In addition, i just wanted to acknowledge theres not the transit connections, but the street connections, all the traffic safety, the street management. Its due to your leadership and management and your staff, so thank you. Yes. Ive known ed for quite sometime and various capacities, and ive just come to enjoy watching him in this. As a board member, ive relied on your leadership. Ill definitely miss you. Its bitter sweet, a loss to the city, but at least youre just across the bridge, so we know where to find you. Greatly appreciate your leadership and support in everything youve done over the years. Ed, along with all the thank yous, what youve done not only for the city and county of San Francisco but for the region is priceless because the things that weve just talked about dont observe city limits or county limits. They extend across the bay, the state, and even across the country. Because of where the money comes from, the connections, the alliances that have to be made, and the passion and commitment that you bring with you as a person comes from inside, and it cant be replaced by, you know, just changing people or changing job descriptions or anything like that. So my compliments to you and my appreciation for you for what youve brought to our region to help move us along the spectrum of transit, of community, of place, and the good thing is, as everything has said, youre not going very far away. You will continue to make a difference in the region, knowing just who you are. Youve been a great partner and a great colleague, so best wishes. Thank you. If i could just add that director reiskin, thank you very much for your leadership inside and advice. Youve been invaluable to me as i move forward to deliver move forward to deliver the program and work with ron, so your advice has been very valuable. Im glad that you decided to stay in the bay area cause the bay area needs you, so thank you very much for your leadership and hopefully, we can connect the d. T. X. Into the transbay tube and connect to oakland, as well. He agreed. Im sure hes going to make it happen. Chair nuru director reiskin, would you like to say a few words . Wow. I wouldnt have come if i knew this was on the agenda. Thank you, any way. I dont think when i was appointed transportation director as the city and county of San Francisco that this was part of the job. I was familiar with the project from a construction standpoint from having been at public works, but came to appreciate i mean, it makes a lot of sense because this program is the single most important regional transportation project for San Francisco, and i appreciate the c. A. C. Vice chairs comments that it is truly its a regional project. The more people that we can get in and out of San Francisco on transit is good for the whole region, and thats what this program is about. Its the whole program. Its not just phase one, but phase two. Its been a humbling experience, sometimes frustrating experience, but a rewarding experience, for the past eight years, sitting on this board. Im glad that i came back today because today was phase one report, its the best report in my eight years of being here, so thanks to you all for that. To see everything clicking, the closeout happening, the park, the tenants leasing out. It looks better in the renderings or the videos from six or seven years ago that looked like fanciful. It looks even better. The real prize is getting the trains here, so i cant wait to be riding yalls systems, and the final prize is getting over to the east bay. So i can continue to be a san franciscan. So when i become a civilian next week, maybe one of the first things ill do is reach out to my Transportation Authority commissioner and request my release of the sales tax money so the work on phase two can resume and accelerate also, the great news about getting the rod. Thats great news and milestone for phase two. But i will continue to do what i can to advocate in the east bay for this project because it is the most important projector among the most important projects for the region. Im happy to have played a tiny role. But all the good work is not because of me. Its the staff, the consultants, the whole team thats been working on this, including the Transit Agency staff thats bringing the place to life. I look forward to being a frequent patron of the center and hopefully riding the trains there soon, so thank you. And im abstaining if theres a vote. Not voting again. Move the item. Second. Clerk a first and a second. All those in favor . None opposed. Well take your absentia. Chair nuru so did you want to take a photograph . Sure. Chair nuru the board should take a photograph. Yes, mr. Chair. Clerk all right. With director nuru leaving, vice gee will take over. [agenda item read]. Directors, as part of the purchase and Sale Agreement for parcel f that we negotiated with f4 partners in june 22, 2016, we executed an option agreement for them to buy block 4 for 44 million or a price decided with an appraisal, and that option agreement expired, and this amendment basically extends the option agreement to allow them one more year to negotiate with ocii on a development and disposition Disposition Development agreement, basically, a d. D. A. For block 4. If theyre successful, theyre able to participant and build the housing combined, both below market and market housing. So this agreement this amendment extended it by one more, but this amendment does take away take out the requirement that if the site is not available for them, the cost of the land will be reduced by 3 million, so thats taken away, even though we expect to be able to turn the site for them this fall. So if you have anymore questions, then any questions . This is extended to the end of next month . Next year. I thought i saw september 2018 in the staff report. It is, but the director can extend it an additional year, as well. Okay. Counsel . The executive director of ocii has the authority to extend it for one additional year, which she already exercised. While it was set to expire at the end of september. So if thats already happened, were just formalizing, essentially . Yes. So the option agreement has been approved by ocii sometime ago, and she exercised her Authority Pursuant to that document that were extending the determiterm. Well, im just glad its going forward. I think theres a lot of question whether this option could be made. Yeah, its progressing. The option to extend for one year, what happens if they dont do it in that year . They lose the option to buy block 4, and that could impact how they develop parcel f. Okay. But who does that control of the parcel comes back to . If this option agreement expires . Yeah. They would have to work with ocii on parcel f on how to develop it. Okay. This just gives them an option to buy parcel 4. Can you repeat if no, the agreement original agreement stipulated a 3 million reduction if we didnt turnover the block 4 by september 2018, and also, they had to reach a d. D. A. By june 2018. We were not able to turn it over by june 2018, but to be clear, they were not able to negotiate a d. D. A. By june 2018, as well. Any other questions . Move for approval, and second. Clerk approval and second. [roll call] clerk thats five ayes. And item 11 is approved. Hold on just a moment. Well get director sesay from the back. All right. Go ahead and call item 12 . Please. Clerk authorizing the executive director to increase the Legal Services budget by 3 million to a total of 20 million for the providing services in their respective practice areas on an asneeded basis and extend the term of the agree by one year. We have Nixon Peabody for maintaining the loan. What this does is provide 3 million next year to maintain or Legal Services as needed for the bench. I think this is the last extension, and we will be going with an r. F. P. Before the end of this a year from now between now and a year from now to secure Legal Services for operations and downtown extension and other things. Any questions . Ill move approval. Second. Moved and second. Clerk great. First and second. No members of the public wanting to comment on the item. [roll call] clerk thats six ayes, and item 12 is approved. Call the next item . Yes, please. Clerk item 13 is authorizing the executive director to execute an amendment to the professional Services Agreement for Legal Services to provide Litigation Support services in actions against the tjpa arising from the movement of 301 mission street, increasing compensation from 15. 7 million to 18. 1 million. Any questions from the directors . Is there a motion . Move the item. Second. Clerk first and a second. No members of the public wanting to comment on the item. [roll call] clerk thank you. And thats six ayes. Item 13 is approved. As we noted, we took item 14 earlier. We can appreciate him again, though. Item 15 is the California High Speed Rail Authority preferred alternative presentation. So this is going to be a presentation by james tung, whos our manager for the San Francisco to san jose production. Ill give a twosecond introduction and turn it over to james. Were kind of behind in d. T. X. Were in the process of taking our next big milestone in step in going through the environmental process in order to clear the system in Northern California and bring some highspeed trains to the downtown extension, as well. So our next milestone is identification of the states preferred alternative, in our two project extensions, san jose to San Francisco and San Francisco to merced. James will cover the staff recommendations that weve put out into the world and are looking for feedback from a variety of public agencies. Were Holding Community working groups, open houses and other outreach during these couple of months and bring that back to the september Board Meeting with the draft environmental documents, so with that, ill turn it over to james. Okay. Good morning, council members. Let me just set the stage by providing some context and why the california voters voted yes on proposition a. When you think about traveling, for short road trips, theres plenty of options. You can ride a bike, you can take a car, you can take public transit. And then, for longer modes, 600 miles or more, for example, the distance between los angeles and San Francisco, theres air travel. So highspeed rail is really meant to fit that inbetween section. Really, when you look at that map of highspeed rail, the phase one alignment is shown in blue. Thats from San Francisco to los angeles, and then, in yellow is phase two, stretching up to sacramento and down to san diego. The stations that you see here are shown on the dots, and the distances between the station cities range anywhere from 30, 40, 50 miles, so thats really our target audience. Its its a distance thats a little bit too far to have a comfortable drive, but its too short to buy a plane ticket. We see this as a muchneeded alternative, especially when you consider that the population of california is rising. By midcentury, we expect the population to grow by 20 million people. To put that in perspective, thats about adding the population of Washington State and oregon state to the existing california population. So to address the to address travel, we have a couple of options . We could either build more highways, but as weve seen in the past, building more highways may add capacity in the shortterm, but that capacity quickly gets filled up, and then, you have the same congestion problems that you started with. You could also build more runways at the airport, but just looking at San Francisco airport, you cant expand into the bay. L. A. X. Is similarly build up, and i these airports, im sure people have experienced the delays that you see here. Additionally, highspeed rail is committed to using 100 Renewable Energy resources. So this will reduce the amount of carbon emissions, reduce the amount of Greenhouse Gases and allow california to achieve its sustainability goals. Were really trying to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, diesel gas combustion engines. For job growth, we see benefits in connectioning smaller cities to connecting smaller cities to larger cities. So for example, if you are a worker in fresno, now perhaps you could have the opportunity to connect to the larger major m metropolitan cities such as san jose and Silicon Valley. A typical car ride would be two to three hours, but riding a train, you could get there in an hour. That makes it feasible to live in Silicon Valley and live in the more cheaper, smaller, far away cities, there by reducing the or helping to alleviate the housing congestion that we see here today. The high speed rail is just a piece of an overall puzzle. Here, you see the 2040 rail vision with the various operators shown. So when we think about providing a good customer service, what we want to do with the help of other providers is provide a coordinated schedule so that people can get off of the high speed rail train and off to another mode of travel in an easy fashion. In this way, we hope to mutually benefit each other. If we can help provide more ridership to other modes, highspeed rail will experience an increased ridership. Id like to play a construction video. [video] this is a graph showing how the highspeed rail program is part of the big picture. We have many projects running at various stages of development with the ultimate goal of providing a good Regional Transit service with our public. Were going to focus in today on the purple band thats for highspeed rail project. Weve taken our footprint and performed all the technical analysis, and right now, were going out to gather stakeholder input. The when you see the results of the analysis, we will present the differentiating factors. Weve done analysis on all the environmental factors, and we will public the full draft of that analysis of the e. I. R. When it is published in march of next year. Right now we are going out to the public and gathering feedback. Were going to summarize the feedback and take that to our september 17 Board Meeting, so the Authority Board may make a decision on what the alternative will be. This is not a final decision on the assignment, but this helps focus our reviewers when the draft comes out for what we believe will be the final decision. The final decision will be released when the record when the final e. I. R. E. I. S. Comes out. This is a map of our Northern California section. We have two project sections, San Francisco to san jose and han so san jose to merced. The highspeed trains will be able to access the Salesforce Transit Center when it is available. So jumping into the San Francisco to san jose project section, ill give a very brief history highlighting the pertinent points. In 2012, the Authority Board made the decision to operate highspeed rail within the caltrain rightofway in whats known as the corridor. We will be able to take advantage of the blended cable that is being installed today. In 2018, the Business Plan reafirmed that approach and for the san jose to merced project section, it made the decision to put it in the blended corridor in gilroy. Most elements are actually kite common, but ill go ahead and run through the differentiators. We have no passing tracks, and in alternative b, we have six miles of passing tracks spebetn san mateo and redwood city. Our project is being designed for speeds up to 110 miles per hour. To achieve this, there are areas where we have to straighten out some curves, and our system is designed to a capacity of four high speed rail trains and six caltrains per peak hour per direction. Other Common Elements drunk many safety improvements for hold out stations at broadway and atherton. We are providing corridor fencing to really secure the perimeter and keep our trains safe. So before i announce the preferred alternative, just to today, im just going to give you a very broad overview. But for more detailed analysis, you can see the numbers in our preferred alternative fact sheets. The way we determine our preferred alternative, this is really a balances act with the factors that you see in front of you. The systems performance and operations cost, this is really systems characteristics, such as how fast the train goes, how much the system costs, and we balance that out with various environmental factors. The ones that you see here are differentiating factors. You will not see all the factors at the preferred alternative stage, they will be released at the draft document. And so in looking at the numbers, weve determined that alternative a will be our preferred alternative. This features a light facility on the east side of the tracks in brisbane and no passing tracks between san jose and redwood city. What we did was we looked at the numbers and saw that there was some tradeoffs. In alternative a, highspeed trains are not able to operate at fast. Its marginally about two minutes slower than alternative b but its still highspeed operation even without passing tracks. Jumping into the san jose to merced project section, youll see many more environmental and Community Factors here. This is a much more complex environment. Unlike San Francisco to san jose, this is not a densely urbanized area, so theres many more natural Environmental Resources