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 to start by saying i agree with most of the previous speakers. Im not saying it was wrong to stop and look at this. Thats okay. And its also okay to see if it particularly talk about getting it into a broader realm then it was. Now by taking this on, you are looking like youre going to be the leaders. I mean, thats theres 11 of you. And none of you have executive office, but thats the way its being presented. I dont think thats going to happen, partly because this is much bigger than the city and county of San Francisco. Always has been. And one of the speakers talked about connectivity. Connectivity to bart, connectivity to caltrain, connectivity to 40 bus lines in the east bay. Connectivity to five muni lines. These are not just putting it downtown, its much bigger than that. So in these leaderships, somebody already said that, it really needs some kind of political push. Theres been a lot of us here who have been pushing this i hate to tell you how long since ive been pushing this idea, a long time. Peskin will remember norm rolf died in 2005 and dreamed of this back in 1973. So this is nothing new. I hate the idea of reconstituting. I think patrick made a very good point. [bell ringing] the idea of reconstituting whats there is okay. But you got to make sure you dont slow the project down in the process. Thank you. Chair peskin thank you. Seeing no other members of the public, well close Public Comment. [gavel] i think there is a misunderstanding that needs to be corrected, relative to delays and funding. So why dont i turn that over to our executive director, who may bring folks up from the expert panel. Ms. Chang. Thank you so much, chair. Thanks again to our panel. Please do elaborate on what i have heard from you today and respect to some of the questions that were raised, i heard a question and a concern about delay and does this twoyear work plan represent even more work on top of existing work and will represent a delay. In fact, i believe its the panels believe that the twoyear work program is an oxoriented work program, that has to be undertaken for efficiency and effectiveness in project development, regardless of who undertakes the work. This is a road map to getting the project reinstated and to reenergize it and take the decisions in a very strategic way as you have laid out. I believe its actually to the contrary of delaying, its actually to expedite project development. Ill light you guys perhaps elaborate on that. To mr. Coughlins point that he just made about localizing versus regionalizing. I heard a strong recommendation to regionalize this project and to strengthen its regional participation and to really focus on funding and project definition decisions that could lead up to a procurement decision, that means a contracting decision to construct the project.