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. Id like to hear their perspective. I understand that management doesnt want to take that risk. Were also putting millions of dollars worth of vehicles on the line. And not exactly sure if its true that they cant do a twoarm motion and why were doing that. No disrespect to miss kirschbaum. It sounds absolutely crazy to me that were 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 dont understand why this is the method that were using. Chair peskin commissioner, you are making a very good point. Im 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, weve assemble adwellqualified, robust team of expert panelists. And frankly i think theyve 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. Im going to basically go ahead now and hand it over to shannon with mckenzie and company. Shes 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 were 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 Multidisciplinary 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 ill be walking through the methodology and approach that weve 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 programs 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. Theyll be walking through, a subset of them will be walking through the recommendations to date. The responsibilities of this expert panel were threefold. First, wanting to make sure that there was a thorough, welldeveloped 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 theyd 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 programs 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 well 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 highspeed 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 highspeed rail, london cross rail program, the gateway project, the san franciscooakland bay Bridge Program and highspeed 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 were not making the same mistake twice. And then, you know, again pressure test the type of design criteria and thinking that were 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. Cordovas callout to the tjpa, we spent the expert panel spent significant additional time tjpa and additional workshops, where we spent another threeish 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 were 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 its been a very collaborative and thorough process across the experts involved, as well as the stakeholders who have participated so thoughtfully. With that ill 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 well be hearing more about this at our meeting in july. So with that, ill turn it back over to you, shannon. Thank you. Thank you, chair peskin and commissioners. My name is john. Its 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, its much more than that. Its serving the larger bay area, sacramento to gilroy, if you will, region. And thats something well 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. Its 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 allimportant foundation of trust is what makes a wellconceived project. It takes it through what are inevitably difficult times for those projects. Its 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, its 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 thats clearly a priority here. An additional recommendation, and i think a key one, is to really reposition the rail program. So that its 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 thats a critical part of the Value Proposition for a project like this. Its its 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 its 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 its caltrain, highspeed rail activities, muni, bart or others. So it does serve that local, regional and national function. And as i mentioned before, were were referring to, as the train project, because downtown extension doesnt really do justice to what this project can accomplish. And doesnt get to the benefit value to the larger region. One of the key initial recommendations is to build the longterm 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 megaprojects nationally and internationally that have succeeded, one common characteristic is theyve spent the time and effort up front and its 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 theyve built internal and external champions. By internal champions we really mean more than just the project leadership. Its 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 its a priority, and why its 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 dont make it without that kind of ongoing, durable support. An additional recommendation, thats crucial as well, is with the rail project, we need to strengthen the projects 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 its 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, longterm financial plan, that has substantial stakeholder input. Its 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. Its 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 its 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 reauthorization 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 weve looked at other projects nationally and internationally, weve 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 TogetherGoing Forward. The capacity, the ability to assemble funding and financing program, and to make sure thats 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. Well 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, thats what we will be bringing back to you on july 23rd. Theres no single recipe for success. Every project may have some common characteristics, but theyre 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 megaprojects have stumbled before, they really havent 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 its 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. Im based here in san francisco. So what id 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 tworail 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 righthand 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 twoyear 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 thats the first task in the sequence, that should be undertaken. And youll 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 its 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 highspeed rail, for example. Theres 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 ill invite my colleague jesse to further discuss the next steps. Chair peskin . Im 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, im 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 theyre not the people who are actually going to sign those contracts and carry them out. The idea of doing a marketsounding 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 outcomebased 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, its 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 designbuild 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 dont discard the idea of design bid build, it may be your best option. But dont do it without real analytical attention to the others. And dont 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 were really kind of changing the paradigm away from just preliminary engineering at 30 , designed to 60 , designed to 90 , were trying to target the moneys that are spent on project definition and specification, to where they are best put. And thats what were doing here. Were 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 wellthoughtout option. And what thats now given you is an opportunity to shape the work that you do over the next 24 months, in a more multidisciplinary way. Not just from an engineering perspective, but shape it from a commercial perspective, a funding perspective, and an engineering perspective, so that youre 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 were 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 thats really kind of the foundations of our project delivery recommendations that well be building on next month when we return. And then i guess that is the next slide, the next steps. We have were still progressing our report analysis and our findings and our recommendations. We are we will be engaging with stakeholders. Theres 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 geoffs candor about that. And we really are invested in comprehensively getting this right, amongst stakeholder agencies, with the public and the words that youve just heard reposition, redefine are really both a comment on phase 1 and a road map to our aspirations on phase 2 and this is not just a megaproject, it is a megaregional project. So with that, john. Right . You are john fisher, arent you . I am. [laughter] thank you, mr. Chairman. And commissioners, we concluded with our draft recommendations today. So really opportunity to take any of your questions. And certainly field them to any of our colleagues on the panel. So i know, folks, insofar as were hearing this again on julr of speakers, if anybody has questions, have at it. Youll have another opportunity. The one thing that obviously you have not touched on is the big question. Clearly what i heard you say is that this expert panel national, International Experts is recommending a transitional phase. And then ultimately in a couple of years, an entirely new governmental phase. The multibillion dollar question is what does that look like . I think well hear more about that and more about what the criteria around that will be. I also heard the last speaker say rather bluntly that we need to be selective what weve been asked for from the tjpa is noun acrosstheboard 30 design. What i heard the last speaker say, not so fast, you might want to do that selectively in some places and not in others. You do not want to do any more of that, or not much more of that, until we have a comprehensive arrangement with highspeed rail and caltrain. Those are the vexing questions that everyone has danced around. So lets answer those questions up front, so that were not suffering for years on the back end. But with that, mr. Fisher, anything, john, youre the only person i know and youve got an easy last name. [laughter] no, mr. Chair. Thats a good summary. Thats really the exercise over the next month is to take those criteria, take the work plan that you heard ignacio lay out and understand who is best positioned to achieve those. And so that will be part of the recommendations on governance and oversight. But its also really repositioning the project for a successful delivery. Chair peskin thank you, sir. Mr. Come on up. I know you were accept when we withheld your money a few months ago, now we feel vindicated, the floor is yours. Im over it, supervisor peskin. Thank you for a chance to address you. I do want to thank you for undertaking this effort. I want to thank director chang and her staff for this effort. This was very important. We, as the speakers before we mentioned, we participated in the exercise. We thought it was very valuable and spent quite a bit of time. As the tjpa board looks forward to the recommendation to further strengthen the tjpa, and help the region and the tjpa delivered downtown extension or the new name program, in the most effective and efficient manner. To that extent, the tjpa board also asked its own peer review from the American PublicTransportation Association in december of last year. That peer review was presented to tjpa board in may. And the results of peer review provided us with valuable recommendations, that would further strengthen the project and the tjpa agency itself. We also provided the report of the peer review to the staff to be used for this peer review. I look forward for the recommendations in july. I do want to emphasize to strengthen the tjpa, strengthen the team, and as i mentioned to you before, ever since becoming an executive director in 2016, weve been working in a transparent, cooperative way with the region, including ssta and caltrain. Again thank you very much. Chair peskin thank you, mark. And i did not butcher your last name. With that, why dont we open it up to members of the public. James, bob, alita, peter, and that is all my speaker cards. If i did not call you and you want to testify, just line up. First speaker, please. Mr. Patrick. Good morning. Im jim patrick, patrick and company, representing myself and the public. I argued in front of this commission that we should not do this report. So now im evaluating some of their recommendations. Reposition the rail, socalled rail program. We formed the tjpa a long time ago, which was a ring forking, which is a very thing theyre recommending was done a long time ago. Redefine the program Value Proposition. If you look at the tjpa board, what they have on them is caltrain, muni, bart. They have all of these players on the board. Thats in position now. Rename. Yeah. You want to rename it, thats no big deal. Drum up support for financing. Yes, definitely need to do that. Engage the public directly. Advance social equity. Im not for social equity, im for building the most Efficient Railroad system as quickly as we can, that will achieve social equity. So i think weve got the shoe backwards here. This effectively delays this it has already delayed this program nine months. We all agree on that. It appears to me it will delay it another 24 months. All of the things talked about in this report, as i have say the through a number of board meetings, have been discussed how to [bell ringing] how to buy the railroad plan, if you will, how to fund it. This has been ongoing for a long, long time. This is nothing but a continued delaying tactic. I dont think were moving forward. We need to get our employees from 4th and king to downtown. This does have a cost. Its an opportunity cost. And its costing us a lot of money. [bell ringing] and it has for the last 50 years that i can remember. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you. Next speaker. Good morning. Peter strauss for the friends of d. T. X. Theres a lot of good stuff here. You know, and i dont think anyone would argue with the importance of the strengthening the regional vision for the project, you know county and and redefining it and that sense. Its a careful balancing act, is that were missing a sense of urgency here. Were very concerned about a schedule that looks to us as if its imposing an additional two years of delay. With chagrin a lot of projects that have been effectively stalled and need to be moving in parallel, such as the pennsylvania avenue e. I. R. , the work on the 4th street yard, the work on the 22nd street station. And the continuation of the engineering of the downtown extension alignment. Were also very concerned when we hear that funding is on the Critical Path. In the real world, that might be true im sorry, in an ideal world, that might be true. In the real world, it is when projects are shovelready, that theyre in the best position to secure funding. So that funding should not be considered as a Critical Path item. Its something that we need to push to be able to secure that funding, to have a project as ready to go as we possibly can. [bell ringing] i fear what were doing, you know, is we need to be careful to avoid analysis paralysis here. You know, we started with asking for additional work on governance. Were now looking at a work program to stretch an additional two years. Good standoff. But we need the balance against expediting this project. Maybe we should have asked for that as an additional step. That we should have asked the Peer Review Panel to develop recommendations for how we can expedite getting the damn thing done. [bell ringing] thank you. Thank you, mr. Strauss. Next speaker, please. Commissioners, im tim haas. Im also a member of friends of d. T. X. And i was one of the 20 or so citizens who sat on the socalled rab working group. What you have developed and presented to you in preliminary form, a profound document. It goes to the basis of the whole project. I could be crabby and point out that i requested both this body and the board of supervisors to undertake such an effort, at least over the last decade. But i wont. But now you have it. And as we predicted, its going to take two years and it may require state legislation and other things that could delay it even further. As my colleague Peter Strauss has mentioned, there are things that can be done now, for which the funding is available, which would not affect any grandeur project. The pennsylvania avenue project tunnel took two years. And it involved the citizens and it was a unanimous report, which your board accepted. The next step is an Environmental Review of that. That should begin now. The Planning Department has the funds to begin preliminary studies of how to build a 22nd street station. They are reluctant to begin, because you all have indicated that you dont want anything done until youre ready. Likewise, your staff at the t. A. Needs to continue to talk to caltrain about the yard. And what happens to that, as for the 30 study, i dont really have an opinion on that. But you should make arrangements not just to stop everything in place, but to move things forward that make sense. And your staff knows what those projects are. So you should give them instructions to do so. Chair peskin just for the record, i think our staff is well aware that we are on record in support of rail yard studies at 4th and townsend. Next speaker. 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 havent 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 path railroad, et cetera, in order to serve the people of new york. [bell ringing] so we must not be intimidated by the costs. And we must be willing to invest in our future. Just as new york and other cities have done to build downtown railroads and to bring people in and out of the city, to reduce the possibility of congestion that comes from singleoccupancy vehicles. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you. Next speaker, please. If there are any additional speakers, if you would line up. Hi, there. My name is continue hea. Im here as one of the friends of d. T. X. , the fearless crew going around from supervisor to supervisor to try to talk to you about how excited we are about the possibility of getting the train tracks to the train station. I think great things have already been said by a lot of people. And im not going to repeat them. Of course, i am my question, which i opposed to a few of them, is im actually okay with the two years, if in the meantime, were doing the e. I. R. And doing all of the other things, that we need to be done in the two years. Im not 100 sure what procurement means. But thats not why im up here at the moment. I decided to speak. It was a very impressive report. And im glad you have it. And i do agree with a lot of it. And the part that i agree most with is about having internal and external champions. And i think that is something that is missing in san francisco. I think were missing our internal champions of transportation and i think were missing our external, which is you, champions of transportation. And so im here to urge you to put on your transportation boots and become the transportation champions that we need, not just for this project, but you all know how passionate i am about all sorts of different projects in the city that are transportationrelated. I want to read to you something that Therese Mcmillan said. Shes the head of the m. T. C. And speaking at the Transportation Institute on friday. [bell ringing] she said there are three things that i learned in los angeles. The first is serve all of your customers, especially those who have been underserved. The second is to be committed to public stewardship, you are crucially accountable. And the third, and this is most appropriate here, be a partner but lead and avoid if it demands. I think theres a void here. We need leadership. And counting on you all to lead us into getting those train tracks to the train station and extraordinary Public Transportation for san francisco. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you. Next speaker. Hello, im bob. Im president of save muni. We are one of those external champions, that john was talking about. Weve been fervently in favor of the downtown extension for many years. And we stand in that position today. This is a twoyear delay. It is it has some good and some bad components. The very bad component, terrible component is it sounds as though the recommendations are conditioned upon highspeed rail. Now if you look at the politics of highspeed rail, that may never happen. So condition being this project on agreements with highspeed rail is, at best, a fantasy. This project should be done now. Now. Let me tell you, while were sitting here, weve been sitting here for almost an hour listening to this presentation. We just increased the cost of the downtown extension by 17,500. And thats based upon the m. T. C. Projections, that the cost of this project, which is in the ballparked at 4 billion, increases 200 million every year. [bell ringing] every year so anybody here who is interested in the fiscal aspect ofs of this project, should urge that it be done soon rather than later. And certainly not conditioned on an indefinite possibility of highspeed rail. This is a downtown extension for caltrain. [bell ringing] thats what its about. And we should get on with it. Thank you. Chair peskin next speaker. Hello again, supervisors, my name is roland from san jose. I really like whats on the table right now. And id like to touch on the point of national significance. If you really want a project thats going to get national and international attention, dont just leave it to the downtown extension, include the transbay tunnel to start with. Then if you go further and extend it all the way down to gilroy and now youre going across the bay, you look at the project with the magnitude of the channel tunnel railing, which is the link between london and the channel tunnel. Its really the scope that you want to be looking at. And then the way that you deliver it, the way that was delivered, was actually a concession. And, you know, it was a private sector funding. They came up with 3 billion to start with. And then you bring in assets. So transbay determines a liability, not an asset, that you bring to the conversation. And they operate all of that. The idea is that the actual infrastructure itself is profitable. But these people dont operate trains. That operation is to franchise it. You can have a caltrain franchise, a highspeed rail franchise. Remember one thing, whats very important, if you include the transbay corridor, you likely have a bart franchise, but not running bart technology, just running standard technology. Wrapping up here, one thing id like to see, as part of the conversation is the peer review that was presented to the tgpa board in may. It has some important points, eliminating the reliance on consultants, which is what the government is trying to address with the highspeed rail. And most importantly very early hiring it a chief engineer, who is familiar with none how you can get something that size. [bell ringing] downtown without blowing it up. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Jerry Coughlin with the Bay Area Transportation work group. And i think i would like