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