees an opportunity to contribute their ideas, energy, and commitment to shape the citys future. Thank you for considering a career with the city and county of San Francisco. A once in a generation good morning, everyone. My name is ed riskin, im the director of transportation here in the city and county of San Francisco. So glad to be with you all today under this beautiful sunshine to mark really what is a once in a generation milestone for muni, for the Transit Service and for the people of San Francisco. Today we are putting into service this beautiful vehicle thats behind us. And a lot of folks are responsible for getting us here. I want to acknowledge mayor lee, president breed who is, im sure, on her way. Our state and federal and regional partners and the tremendous work of our transit director john halle and his staff [applause] a lot of whom are in bright colored vests and jackets. As well as many other parts of our agency, the safety division, the training division, the communications division. Materials division. Maintenance. Everybody coming together. Accessible services. Everybody coming together to get us to this point. The reason why this is so exciting for us is because the demands on rail Service Continue to grow in San Francisco. And if you look at the cranes in the sky, if you look at the projections of growth, thats only going to continue and so we need a better, more reliable, higher capacity, more enjoyable way for people to be able to get through the city and that is exactly these rail cars signify for us. This car is the first of 24 of the first batch that will be going into service. Those 24 will be in service before the end of next year. Following that, there is another 44 that come and these are all in addition to the 151 cars that we currently have in service. So, this is expansion. That means more service. That means longer trains. More twocar trains. More threecar trains and more frequent service along our raillines, which is really the workhorse of the muni system. And it is not just capacity. But these vehicles have been exceptionally engineered and meticulously designed to provide stateoftheart, much better ride and much better experience for our riders. Quieter, smoother, better acceleration, deceleration. Better amenities in terms of customer and rider information. But also for us, better a. D. A. Access, better access for people with strollers, wheelchairs or just people who need more space. But also for us and for our riders much, much more reliability. These are engineered to be reliable vehicles, to have to go much, much longer between times where they need to be serviced. They have advanced diagnostics that will make it easier for our folks to maintain, to do more not just preventive maintenance but Predictive Maintenance so these guys will spend more time out on the streets than they will in the shops. So i could go on about this. I feel very lucky to be the director at a time when were introducing this. Like i said, this is a once in a generation kind of thing. And were only able to do this because of the leadership that we have in our city and our region and our state and our country that is supportive, all the folks working together to get us here. And the number one leader behind this, someone who, as a former public works director, gets the importance of information and supporting the quality of life and economy of our city is our chief executive. So, please join me in welcoming the mayor of the city and county, ed lee. [applause] good morning good morning really great to be here on a sunny friday. We have a lot to celebrate. You look behind on that nice, new l. R. V. With a red bow, all were missing is the tree. And so once we get the tree down, then were going to really have an occasion. But the friday before thanksgiving, we have a lot of things to be thankful for and i want to begin by saying thank you to our partners at the state. I know phil and Governors Office and all of our s. F. Delegation work really hard to make sure we got cap and trade moneys because it allows us to go from a planned stuff with our federal partners blessing us here today. We originally planned for some 25 of these to arrive and in the same time period, were going to get more than 5. 65. I think 68 is the number, mike, right . Mike is from siemens. These are all built in the state of california by siemens corporation. But they also were designed with great input from our own staff. People who have years of mechanics, trouble and problem were in that design. Our drivers for their ideas for safety and convenience of our ridership. Of course, john halle and his whole operations had great input. And, of course, we get siemens, who is building rail cars for all over the world, but they gave us some priority here when we said we want more of new stuff in San Francisco. So, were getting that. This is the first one that rolls off. Ed riskin to you and the commission and the entire staff, thank you. Because you are delivering on a promise we made to our ridership. The hundreds and thousands of people that want and do depend on muni, now youll have cleaner, more reliable. It goes from an average of five years before major maintenance to some 49 years of operations before we with retire these vehicles. That is a huge, huge amount of years to add with these new l. R. V. S. So im particularly proud of all the agencies that we had from the state level, the federal transportation agencies, the state department of transportation, working with our m. T. A. , our commissioners and all of the operators. But im also wanting to say this. That every day i ask people in San Francisco to display their best to represent the city of love and compassion, to make sure theyre always welcoming. Every morning for hundreds of thousands of people, the first person they see is the muni driver and for them to smile every time they see somebody, when everybody brings on all the things that we welcome in the city. When we welcome that diversity, we welcome everybody with whatever problems they have. Whatever things theyre experiencing. Whatever things they cant solve. They hop on muni. For that short period of time, we experience their lives. And the first person are the muni. Lets thank the transport Workers Union and every driver every day that has to put that smile on and make sure theyre the fun face of our municipal transportation agency. That is why were celebrating the family of larry martin. Well say a few more words about that in a moment. I know iris is here as the daughter of larry b. Martin. But i just wanted to begin with that praise and give the praise to people who work every day in the system. And we honor them by getting their input in this design as well. So, these l. R. V. S are not just a train that came from some. They were literally design with the Expert Engineering at siemens, complimented by all of our experience in making sure that there were less parts to deal with. It will give us better diagnostics and maintenance and seating arrangements, color arrangements, material arrangements that are much more appropriate for the hundreds of thousands of people that ride every day that we will provide them with the best Transportation System we can have. This is a good occasion, too, because we already tested this so were not going to make any mistakes. Right, ed . [laughter] in fact, i think there is a first driver on here. I forgot her name. I met her. Shes already a little nervous. I said no. No. No. These have been tested. And i want to thank the public. When we tested them, we had to close down a few systems for a few weekends and thank you to the general public for tolerating these testing periods so we can get everything right. When they roll on, we want everybody to have the positive experience of these new l. R. V. S. As voters and people time and time again when we get feedback, weve incorporated the publics demands that these be a better system and better l. R. V. And that is how you support future bonns and initiatives for the city to keep a high level of ridership and high level of the entire system working on time within budget, delivering more than whats promised and getting it to be people oriented and people friendly. So, that is my way of saying thank you to everybody thats involved. When you get everybody together and find all the room for people to have input, youre going to have some great gifts that we give each other. L. R. V. S are just the beginning because after that, m. T. A. s going to deliver a lot of other things for the city, including a new central subway very soon. Thank you, m. T. A. Congratulations. [applause] thank you, mr. Mayor. It is not just on time, it is ahead of time. So, were trying to exceed expectation with this procurement. And speaking of exceeding expectations, were extremely fortunate here in San Francisco to have such great representation in sacramento and generally speaking to have such a strong and progressive state legislature and governor in california. This here in particular was really an extraordinarily productive one for the legislature and the governor in terms of transportation. Two bills were passed and signed by the governor that will allow people in the region to vote for increased bridge tolls, to better fund transit in the region as well as potential increased sales tax across the three counties to provide cal trains for the first time with a dedicated source of revenue and even more significant, senate bill 1. Again, like this rail car, a onces in a generation kind of change in the way we Fund Transportation in San Francisco and in california. None of which would have been possible without the strength of our delegation, our elected representatives to the state legislature. And particularly in making sure, not just that these bills got put together and got through the legislature and the governor, but to make sure that they reflected the needs of places like San Francisco. So, very pleased to be joined by one of our members, i guess the most Senior Member of our state delegation. Join me in welcoming Assembly Member phil ting. [applause] thank you, ed. Let me just begin to thank ed and the entire m. T. A. Team for doing the fabulous job that you do. I know its a very hard job, a very challenging job. Every day youre touching hundreds of thousands of members of the public but you are doing really gods work in this city. Ed was totally right when he started by saying that we are growing as a city. Were trying to add more people in San Francisco and have more people work in San Francisco, live in San Francisco. But that is only going to work if muni works. It is only going to work if we can connect bike lanes and pedestrian walkways into muni so people can get to and from work. That wouldnt happen without eds leadership or the mayors leadership or supervisor breeds leadership. It is an honor to represent San Francisco at the state legislature. Ed was totally right. We had an amazing year. Were rolling out sp1 to pave our roads and fix our roads. But we demandedour delegation demanded that a chunk of that money go to transit. When it started out, it was all about just paving roads and fixing pot holes and we said hey, that is not going to work for San Francisco. We need to make sure that there are resources into transit to help and make sure that people can use rail cars to get that along. The other piece of passing cap and trade. People say what is cap and trade . Cap and trade is a simple idea. It says that, hey, if youre a companies that polluting the air, the air is not just something that you can put pollution in, that that is something that is going to cost us to mitigate, require citis to make the air cleaner. One of ways we make the air cleaner is funding transis sit programs. So, this grant of 45 million came out of inner city rail program and that is a competitive program. It is a program that the m. T. A. Team had to compete against other jurisdictions and the fact that they were able to win the grant shows how compelling what were doing here in San Francisco and how important it is to moving people, not just here locally but really in our region. So, we want to be doing more of that. I am so honored to be representing San Francisco in the legislature. We see whats happeninging in washington that very little is getting done. The exact opposite is happening in San Francisco. Every day were trying to make a difference on transit, on housing. Ed mentioned the ballot measure. We hope to bring to people next june to raise tolls which i know are never popular. But that is going to pay for 5 billion worth of projects. That is going to help bring highspeed rail into the cal train station, into the downtown station right there. It is going to be a huge winch it is going to be more money for muni in that particular project. So, again, thats where this money come fr. S it comes from the voters. It comes from your will to decide to say, hey, were going to be transit first. We wont be transit first when we feel like it but when we go to the ballot box and vote for that, it requires your requirement. Again, thank you for working with us to make this a huge victory for all of us and look forward to keep working to make this really as transit first a city as we can. Thank you. [applause] thank you, Assembly Member ting. There are other elected officials that are represented here. Danielle chen u. S. Director for our senator. And a district representive for senator scott weaner and genesis ga si i cant, a district director for david chu. [applause] thank you for being here, very much. I can tell you all three of them obviously are those electeds are from San Francisco and particularly for david chu and scott weaner when they were on the board of supervisors, very strong advocates for transit and muni and theyve take than advocacy to sacramento, which were benefiting from along with the leadership of Assembly Member ting. But the board of supervisors has retained strong championship for muni, for transit in San Francisco and were very lucky to have a president of the board of supervisors who represents an area just really immediately to the north of here that is one of the more transitdependent, more transitusing areas of the city. Very low levels of car ownership. Very high levels of transit usage. So, when we were bringing what would be somewhat of a daunting prospect to the board of supervise source and 1. 2 billion procurement, at the time the largest light rail vehicle procurement in United States history, we had the support led by the president of the board of supervisors who was so eager for these trains to be here. She joined me and the mayor and john halle and a trip to sca. Toe earlier in the year to make sure these cars were getting done and to make sure that the first one would be running on the adjuda line. Please welcome the president of the board of supervisors. [applause] thank you. I kind of had to threaten ed riskin to get these in juda trains, these new trains running. But in all honesty, i just really want to say i appreciate the m. T. A. For working so hard on making sure that we pushed this city forward. This is a once in a generation purchase. To have these incredible new trains ready to be used, ready to be driven by the over 300 drivers that weve hired in the past couple of years. This is whats going to change, what happens with our public Transportation System in the city and county of San Francisco. As someone who grew up here, and dependent on muni for so many years of my life, just watching the transformation, watching muni become more efficient and looking towards a future, rather than doing what we need to do to repair old trains that we know are past their useful lifetime, we have these new trains that are bigger, that are better, that are stronger than ever, that are going to take us into the next century. Im excited about this opportunity. I know the riders are excited about this opportunity. These trains are not only new and they will smell a lot better than the existing trains [laughter] but more importantly, they will be able to accommodate more people and they will be quieter because theyre lighter than the existing trains. So many of you who live in the neighborhood where these trains travel, you will not hear as much noise. These are the things that we have done. They are better for the environment. They have a different seat configuration so they could accommodate more people. So the work we put in to making sure that we got this thing right was so important the community played a part in giving us suggestions. Those suggestion, years later, are finally playing themselves out through trains which will be running on this line and there are more to come. We will be replacing the entire fleet. We have drivers that have been trained and ready to go. So im just anxious to get these things on the road so that we can have a more efficient system and i can get less complaints from my constituents about muni and its timeliness. Thank you to the drivers. Thank you to the m. T. A. Team, thank you to all of those who have worked on this contract. Thank you to siemens for just working with the city and being patient with us. Thank you to the mayor for his leadership on transportation issues. Thank you to phil ting for always bringing home the bacon. We have got to do a better job in improving our Transportation System and today we demonstrate that this is a start. Were not done. Well keep moving muni forward. Thank you so much for being here today. [applause] thank you, president breed. It is great to have that passion leading our board of supervise source and supporting transit in San Francisco. So i had mentioned, as did the mayor and the Assembly Member and the president that the growth in San Francisco is part of what we need to accommodate on sustainable modes in the highest capacity sustainable mode of transportation we have in San Francisco is our light rail system. And so one of the first impetuses for this rail car expansion, and then eventual replacement, was the central subway project that the mayor mentioned. An expansion of Light Rail Service from visitation valley up through bayview, dog patch, mission bay and into the heart of the city in chinatown. One of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the United States. So, this expansion we got as a part of a deal we made with the federal government. And the federal government entered into we entered into a grand agreement to the town of 982 million i think at the time. Anyway, the biggest federal grant San Francisco had ever received and as part of the deal, they say well give you that money to build the subway, but you need to start expanding your Light Rail Service. So these first 24 cars are partly funded by the central subway project, but also a requirement that we had to meet in order as part of our obligations and the requirement was that we would have these cars in service by the time the central subway was done. And as i said, were ahead of schedule. Well have these first 24 cars ahead in service well in advance of the central subway opening and all that was made possible and driven by the leadership at the United States department of transportation and particularly the federal Transit Administration, federal Transit Administration is the one that oversees the Grant Programs that authorized and supported our grant for the central subway as well as this procurement. They will be funding in part, we expect, a large part of the replacement of the existing fleet. So, it is a partnership that we absolutely couldnt do without. One that we value significantly. And its been led here in San Francisco and the western United States for many, many years very well and ably by the regional administrator of the f. T. A. Please join me in welcominging leslie rogers. [applause] good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As i was standing back there, i was mindful that we usually refer to everything as being all about location, location, location. But today i think it is really about timing, timing, timing. Thank god that ed fortuitously planned this event for today rather than yesterday. But on behalf of the federal Transit Administration, im especially pleased to join you all here today. As ed mentioned, when we signed the full Funding Grant agreement for central subway, and it recognized the need for improvements to address and expanding and dynamic city, we also committed muni to addressing its state of good repair needs. And as we go about systems expansion, this these light rail vehicles represent that effort to indierdre men ish and address our capsule investment needs. Congratulationss to muni. I sat down trying to calculate how much we really might be invested in this project. And i think i just will conclude to say it is multimillions of dollars. Again, were pleased to join you here today. As a resident of San Francisco and a daily muni rider, i can tell you how very much im looking forward to the roll out of these vehicles. And i will conclude with two words lets roll. [applause] thank you, leslie. Thank you for your many, many years of greater leadership and support of transportation in the Western Region and whole western part of the United States. At the federal level, that support was critical and likewise at the state. Assembly member ting made reference to the cap and trade program. 86 million of cap and trade funds in this curement. We will be submitting our application in the coming weeks for the next round of funding for which we hope to be as equally competitive and successful and a lot of that, the existence of that program, the focus of that program on transportation, recognizing the linkage between air quality and transportation has been from the leadership of the california state transportation agency, secretary brian kelly who was appointed by Governor Brown to lead that agency and really to bring the cap and trade program as well as many other programs, supportive of Good Transportation in california into being. So, were pleased to be joined by deputy secretary of transportation, kate white. She herself is from San Francisco so she gets it not only at a policy level from sacramento, but as somebody who rides muni herself. Please join me in welcoming deputy secretary kate white. [applause] good morning, San Francisco it is absolutely wonderful to be here today. Thank you very much to everyone for the invitation. Love to be home. Have a chance to come home for this wonderful occasion. And i wanted to give greetings from secretary brian kelly and the secretarys office in sacramento. And i am very pleased to be here to celebrate one of the very first california Climate Investments out of our cap and trade program. I recently heard a quote that the future happens first in San Francisco. And the state, we are thrilled to be investing in that future. Both Climate Investments and as several speakers mentioned also recently passed senate bill 1, the transportation funding package, provides a great new opportunity to invest more seriously than a new generation in transit and rail across california. So, please thank you and i wanted to welcome the new train car here to San Francisco and see it as part of the future of decarbonizing, creating a major sustainable, resilient future. Thank you. [applause] thank you, kate. So, theres federal support. Theres state support. And, of course, the local support is crucial. Our county Transportation Authority under the leadership of executive director tilly chang, its chair aaron peskin and vice chair tang have been critical to putting together the planning and funding so we can do things like get the central subway done, get this largest ever light rail procurement done so were very pleased to be joined by our great partner, Deputy Director of the county Transportation Authority, maria lombardo. [applause] hello. Im very pleased to be here. On behalf of our chair aaron peskin i want to issue a congratulations on the entire mmta for reaching another milestone ahead of schedule. Lets keep that up. As has been said before, i really have to recognize that making an investment of this significance is a team effort and we are so fortunate to have a wonderful set of team players from the federal level, the state level, mary lee, the board of supervisors, the m. T. A. And so on. I want to add to that team, though, a very important group. Which is San Francisco residents and voters. [applause] yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, rights . Thanks to their foresight back in 1989, we authorized the first half cent transportation sales tax for San Francisco, which was reauthorized in 2003. Under the direction of the Transportation Authority board, we allocated 131 million to this base procurement contract with siemens for the l. R. V. S. That was the largest single grant we have ever made from the sales tax program. And it is very fitting that that was the grant. Because there is no single investment we can make that immediately touches so many people, makes transit ridership safer, more reliable and heck of a lot more fun. So, were very proud and we have more sales tax dollars in line for the next options to expand our fleet even further. I just want to say that we need this team to Stay Together because were looking forward to securing additional regional measures three. Thats senate bill 1 funds, cap and trade funds and local new revenue measures to expand the fleet and upgrade the facilities so we can keep these running perfectly through the end of their useful life. Thank you. [applause] thank you, pa maria for reminding us of the voters and their foresight and making the difficult decisions that we ask of them that will impact their pocketbooks and wallets. There will be possibly and likely many such occasions coming up in 2018. We need to do our job to continue to educate our own voters so that the next generation of us standing here can look back on 2018 and 2020 for insightful good voting. The first vote that had to take place in order to advance this project, again, maybe im repeating myself. But the largest ever light rail vehicle procurement in the United States history, the first vote to move that forward was put before the sfmta board of directors and i was a big ask that we were making of them. And they came through. And i want to acknowledge the leadership of our chair k cheryl brinkman, our vice chair Malcolm Heineke who is a regular rider of the system. I know the daily feedback that i get when things arent quite as they should be and those incidents will become less and less as more and more of the new trains come into service. Were joined today by one of our directors and would like to welcome another one of our directors to come forward on behalf of the board. [applause] good morning, everyone. If there was ever a day to wear a bow tie, today is that day as a director. I couldnt be more proud and pleased to welcome these trains on to our streets. You know, the most exciting thing about it as a daily and judo rider, im awakened every day at about 5 30 in the morning by the sound of these trains going by my apartment so to hear that they will be lighter is going to be welcomed. Most importantly, though, i think were all just trying to get to work. Were all just trying to get to school. Reliably and in a time we can predict and move at the speed of commerce. And to really grow the Economic Vitality of this city. And these trains, the reliability of them in addition to the new great train smell that im so excited to experience, they are going to provide the reliability that so many of us depend on. If you are not a regular transit rider, you depend on these trains to keep our streets clear and moving. If we can just get those double parkers out of the way of the new trains, theyll move a lot faster as well. And were working on that, too. Im also really excited about the potential for the new capacity. These trains. I get on in the sunset and by the time we get to tend, theres not enough to let people on. We will be able to squeeze a lot more folks on there and there will be a whole lot less people on there told oh, theres a train right behind you. Right . And so looking forward to that. And seeing, again, us being able to deliver a Reliable Service that san franciscans can depend on. This wouldnt have happened without the leadership t great leadership of everyone thats been mentioned so far. Im not going to repeat all the names because there is a lot of other people to mention. Weve got our former chair of the m. T. A. , mr. Tom nolan, back here joining us. Couldnt keep him away from this event. 12 years of leadership on the board of directors. It is too bad senator scott weiner couldnt be here because he was such a wind in the sail of getting transportation victories and we need that kind of leadership for these hard fights. I really want to reemphasize the vision of this city and the residents of this city. We truly are a worldclass city. If that is not a testament to it, i dont know what is. So, thank you all for the vision of implementing this service and lets get this train on the road. Thank you. [applause] thank you, ed. I didnt see the former chair here. Now he is the former chair. I dont have to acknowledge him because he is not my boss anymore. [laughter] but i do want to give a special shoutout to tom nolan. Under his leadership of the board that we brought forward the central subway and brought forward this procurement and we would not be here but for not his leadership. Thank you for that. [applause] and so with all of the fire power that youve heard from represented here that put together the money, that put together the leadership, that authorized and approved all of this to happen, someone actually had to do the work. And that is where some might say the part really begins. Somebody had to execute on this promise that we made to our funders, to our policymakers, most importantly to our rider and to the public. The person who is at the tip of the spear for our agency, but even coordinating beyond our agency, with the fire department, police department, the Mayors Office on disabilities, the rest of the city family is our transit director whos made this project a passion of his for the last few years. And in terms of timing, as i mentioned in terms of being ahead of schedule, the process to get to where we are today typically would be on the order of four or five years. Because of john halles leadership. Were here closer to three years. Please join me in welcoming our director of transit, john halle. [applause] uh excuse me. Thank you, ed. Good morning, everyone. Let me start by making an official announcement. This is, in fact, the title to this car so the city of San Francisco now has an extra asset to add to its inventory. The good news is president breed, it has that new car smell. [laughter] so let me again thank everyone. But most importantly, as ed mentioned, this is a complex endeavor in a very complex system. I think we were able to assemble a group of people who where others may have found problems together with our partners from siemens and all the help from the transit team and people throughout the agency, this group really solved problems and that got us to where we are today in the time that we are. I do want to first make a special shoutout because this process was closely watched and monitored throughout the you may remember the first car arrived friday, january 13th. So in the last nine months, weve been closely monitored by the cpuc whos been our oversight agency, whos been available and taken rides with us, whos really helped to make a very cumbersome process easier understand and help us work through problems. Also want to note our own system safety folks. I can see them, who worked with us to get not only the documentation done, but to make sure that everything that you are going to see is the safest and most reliable car we can provide. Let me start, again, by saying when we started this process a few years back, it seems like we can break it into segments. It has been the three years has been on the one hand very fast moving and, on the other hand, recognizing the need to provide safer and more reliable transportation. Let me first acknowledge two people, trents wynne. [applause] who put who put together this complex anxietier, built the team and got us off to the right start. Mike ellis who cap add glorious mechanical career. Excuse me can. Here at the sfmta and is principally responsible for applying all the bad thing, all the Lessons Learned from the boeing cars to our new cars. And when the cars arrived, we needed an implementation team. [train noise] i wanted to acknowledge Janet Gallegos who got us home as the project manager. [applause] she worked tirely wes her team. Mike moda, who has been our chief engineer. [applause] and has worked with siemens to solve countless technical problems. It is not easy to design a complex vehicle and drop it in our system. But we were able to identify and address any concerns and issues. Doug lee, are you somewhere . And this was a group, and finally on the kind of