SFMTA

An illustration of the proposed Central Subway's planned Chinatown station

In response to recent criticism lobbed at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's Central Subway project, agency leadership and engineers said Wednesday that the project has a legacy of broad support and is on the cusp of securing final federal funding.

Two months ago, a San Francisco Civil Grand Jury released a report calling for overhaul of the project, which the report alleged was inefficiently designed and would stress system-wide service.

"We certainly welcome the scrutiny and oversight," SFMTA Executive Director Ed Reiskin said at a media availability at the project's South of Market headquarters Wednesday morning. Reiskin said that the feedback allows the engineers and project managers to revisit how they got to where they are.

"We are pleased with the progress that's been made so far," Reiskin said.

On Wednesday morning, SFMTA officials and members of the Chamber of Commerce emphasized that the project would link neighborhoods and create construction jobs for local workers.

The Central Subway project will create a new branch of the San Francisco Municipal Railway's T-Third line. It is designed to run north along Fourth Street from Brannan Street before going underground at Interstate Highway 80, with stops at Moscone Center, Union Square and Chinatown.

"For a major construction project in San Francisco, the project has received an incredibly wide range of support" across several administrations and several boards of supervisors, Reiskin said.

Senior project manager John Funghi said that the civil grand jury report had good intentions but that its findings were taken out of context.

"It was a different project; it was a different alignment," he said. The report scrutinized several alignments that were under consideration during early design phases, but Funghi said that some of those had not yet been subjected to environmental review.

The project has received nearly $96 million in federal funding, including $20 million secured in June from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Transit Administration. The project received the award through the FTA's New Starts program, which considers rapid rail, light rail, commuter rail, and bus rapid transit projects, among other fixed guideway systems.

According to budget projections from June, federal money will pay for $983.2 million of the project's total $1.578 billion cost. State and local contributions are $471.1 million and $123.9 million, respectively.

The SFMTA expects to submit its final application to the FTA by Sept. 19, Reiskin said, after which it would undergo federal administrative review of an "indeterminate length" before being subjected to a 60-day congressional review.

The agency could secure final funding from the FTA as soon as early next year, Reiskin said.

Officials said the recent FTA funding award gives them reason for great optimism in submitting their final application.

"It signals a vote of confidence that [the FTA is] comfortable so far," Reiskin said.

Final approval would grant the project "approval to begin the heavy construction," Reiskin said.