City and County of San Francisco Tuesday, December 04, 2018
>> this is a commission for tuesday, December 4th. Can you please read the role?
[Roll call] >> please be advised that
certain directors will be absent today. You do have a quorum. Enhancement assessment three is
the ringing of and the use of cell phones, pagers and similar sound producing electronic
devices are prohibited at the
meeting character any person responsible for one going off in
the room May be asked to leave the room.
Cell phone set on vibrate do because microphone interference
to the board so we request they
be placed in the off position. Item four his approval of the
minutes from November 6th, 2018 regular meeting.
>> do I have public comment on the minutes? >> no.
Do I have motion to approve? Is that seconded class. >> second.
All in favor? >> aye. >> item five is communications.
Just one was set on the agenda. Item 12 said the explanatory documents would include a powerpoint and a report.
This has to do with meeting improvement programs. There is no report and there is
just a slide presentation. In case anyone was looking for it to, we wanted you to know that.
Item six is introduction of new business by board members. >> I have a piece of unfinished
business.
It was just handed to me by the
director for 30 years of service ms. Miss Bloomer was not thrilled to have this happen.
[Applause]
>> all right. Any other?
[Laughter] Thank you for your years of service. Thinking- -dash thank you for keeping this board moving along and keeping everything organized as you do.
We appreciate your service very much. Director his character I have
any new or unfinished business?
Seeing then, we will move along. Item seven is the director his report. >> thank you.
>> thank you.
We look forward to 30 more years members of the board, members of
the public and staff, I would like to ask our director of sustainable streets to come forward to recognize one of his outstanding recently retired
employees.
>> mr mcguire? >> good afternoon.
I would like to ask angelito washington to join me up here.
She started her career in March 2008.
In her ten years with our unit if unit, she a dedicated
employee. She's a kind and generous
personality who is always on display with her interactions with her coworkers. She was known for giving out christmas cards to every year does every year to everyone in the units.
She bought a box of cards which will be distributed this year. She was planning ahead as she always did.
Really consistent in the way she treated everybody with respect and courtesy inside and outside the agency.
That is all we want all of our
public facing employees, even in a stressing job like bop to be
able to show. A calm demeanour and professional attitude that she
showed de-escalated many potentially volatile situations
to the benefit of herself, the public and her coworkers. She was dedicated to the unit and came to work rain or shine and carried on her duties without hesitation and
contributed so many positive ideas and infected positive change within the proof of payment unit and we would like
to recognize her for her outstanding service and dedication to the city.
[Applause]
[Cheering] >> thank you so much for your years of service to the agency. I understand that you have, in addition to your husband to
watch you receive this honour, you have a lot of coworkers. What you all like to stand so we can see? Fabulous.
[Applause]
>> thank you so much. On behalf of this board and the entire city and all the riders of our system, thank you so much for the work that you do. It is such an important job and I know it is not one of the easiest jobs out there. Thank you for your years of service.
Would you like to say anything? >> good afternoon everybody. i am very thankful and grateful
for this award. On behalf of my family, my
coworkers, I am grateful for this award. This is for all of you. Thank you.
[Cheers and Applause]
>> so I also, if you recall at the last meeting, we said
farewell to our outgoing C.F.O.
I don't recall her name -- [Laughter] >> I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce our new
C.F.O. And director and director
of finance and information technology. Leah levinson started with us a
week ago -- leo levinson has started with us so we could go.
He has a couple of decades of experience with very city
agencies including a couple of stints students with a controller touch office.
It comes with a wide array of knowledge and experience here
with the city and knows the various players of the city and
therefore we are giving him no honeymoon. He has already jumped in.
I just wanted to -- since this is one of the more important positions in the agency, I wanted an opportunity to introduce them to you and invite
him up to say a few words. >> very nice to meet you. Thank you for joining. >> thank you so much. Thank you. I have been here for one week now.
I have met a number 1 -- a number of you in meetings in the first week and I want to say how
excited I am to be working with the sfmta. i have been extremely impressed by the people I have met and the
importance of -- on the mission of this agency. I'm committed to doing
everything I can to support the service that we are providing to
the public while doing it in an
accountable and transparent way.
I am very excited to have this opportunity. >> good. Thank you very much. Welcome aboard.
>> thank you.
>> a just a few other items to note. One of the first things that leo will be working on is to figure
out how to spend some money that we weren't anticipating. You May have heard that the city
controller announced last week
that the city will recognize about $450 million of unanticipated property tax
revenues of which 181 will be available to spend for the
general fund. The reason for the delta is because there are a number of set-asides in the charter that
direct general city revenues to go to specific reuses. One of those uses is to come to the M.T.A.
About $38 million at this unexpected revenues will be
coming our way.
So we will be exploring various capital needs that we have that are not funded that might be
good uses for this money. We will be treating this as
one-time funding.
Is possible because of -- there is some uncertainty in terms of whether there will be a feature such funding. We need to be conservative, and assume it as one-time, to the
extent we do want to expend any
of this money, it will require supplemental appropriation from the board of supervisors because this was not anticipated.
That we will be bringing you, at
the next meeting, our five year, $3 billion capital improvement program. It is already more or less done, so there probably will not be
time to put in the $30 million, but it will provide a reference point for discussion on how we would recommend using those
funds. Good news for the city, and good news for the agency that I
wanted to share with you.
With regard to vision zero, I wanted you, and particularly the public to know that for the 19 th consecutive year, the
M.T.A. Will offer free munimobile service on new year's eve.
This is from 8:00 pm on the 31 st, until 5:00 am on January
1st.
I put this within the vision zero update because obviously we want people to get around safely on new year's eve. Giving everybody an opportunity
to do so on nalcor -- en munimobile is a very much in line.
We have continued to work on the
update to the vision zero action strategy. We reported to you previously we
have done various types of community outreach.
We did coffee talk sessions in each of the 11 supervisor districts and our gathering a
lot of feedback towards getting that revised plan back before
you in March of 2019. what we are hearing so far, is
many of our programs such as a safe routes to school, safe to
senior, high visibility enforcement with the police department, and improving the streets on the high injury network, all seem to have very strong support.
I'm sure that will come through, and we are on track to bring
that strategy to you in March.
Shifting gears, an update on the central subway.
A technical update. As you know, the central subway, as we have been saying for the
last year or so is on track to commence service in December 2019.
A year from now. We continue to be on track for a
while. The schedule is slipping but it has been holding for the last
year or so. However, our full funding grant agreement with the federal
government has the original start of service date which is
December 2018.
So we need to formally request from the federal government a revision to the grant agreement
to reflect our current projected
revenue service date, and what they're asking us to do, and I
think it's a reasonable thing to
do, is included schedule contingency into that revised date.
While we remain confident that
we can meet December 9th --
2019 and we are committed to do so, there are certainly risks to the schedule as we finish up the
hard construction, finish up all the systems construction, integrate the systems, do all
the startup and testing. so we will be submitting a
letter to the F.T.A., the federal transit administration
requesting -- indicating we are
on track for December 2019 starts. But also asking for six months of schedule contingency which is
in the grant agreement and put a revenue date of May of 2020 but
we will be remaining fully
committed to keep to the December 2019 date. This is something we have been working with the F.T.A. On. There is no surprise here but it is a step we need to take because our current grant
agreement will soon be out of date. I just wanted to let you know
that in case you heard about it. Another thing you May have
already heard about his congestion pricing study that
our sister agency, the county transportation authority, will
be undertaking.
You May recall one of the action items in our strategic plan is
to coordinate with city partners to advance the congestion
pricing framework and recently, the transportation authority commission has directed their
staff to undertake a pricing study update. They did a pricing study back in
2010.
They have been directed to
updates that work. A lot has happened since then.
A lot has changed here. There is a lot of experience that people have gained elsewhere.
So currently the scope and scheduled budget for this undertaking, they were bringing
that to the commission today, this morning.
This study will look at alternative scenarios of
congestion charges, subsidies,
discounts, subsidies, and multimodal -- multimodal improvements. Is a lot of different ways to do pricing and terms of the geography that it covers and the
times that it covers, how it is implemented, what exemptions
there are, to the extent it generates revenues and what the revenues are used for. A lot of different parameters. This study will look at
different scenarios and evaluate
the scenarios relative to metrics such as congestion and
equity and impact to transit. They are expecting, about a year and a half to do this study. Which we will work with. It will make it ready in spring
of 2020. There will be significant
community engagements. Obviously this is something that lots of folks in the public will
be very interested in. The T.A. His can -- the T.A. Is committed and we will support
them in any way we can to make sure that there is community engagement and feedback. We will give you periodic updates on the progress as it moves forward. I think it is a good and important step for the city to
be taking.
A few more things, one piece of not so good news, we have been
doing construction work on third street, and mission bay,
to construct new tee line platforms.
We did a couple -- we did a weekend shut down the previous
weekend where we had buses running instead of trains. We did the same this past
weekend. However, that we could -- the work this past weekend his that
we believe that we had a good
plan and adequate schedule and contingency on that schedule had
a number of issues happen that have delayed the work until today. So we were planning to have the
work done late sunday night, early monday morning in term --
in time for the start of service
but for a number of reasons, including the heavy period of rain that kept us from being able to compact the soil, some
delays in getting concrete, some extended time required to form the structural work that was
going inside the concrete, as well as manpower issues, it was
a perfect storm of things that
have created a delay. We had to continue the best service. We increase the best service because it is a weekday versus a
weekend for yesterday and today. The work is now substantially complete. We fully expect to be back in
regular service tomorrow but we
are very sorry to the riders who inconvenienced. It is obviously not as good a
service as we had with the rail. We are doing everything we can to mitigate that. We did what we could to provide information and make sure we had a good service for people to get up and down the third street
corridor. It should be back in regular
service tomorrow.
It will give us an opportunity to do another very thorough look at the plans for this project.
We have bigger shutdowns planned for the new year.
We want to see what lessons there May have been from this
one which did not go as planned and see what adjustments that we
need to make for the shutdown
that is planned for January.
Apologies for that inconvenience we are doing everything we can to get the service back tomorrow and make sure we don't have any
other planned loss of service.
Two quick things, one is to remind you that this is something that was approved as
part of the last watch what your budget.
Beginning in January 1st as part of the automatic fare
indexing policy, there will be small increases to the one and and three-day passports which will increase by one dollar, and the seven-day passport will be going up by two dollars. That is only for people paying
with cash. You will recall with the last
budget, we created a new, much
lower cost, essentially a half-price category for people using muni or a clipper card and we will be holding those affairs steady.
Only the cash fares will be
going up.
It does seem that it has been effective in terms of trying to
encourage people to move to muni or clipper. This was also part of the discussion we had with you in
directing us to eventually move
cash out of the cable car system
I would say it is off to a good start. There was a 5% increase sales in a month over month basis.
single ride fares went up by 10% increase and one day passes
increasing by 17%. More impressively, from this
year to last year, we have had
130 5% increase in sales for all of electronic payments.
So for muni and for the clipper car, that is on the cable car or
for these passports. The price signals are working.
I just wanted a reminder to you that the cash prices will be going up January 1st on those three products.
And then finally, while lots of
folks were out shopping and hopefully generating sales tax in san francisco on the day
after thanksgiving, we had a number of M.T.A. Employees working to make sure people
could get around safely and that traffic would flow and people could cross the street safely.
We had well over 100 parking control officers who were out that day and working hard to make sure that people could be safe. I have not heard the numbers in terms of retail sales in the city. I hope they were good to. We had a lot of folks out there working hard that day.
I wanted to thank them for their good work and to make that a
good and safe, and hopefully lucrative day for the people of the city. That concludes my report. >> thank you very much. There was some really interesting information in their
I am pleased to hear the congestion charge pricing study is moving along. I do remember when that first
study was done and I understand the work that was done in the
first study will help inform the
progress going forward. Some of the things that are
different right now is we did do
not have T.N.C.S the last time
this pricing study was done. I think we have more technology available to help address the
equity issues that can come up when you look at congestion charging. That is very exciting.
And I assume that thankfully we have enough buses to continue
the best service on that line when we missed the deadline to put the streetcars back on.
>> it is a stretch. We are trying to balance the service system wide. We did not plan to need those buses, but it is the level of service that we will need in January.
In a way, it was a good dry run.
But we did not have that. We cannot plan for it so it was
a stretch to provide the service we will do our best to continue that through the day. >> excellence.
I am glad to hear that the non cash fair options of paying for your ride are continuing to rise. It is a good reminder to people how much more helpful it is to have a clipper car and have muni on your phone, and will hopefully will continue to
remind people of that and have outlets where people can buy
their card. All good news. Thank you very much.
Any comments or questions, all right.
Seeing none -- public comment.
>> yes.
these are for topics that were raised and discussed by the director.
>> two minutes, please.
>> thank you.
>> I'm not going to use this now >> my comments about the
director's report was an informational report.
My problem is in a couple of
weeks, it will -- I don't know what your procedures are when the director comes back to you
with information that you have given him discretion on, but
from what I understand, the October 16th meeting gave the
director discretion to do certain things. I don't know why it was not
going to be an action item. You had to take public comment on vote on it yourself.
Because it does not seem that
anything that was so contentious at that meeting should then be decided by a, here is a report in here is what we decided to do here is what we will implement.
Take it or leave it.
So I am referring to the taxi items that were on your agenda
October 16th.
I don't know if you can take it out of the director's report and
make it an action item at this point. It is imperative for you to do
so. You have no idea what it is
going to be when it comes up. It will have a huge impact on
your taxi industry. >> as they take direction on the
authority dose given to him, it will be brought out in public not only to the board but to the
public. The action will be taken by the
director and shared with all of us. Thank you very much.
Next speaker, please.
>> I wanted to mention the fact
that back in 2010, 2011, 2012, when this agency's budget was
sorely strapped by the recession that had taken place and the
corresponding cuts in federal
funding, and state funding, you
turned to the taxi industry and
specifically to taxi medallion
buyers to help you get through
those times.
And over a period of several years, some $63 million went
into the M.T.A., which was spent
on general M.T.A. Purposes.
Now you have, as the director
mentioned, what would be
described as a windfall of unbudgeted and presumably
unanticipated state revenues and it would only be right and just
and proper for some of those
revenues to be converted to these medallion holders in their
time of need.
And I heard it said that these
might be one-time revenues. We are in an emergency situation where medallions are coming back
to the credit union month by
month.
And some emergency funding to help tide these people over
until a comprehensive plan,
which is not what has been
presented to us by the M.T.A. Thus far.
A comprehensive plan to fix the broken medallion system that can be put forward to.
Please help these medallion purchasers. Thank you. >> thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
>> that is the last one who put in a speaker card who had addressed the board. >> please come up to the podium.
>> that is fine,.
>> hello.
So we heard about 181 -- you
heard from the previous speakers about using a portion of it to
deal with the taxi medallion.
I thank you should also reserve
something like $4 million to pay
a severance check to the
director. He has made a disaster of this industry in his time.
There are thousand other items
which he failed in the city and I don't have time to spend my
life going after him. He is a troublemaker.
He is a knowledge list person and to this money, a portion of
that should be used to get ready and your board should consider
removing him from this porridge.
Because you guys do not have a good knowledge of how to deal with the problems.
Talking about the proposal that
will be coming to you-
-dash you
know it already.
It will be a disaster for this industry. All the medallions are returning
back for this $181 million, why
not keep it safe for them. You are also not acting properly
you have to listen.
Last time there were 80 speakers here and 200 people signed up to
speak.
You have to think that there was one out of 30 against the speakers. Twenty-nine speakers are telling you don't do it.
Don't do it, don't do it.
Save this money to deal with that. Thank you.
>> next speaker, please anyone else while public comment? Public comment is closed. I will remind the speakers I
believe it is the city charter
that windfall money must be spent on capital programs. All right. Let's move along.
>> the citizen's advisory council report. There is no report but there is somebody here who wants to address you.
>> great. >> I'm sorry. >> okay.
You are for general public comment. Thank you. >> item nine is general public comment. An opportunity for members of
the board to just members within the jurisdiction of the sfmta board of directors dutch directors but not on the agenda today. We will start with tom followed
by robert and mike.
>> two minutes. >> hold on. You need to step up to the
microphone. >> I understand I have two minutes. >> yes. >> I live at 18th and guerrero
and I took this opportunity to come down here. I received an invitation in the mail to come regarding the
bicycle transportation routes in the city.
I don't know if it is within
your jurisdiction, but I am 35 plus year resident and I can legitimately say I represent the people who work for a living.
I I'm a carpenter. i study poetry. All my friends are artists. They are being evicted because the city is too expensive. We can't live here anymore.
The sfmta seems to be making a
mess out of things. I don't suppose anyone really
realizes how people move loaves
of bread, or materials, or tools , or carpentry things, is as if we can move them on bicycles.
The city is not functioning. If you live here and you have your feet on the ground and you walk about the city, you find you are gridlocked everywhere you go.
There is a huge denial from here to the whole supervisor's board as to what is going on. And how to make a world-class
city that we can all live and that really represents a city of
san francisco, the city that is
meant to be a liberal bastion, a place for us all to love and to get beyond the hatred that is coming out of washington.
I was raised this way.
I will end it on that. It is not really a sanctuary city for people who need help.
It is a sanctuary city for rich people. You have to stop bending over and lubricating their bank
accounts and letting them sell us down the river.
Thank you. Please keep that in mind. >> thank you.
Next speaker, please,. >> and in two minutes, I will
tell you what a mess that's your
previous directors made of the
whole taxi business.
In 2009, the M.T.A. Took over
the taxi business. one of the things that was given to them in their mandate was the right to sell medallions.
And they started the program and sold a few medallions.
That was in 2010. 2011, they started messing around. And then a funny thing happened
in 2012, and that was uber and
sidecar, and subsequently lyft
came into the city.
In their wisdom, and with a
little help from mayor lee, the
M.T.A. Did nothing.
They shut their eyes, and
continue to sell medallions but
they actually -- that they actually knew where worthless.
Because nobody, by 2016 was
buying or selling medallions. The only medallions that were
changing hands were a few lucky people that had bought
medallions early and managed to
resell them before the boat
finally sank.
So who is responsible for this
decision that they knew, in 2010 , I'm sorry, in 2012, when
uber was already operating
illegally, and yet, the M.T.A.
Had an opportunity to claim jurisdiction, but it didn't,
because mayor lee said no. >> thank you.
>> you are responsible for this mess. >> thank you. Next speaker, please. >> next speaker, please.
Thank you. >> if you will put it down, s.
Gov T.V. Will put it on. Sometimes it takes them a minute there you go.
>> I'm sorry. >> I'm sorry.
Go ahead and start to. Your time is ticking down as we speak. Go ahead and read off the one
ave. >> could you started over at two
minutes? >> yes. We will started over at two minutes.
Next time, please be ready.
>> hello.
I'm going to go over the taxi medallion transfer program with you very quickly.
First of all, it raised
$64 million for the city, the
pilot program raised 21 million dollars. The pilot program only transferred medallions from the
existing medallion holders to
drivers. So there were no new medallions
are issued under that program. The real problems come in with
the permanent program.
The permitting program starts on
May 16th, 2013.
In April -- I'm sorry, May 16th , 2013, is when the
permanent program starts, and the permanent program allows the city to issue brand-new permits
and the city issues 400 new taxi
permits from May of 2013 to June
of 2015, if virtually floods san
francisco with taxi permits. The mayor, also back in July of
2013, had declared July 15th
"lyft day." they were sending signals that they could come into the city into what they wanted to do in san francisco.
At the same time, they were initiating a program to sell permits. There is an important meeting
that occurs in office in 2013. Just three months after the
program starts. they visit with the President Of
the federal credit union.
They basically reassure them that this program is on track
and will be good. At that time, she was not head
of taxi services. >> I'm sorry. Your time is up. Next speaker.
Thank you. >> I wish I could donate some of my time to the previous speaker, unfortunately, this will not be the case.
Anyway, I have a really- -dash I had a really ugly experience on saturday.
I waited for the 21 hayes bus. My right- -dash it arrived
shortly before 3:00. And the travel panel said five minutes, four minutes, six
minutes, when it came down to one minute again, it was going
to be six minutes again.
I got on another bus and just as I was getting on the bus at 21
hayes, it came along. >> so for the transportation
system is a reliable failure but
at least we are reliable, this just can't go on. The transit affected this
project will not solve the
problem of timely transportation and that was a central problem of why that project was initiated in the first place.
You are using cosmetic servers and surgery on the transportation system and it is going to fail. It is going to cost tons of
taxpayer dollars. Federal money and the rest of it
is going to be a natural scandal and fiasco. this board will be held
accountable for its. I don't know.
May be we should sell shares in management or something. Unfortunately it would be a
stock that would fail. >> several community groups from across the city including the
excelsior, richmond, the soma selma and bayview have been
coming together -- soma and mission have been coming together to address the current inequities that exist in the transit system. And a contingent of us have come before you today to demand you
bring justice back to the transit system in the following matter. Our communities from across the city demand you shift your agency's priority is to place
our people and equitable
outcomes first and make a renewed commitment to investing in public transit that serves
those who need it most, and use it most. Unrepresented and excluded from current planning processes, our
vulnerable communities are left with not only an inaccessible and unreliable transit system, but forced to endure exclusionary changes to our neighborhoods that only
exacerbate the current crisis of gentrification and displacement and further devastate our communities.
Our communities need you to make a permanent commitment to
community process, that elevates
the concerns and needs of existing residents and particularly those most
vulnerable among us. In order to move towards an
equity first direction, and
ensure justice in transit, it is our fervent belief the sfmta board of directors must immediately make the following
changes.
And the use of private transit
on red bus lanes, commit to a permanent community planning
process for future, current plans, and failed existing projects that will actively engage participation from vulnerable communities and create sufficient safeguards to
ensure the sfmta is accountable
to the concerns of these communities. Suspend all major projects until these equity first adjustments are made, because of the bike
and scooter rental projects and contracts after the pilot ends, while equitable community planning processes are established or emerging mobility
is, guarantee free and subsidize muni fares for all san francisco residents, and establish data
privacy restrictions placed on rental programs and other emerging abilities and private
-- >> thank you very much.
Next speaker, please.
>> thank you for being here. I will not put this on the
overhead. This is a county transportation authority from a year ago. The top chart shows a number of T.N.C.S on the road work the number of taxis.
The tax collectors told you they are 45,000 T.N.C. Drivers operating and we only have about 1500 cabs.
Is a 30-1 ratio. I mention that but because --
because for the past two years, the transportation director
together with the taxi director
and if the reit -- if you read the credit union lawsuit, they
apparently gave a lot of misleading information and did not act ingenuous lay towards a credit union. The second thing now extends to all the stakeholders in the taxi industry.
We are being lied to. These recommendations are coming forth. The whole package of them is based on the false premise that the reason the people bought medallions who are in trouble
and other taxi drivers are interfering with their ability to be successful. We want to be reliable and have enough cabs on the road. The solution is for all the powers to get together with city
hall, and the city attorney's office, and get half of the T.N.C. Off the road. There will still be plenty of
uber and people who want inexpensive rides and they will get where they are going a lot
faster because there'll be less traffic. That is a huge concern. I hope when the first
recommendation comes up about cutting away from the airport,
you won't go along with that.
I wanted to say, we just spent the last three hours at a meeting. We have a new group that will manage to unite all the
stakeholders now. It is called the san francisco taxi coalition. We want substantive change.
We will have a nonprofit. We will try to help change the industry, whether you cooperate or not to. We would like to work together with you. Thank you. >> thank you.
Next speaker, please.
>> good afternoon, directors. Last time you had 200 people here.
This room is full right now and similar to the room being full
that day. And downstairs, one of the
courtrooms was full.
With that, 200 people came to tell you, don't do it. But you are sitting here to do it against 200 people.
All these people with the pink
stickers, you will listen to them and you will follow them. How come you ignore the 200 people who told you two don't do
it, that is going to take away
at 900 medallions into the city
not to go to the airport.
That will affect 2400 jobs.
2400 jobs means that each one, if you count one person with a wife, and one child, that is
7200 people whose lives will be
ruined completely.
How many people do you support? May be one each.
And you people make 250,000 to 350,000 income a year and these
taxi drivers who are living at fairly hundred $50, $150 a day,
and you are -- do you understand what wrong you are doing, you want to test the airport. I give you a solution today and
you don't have it. You never even heard about it.
For one single day, the medallion -- make a plan with a committee on top of it and give
the airport for only medallions
for one single day and see if
their income is going to approve
if it will not improve, the
whole plan you have made should
be rejected outright and this gentleman, I'm repeating again, rough skin should be fired from this job.
Thank you. >> thank you. I will remind the public that the board of directors are paid
$200 a month. Just F.Y.I.
Next speaker, please. >> some of us take vacation time
to be here. >> as he mentioned, we have a new group. I am speaking for the san francisco taxi coalition. This is a coalition of cab companies. Most of the companies in the
city are involved medallion
holders of different stripes. Taxi workers alliance and
medallion holders association and individual cabdrivers, we
are united and we are united in
opposition to the plans that the M.T.A. Staff has put forward.
We oppose banning any cabs from the airport. We oppose taking back any medallions.
These measures are bad for drivers. Bad for the industry and most
importantly, bad for the public. But we are not just going to be
a group in opposition. We are putting forward ideas
back and we will be that will
help the purchase medallion holders and help all cabdrivers and help all caps companies.
We urge you to put your current
plans on hold so that we, as an industry, together with you as a
regulatory body, can find
permanent solutions to the
problems that we face, and they
are enormous.
It is fair to say that we are in a crisis situation in the taxi
industry, and the plans that we have heard from you are only going to make things worse. Thank you. >> thank you.
Next speaker, please. >> mary mcguire is a last person
to turn in a speaker card. >> if anybody else would like to speak, line up on the right side of the room. >> the director announced
another meeting for friday without getting any details of her plan, which the plan seems to change week by week.
We all wonder why the secrecy. But I want to discuss a concern that has been brought to me by
drivers at the airports. She is getting false hope to
purchase medallion holders and other data will be alleviated if they are giving an airport exclusive. You only live -- need to look at the numbers to see this is ridiculous.
A ten hour shift May help a little but not enough to lift
these drivers out of debt.
The concern is balloon payments coming through on these loans.
Apparently, these loans are what is called collateral sufficient, and the banks no longer are accepting the medallion to back them up when it comes time to
restructure.
Now they want something more serious like the driver's house. It is false hope and more lives
are ruined. The proposed airport band has already caused drivers to leave the business.
They are finding other jobs. Ups, fedex, door-
-dash, uber, if there is no drivers to rent the cabs, they will soon be out of business. It is a given.
And a three month pilot program could create this situation.
What are these medallion holders
going to do if there is no caps companies left? Have you thought of a solution
to that? The industry is asking you to
reverse the item you approved on and find another solution and
address the elephant in the room
put a tax on the T.N.C. To pay for the industry and the lives they have destroyed and make
good on these loans before you
make them even more damaged. >> thank you. Do I have any more public comment and general public
comment seeing none, public comment is closed and we will move on.
Thank you. >> we are moving onto your consent calendar. These items I continue to be routine and will be acted upon
by single vote unless a member of the public wishes to sever an
item and discover -- and discuss it separately. I have received no request that any item on the calendar be severed. >> excellent. Do I have a motion to approve
this calendar? And any opposed aquatic hearing
none, the consent calendar is approved. >> moving on. The regular agenda item number
11 is approving a parking protected by clay and parking
and traffic modification along valencia street and 15th
street until June 30th, 2020. >> excellent. Before we start the presentation , we will acknowledge we have a lot of
people to comment on this item.
Directors, I will ask us all to hold our questions for staff until staff report is done and for the public, we will start calling you up and you will get two minutes.
You will see a timer on the podium. When you have 30 seconds remaining, you will hear a soft chime.
When your time is up when the two minutes is up,, here a louder noise.
At that point, I will politely but firmly cut you off and bring
the next speaker up your kind believe we we have people in the late court. When it comes time for public
comment, please come forward from the late court. Thank you.
>> yes.
>> good afternoon, director. My name is kimberley and I am
the sfmta project manager for the valencia bikeway improvements project. I'm pleased to be here today to
present to you that a pilot project which if approved will implement parking protected bike lanes on valencia between market and 15th street in January,
2019. Valencia is a constantly evolving roadway.
The first bike lanes were
striped in 1999 and it is a major north-south bike routes through the neighborhood extending for 21 miles between market and mission street.
It is one of the biggest bike
facilities in san francisco with over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. Through the years, they have seen numerous improvements for
cyclists and pedestrians including that bicycle timing in
2,009, sidewalk widening in 2010 , the first park
installation in 2011, the first
ford to go bag station in 2019 and the flex post installation in early 2019-
-dash 2018. There have been improvements on valencia and a number of
concerns today. Valencia is a major bike route in san francisco. The pictures on the slide depicts the everyday challenges that cyclists experience on the
corridor or. From initial data collection, we found that about a quarter of vehicles blocked the bike lane
on an average weekday with this
percentage increasing to about 40% on weekends. The majority of blockages
occurred in the evenings. These observations suggest that the improving safety on valencia
is not simply proving the bike lane design, for strategically reallocating curb space to meet the parking and loading demands
of the corridor. Vision zero is the commitment to
eliminate all traffic deaths by 2024. The majority of valencia is part
of the high injury network which is a 13% of city streets that
account for 75% of severe and fatal collisions.
In the graphic on the right, you can see the portions of valencia street that fall on the high
injury network and the extent --
extends of the pilot project.
From 2012-2016, there were 268
collisions on valencia, and 40% of these were between vehicles and bikes.
The most common bike crash type was during, and half of bike crashes involve loading and
unloading of passengers. A concentration of these collisions occurred on the stretch of valencia between market and 15th street with
about 30% of the total current
-- collisions happening along 22 % of the corridor or. In addition, this will fatality
it was a hit and run pedestrian collision occurred within the
proposed pilot project limits.
The intersection of valencia and
defoe has the highest frequency of overall collisions among all modes, and the intersection of
valencia in 14 has the highest
number of bike crashes at 13th
these numbers alone emphasize the need for safety improvements on valencia between market and
15th street.
On September 26th, the mayor directed the sfmta to expedite
the bikeway his project and to design and implement a protected
bikeway pilot on valencia between market and 15th street
within four months.
The sfmta is committed to making incremental improvements on
valencia to improve the overall safety. Therefore, for the past ten
weeks, the sfmta has retired
dutch worked tiredly to prevent
this and work with internal and
external stakeholders, conduct door-to-door outreach and host
the included tea just community workshops so we can bring this to the board today for
consideration. Community outreach has been a
fundamental component of the valencia bikeway improvement project at some of our key outreach activities are
summarized on this slide here. In spring 2018, the sfmta sat
down with over 40 stakeholder
groups, reached out to 215 businesses with a door-to-door survey to learn more about
commercial and passenger loading needs, and conducted a customer
intercept survey with over 200 respondents to better understand travel behaviour, and shopping
patterns. The sfmta hosted two community
workshops in July 2018 to share bikeway projects on the valencia
corridor or. Over 200 people attended these workshops and the sfmta collected over 350 responses to
the designs shared.
With the pilot project moving on an expedited timeline, stakeholder engagement becomes
even more critical. An additional round of door-to-door outreach was conducted last month with an emphasis on the bikeway pilot
between market and 15th street the sfmta continued targeted stakeholder meetings with
community and advocacy groups including the san francisco bike coalition, walk S.F., the
valencia corridor merchants association, the mission merchants association, and the
san francisco interfaith council in addition, several meetings
were held between the sfmta and representatives from san francisco friends school, millennium school, and
annunciation greek cathedral to address specific concerns regarding passenger loading zones and the safety of students
crossing the protected bikeway.
A community workshop with 90 attendees was held on November
14th to showcase the pilot which received a positive response.
Finally, over 475 letters of support including letters from supervisor mandelman and supervisors ronan and over 25 letters expressing concerns with the projects have been submitted to the sfmta board in the past
what 12 weeks. The pilot will extend from
market to 15th street and its
key elements are a parking protected bikeway, pedestrian safety enhancements, school loading considerations and curb management improvements.
Shown on this slide, is a block of valencia between the roads
with north -- norse oriented to the right. With a parking protected bikeway , the number of conflicts
between vehicles and bikes will be reduced and pedestrian safety
will be improved with visibility
zones and advanced lines at intersections. The intersection of valencia is one of the intersections within the project limit to receive a single up negative signal
upgrades to provide separate
raising for cyclists.
The schools are all located on
the block shown here. To address their concerns about
students crossing the bikeway,
concrete loading islands will be installed to channel passengers to designated crossing points.
These crossings will be marked with continental crosswalk for
pedestrians, yield for sight christo cyclists and regulatory signage.
With this pilot project, all the existing passenger loading zones
will be retained and the number of commercial loading zones will
be increased by nearly 50%. Half of these loading zones will be in effect seven days a week
and will convert to five-minute
loading zones in the evenings
after 6:00 pm. The bikeway improvements between market and 15th are being installed as an 18 month pilot
and will be evaluated on metrics
including safe behaviour, effective design, mobility, and perceived comfort. At the November community
workshop, these evaluations were shared with the public who had the opportunity to provide feedback on what areas are important to them.
To gauge the changes in safe behaviour and effective design, observations will be made of driver behaviour at mixing zones , conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians and the
new parking protected park -- parking protected gateway, and the positioning of cyclists on
the roadway. To better understand mobility
trends, traffic and beat vehicle speeds will be collected.
Public opinion surveys regarding perceived safety and comfort for
all modes will also be conducted the findings in this pilot will
help inform the long term design
for the corridor or.
If approved, the pilot and its parking and loading
modifications will be made in January 2019. Later in the spring, upgrades will be made at the intersection
of valencia to install phase separation. The sfmta will conduct an initial evaluation of the pilot
in the spring to get a glimpse of how the new improvements are working and a more robust
evaluation will take place in fall 2019.
No later than spring 2020, the sfmta will report back on the findings from the pilot to move
forward. Before I conclude this presentation, I would like to recognize the leadership of
mayor breed to support -- the support of supervisor mandelman and ronan on the sfmta engineers and planners including jonathan,
victoria, alex, jennifer, all who have been instrumental in bringing this project to the board today. I will be happy to take any questions.
[Please Stand by] . >>> from the overflow room.
>> are not a lot of people down there.
We won't let you not comment. Come up here.
>> molly pile and skip pile.
>> I am kristin lucky, I am a community organizer on staff of
the bicycle coalition.
I am here to strongly support the valencia street project.
It will provide much needed
protection.
Valencia is overdue for a safe
design to prioritize biking and walking.
Between 2012 and 2016 there were 268 reported collisions between market and mission streets.
What is the city doing to make
sure safety doesn't have wait on on valencia. We have been working for well
over a year to push the sty to put safety first. It is over subscribed.
We see chronic double parking every day. Almost half of all bike
collisions are due to double
partly partly -- double parked cars. This is our chance to change the street.
We are showed up to committee meetings to make it clear the city is not acting fast enough.
We were excited when the mayor expedited the process in September to have a chance to
act with urgency that so many
have been asking for.
Her commitment to deliver the
improvements for thousands who bike valencia every day.
Our members sent in 450 letters
of support and there is a clear message. We can't stop here.
We must do more and we must do so quickly. I urge the board to approve the
project and take this important
step towards people first valencia.
Thank you for your time today.
>> next speaker please.
>> I am molly pile.
I am a sixth grade student at friend school.
I bike.
I feel safer with no bike you lanes.
This leads me to believe the protected bike lane is a good idea.
I feel it will make a lot of
cyclists feel more comfortable and safe.
I think they will stop for kid crossing to get to school.
I have noticed when I am on the
bike in the streets cars give me
more room even more than
grownups because I am a kid on a bike. Cyclists will take care.
Nobody wants to hit a kid.
Maybe the older kids can help
the youngir kid -- on younger kids cross safely.
>> you are a credit to the school well-done.
>> next speaker please.
>> thank you, chair men, members of the sfmta board.
I am the parent of a sixth grader.
My wife and I have been commuting by bicycle with our daughter from our home.
I am taking time from work to
come here today to support the valencia street bike lane design proposed by the sfmta. While I understand the concerns
of the school, I think all of
us, parents, administrators can rally to develop a plan to
ensure the safety of our
children as they move from the sidewalk to the dropoff area.
My daughter suggested we enlist
our 6, 7, eighth grader to help
find solutions such as coaching
of children and other creative
solutions to come up with before implementation which haven't
been explored as the school community.
The situation on valencia is dangerous.
I know several people have have been injured and many experienced
close calls where they were almost hit. As contradictly designed I do
not like riding with my daughter
it is unsafe for children during
the afternoon and evening commute hours on the street.
Moving the bike lane so is it
not in the path is the proven engineered approaches to reduce fatalities and injuries.
There will be a period of adjustment where the road users are familiar with the new conditions. This should be met with awareness among the members of the communities.
Next school year will be an
excellent time for the sfmta to
work on the design and make sure the area is safe. >> next speaker, please.
>> sam moss, naught kramer. >> thank you, staff, commissioners. I appreciate the opportunity to speak.
I am sam moss.
Executive director of mission housing.
We are the biggest landlord on
valencia in terms of affordable housing.
We are having community meetings
to talk with families to talk
about keeping kids from being
killed, we have to put the human beings first. I just want to make sure I came
here today to say that on behalf of mission housing and 3,000
mission residents, we urge you to pass this. Thank you.
>> next speaker please.
>> natt, cramer, mike, andy.
>> thank you for this community.
I am natt kramer.
I am the parent children in the friends school.
I care deeply about theningvironment and affordability. I have dedicated my life to
that.
I about thousands here and
invested billion this is san francisco.
I Chairman Of the national solar
industry and appreciate the
city's leadership in getting
solar industry kicked off and veteran.
San francisco promoting a safe, affordable transportation is the
right thing to do so is ensuring
the safety of citizens.
This project as a pilot will wedge young children between two
lanes of moving traffic one with motor VEHICLEs and one with cyclists.
Vote down the proposal today,
send back to improve it until it is safe for all.
>> next speaker, please.
>> thank you for the opportunity to speak.
I am mike handnis head of san
francisco friend's school, third
year -- 33rd year as educator.
I am grateful for the ways the
members of the mta, members of the bike coalition participated
in the true partnership trying to address concerns.
We share values with mayor
breed's zero vision 20, vision
zero initiative in particular aspirations for safe environment.
My concern and requests are singular. The current design and location
of this project requires
hundreds of students, 5, 6, 7, 8 year-olds to cross a bike lane
where there will be moving
traffic constantly, particularly during the morning when they arrive at school and in the afternoon between 3:00 and 6:00.
The current design and location make this less safe for those children. Thank you.
>> thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
>> good afternoon, directors, I
am andy gonzalez. Community organizer.
I am here today in strong support of the project.
I want to share a story of a
person I met while doing outreach on the streets.
He is a latino man in the
mission street and bikes valencia daily to support himself and his family.
This impacted me the most because people like him are
forgotten in the planning process.
I am going to speak in spanish to try to translate.
It is important to hear why he
depends.
He explains.
[Speaking spanish j. >> to tell you the truth, I am
not sure if I feel safe on valencia.
I can stop riding my bicycle
when I know I have to get to work.
Two years ago someone hit me.
They were parked in the bike
lane and he opened the door and I got doored.
The driver seemed angagree. We couldn't understand each other.
I was nervous.
My elbow was bleeding. The driver asked if I wanted to be taken to the hospital. I said no.
I did not want to police to show up.
I don't have health insurance. I urge directors to approve this project for other people
like him who rely on valencia for livelihood.
The percentages do not reflect everyone on valencia. They are less likely to report. >> thank you.
Next speaker, please.
>> my name suaggie.
I am a voter in san francisco. I have never done this before so
this is a huge deal for a lot of
the parents in the san francisco friends school. It is a quaker school. Community outreach and being involved with the community is
very important to us.
The school strives through the community involvement and core beliefs in inter relational community and school to work of the needs around it.
There is great concern that insufficient testing has taken
place. Insufficient discussion has taken place to get this pilot
off the ground. One meeting in November we don't think is enough.
There is concern that this has
been fast track without adequate consideration for safety issues that arise from running this bike path with a number of speed
of bikes in direct path of the
children coming and going from the school.
Safety is our top priority. While we do not think the
proposed pilot is ready for
implementation, we will want to
partner with all involved for a better solution.
We are asking the city to either shift our delay the pilot as we
feel the proposal needs more thorough community process. We need to see the impact reports more than discussed here
to see what else we can do.
The items on the site it says
the mission goal is to protect
all involved, improve safety.
This is not taking into consideration the safety of the
most vulnerable citizens, the
children 5 years old. Vision zero says valencia corridor has the highest injury network.
Do we want these children in harm's way?
They need extra care, extra safety. These are our children.
>> thank you very much.
Next speaker please.
>> good afternoon, thank you so much for the opportunity to present to you today.
I am the directtor of community engagement at san francisco friends school.
We have been working with the
stakeholders on the bike lane.
The bike coalition the neighbors
as well as parent the san francisco friends community to
come up with solutions that will
be safe for everyone including
the students, cyclists and drivers and pedestrian.
We appreciate the thought
partner him the mta has offered.
We field the overall design and
speed of implementation pose a risk to the friends community and greater community.
We are eager to keep on conversations with the city with
no proposal with safety for all. Unloading san francisco friends school is committed to safety
for all, not just our community but the greater community as well.
While families from all over the
bay area come to the school we reduce car traffic encouraging carpooling, taking public
transit and biking and walking.
Many families and community members do this.
In order to prevent the cars
from cueing up we partnered with
the transportation consultants
to redirect the carpool down
clinton park. We have been grateful for the livable streets.
We ask it be shifted or delayed.
If the pilot goes through as
planned, we are asking for a traffic signage lighting as well
as crossing guard to ensure safe
crossing across the bike path as well as expanding the copy of
the project to look at loading and unloading areas for the school. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time.
>> next speaker please.
>> I am the parents of three kids at friends school.
I am pro-cycling.
I think most of our community is pro-cycling.
I am concerned about the plans for loading and unloading in front of the school.
I do not think it is safe for
our children to be put on the small concrete barrier island
then to cross an active bikeway
with no stop sign, no stoplight,
it has nothing to stop the cyclists from going down that street.
We have 450 kids.
Millennium school has kids,
probably 700 kids on this one block of valencia every day.
We cannot make san francisco safer for cyclists by making it dangerous for children. I would ask you to please,
please take time to reconsider
this proposal with respect to
the loading and unloading of
children and perhaps to shift
the bike lane to the center to
switch to diagonal parking like
bay or to consider other options
that we can live peacefully and safely together. Thank you. >> thank you. Next speaker please.
>> doug foster, scott brow man, charles bellow.
>> good afternoon. Doug foster. Thank you for the community to comment.
I am a resident of koss traand
active cyclist in san francisco and parent of two children at san francisco friends school.
I am fully in support of vision zero.
I love sfmta to make this a bicycle friendly city.
I have known a lot of people
involved in accidents in bicycles.
As the parent I do think the
proportioned plan creates a less safe pathway to get to school. I strongly encourage the board
to think of alternatives or to
shift or postpone implementation of the pilot.
There are hundreds of kids
crossing the active bike lane
based on numbers increases the
chance of a cyclist and child
colliding which I think would be
awful to say the least. Secondly, I think that there is
a great opportunity for to
mitigates the collisions between cyclists and cars.
I strongly encourage the board to think of alternatives that
don't put children in harm's way.
The times is during the academic year.
I encourage the board to minimize the inconvenience to
the school with construction and changing pant ways to school
during the school year and you
implement the pilot during vacation period.
>> next speaker please.
Scott brow man, charles bellow, catherine President Trump.
>> I support the fast tracking on valencia street.
I have biked for more than 25 years.
During the past 8 years my
daughter is on the back of my bike. I hope she will be able to ride
here own bike on valencia.
I asked her if she would feel
safe on the street she said no, because drivers do not respect
the bike lanes. At did you school enrollment.
The principal was aghast because I rode with her on the bike.
I reminded her those injured were hit by a car.
No one using a car is more
important than anyone by bike, foot or bus.
It is wrong to pretend otherwise.
It is possible to have a traffic guard to get out and block traffic.
I have done that when I take kids across vanness.
I have taken 350 kids across the street many times each year.
It is do-able, and putting bicycle lists is not what this is about.
This is to make it so everyone
is safe including students
getting out of cars and riding bikes.
It is do-able with a protected bike lane.
>> charles bellow, catherine plum. Gerald findlay. >> thank you for this opportunity to speak.
I am the parent.
My son is a second grader. I implore you to slow down.
We are not talking about
cyclists versus vehicles. Our children is a child and bicycle.
This has amid dean strip -- the
median strip where the child will get out and wait on this
little island as cyclists who
will be coming off market street, down valencia if they time it just right.
I have done it, they will be
able to go through the traffic
light to clifton park with cars turning right.
We have children from
kindergarten to eighth grade so excited to get home to see their
families they are going to forget one-time that they are in an active bike lane.
That is all it will take one-time where one of our children is going to get hurt. We are not cars.
I want a bike lane on valencia street.
I big you to slow down and think about this current proposal. This concrete island with
children crosses is not the right direction to go. Thank you for your time.
>> next speaker, please.
>> catherine plum.
>> I am catherine bloom. I have three children at san francisco friends school.
I want to echo charles' points.
i don't feel this is pitting children against bicyclists.
There is a solution that can
work for both bicyclists and
children at the friends school
and millenia and those on that one block of valencia.
The information that kimberly
young put up said loading on
WEEKENDSs 40% blocked by cars double parked.
That doesn't impact the friends school dropoff.
It occurs 7:00 P.M. To 9:00 P.M. Daily. School is over at 6:00 P.M.
Why are we doing this if the majority of issues are on
weekends between 7:00 P.M. And 9:00 P.M.
It is overkill and notness.
At the corner is there a way to look at this is with taking one
block with 700 children out of the mix?
There are smart people on the
committees, there has to be another option that works for everyone. I worry.
I know my children don't always pay attention.
They are excited looking here and there.
If you have 100 kids there someone falls back or pushes.
It is bound to happen.
I really implore you to please
find another solution for all groups involved. Thank you again for your time.
>> next speaker, please.
>> harold friendly, matt blaxena.
>> this shouldn't be a
contentious issue.
We are all concerned about safety. We know that we have created spaces of danger.
we need to protect people from danger.
Children from the school, people
riding bicycles, anything reducing car use is going to help us.
Anything that cars out of space
of safety from the danger we created is going to help us in the mission of the city.
We really need to do more about
not creating the danger in the
first place, and doing the right
human decent thing and keeping people safe.
There is a lot of concern about
children in the school.
It is reducing car use to keep the children safer.
The more people safely using
bicycles on valencia the safer the children will be. The board is move anything the right direction that way.
Really what the board has been
doing is creating the places of
danger in the first place so we don't spend resources and time
creating spaces of danger then
trying to carve out spaces of safety.
Making the argument over safety. We should make good chases from the start.
You are taking a step in the right direction.
You May quibble over details.
The status quo is worst than
anything you can do to impliment
the bike lanes now. >> next speaker please.
>> marcel barron.
There is nobody left in the overflow room. >> thank you for your time.
I am a resident of san francisco and ph.D. Student in city
planning at uc berkeley. I applaud the improvements
including on 17th street, folsom and in the wiggle.
Cycles is dominated by young white men.
Provided safe protected bike
lane is the number one way to
diversify the people bicycling. Research has shown that building safe bike lanes benefits local businesses when parking is removed.
People are much more likely to
frequent those corridors than streets legs friendly.
Loading zones have been
incorporated for the benefit of the valencia merchants.
If you build for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you build for people and places, you get people and
places. Finally, san francisco has
ambitious air quality goals and transitioning more travel
towards bike use is a cost-effective way to advance both priorities.
The recent camp fire demonstrated we cannot take
clean air for granted. We make pollution free travel
attractive to all residents of san francisco we must pursue those options.
Missions in california, 41%
where generated by transportation. I urge you to approve this
measure in the current form and make san francisco a more
livable city. >> next speak concern please.
>> can I get the overhead please.
I want to be clear temperature current situation ovalval in
front of the friends schools is -- on valencia is dangerous.
Cars are the danger. undeny iably.
This is a parent biking his
children to friends school.
This is the bike lane blocked by
parents and scars in the friends
school -- cars from the friends school. >> quiet please.
>> the design for this stretch of valencia is international
best practice if you visit cope
pen hagan or anywhere in the fifthther lands bike pathses are next to the sidewalks.
As we move to a climate conscious future. We are going to have to adapt to
the design.
The sfmta staff did a really
good job working on a design
that will be the future of san francisco. I am here to personally represent the safety of my daughter and wife.
They are standing back here.
My daughter biked valencia one
hundred times in utter row. My
my -- I want to choose that
climate conscious healthy community first neighborhood
approach to living in my city safely.
My daughter May go to friends school someday. That playground looks awesome.
I would love to bike her there. This is a first good step.
We have a lot more to do on valencia. I will be back to talk to you about that.
>> next speaker please.
>> I am you tina beatty. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
I am the parent of a current
student at friends school and
graduate. I urge you to delay this pick
pilot proposal and gusto the time to think of ways to make it
safe for all.
When my graduate started at
friends school in 20092009.
I have seen that section of the
neighborhood change dramatically
and traffic ask an issue for
pedestrians and bicycles and
drivers.
Do applaud the move to action to
try to change things there.
However, I do think that there
has to be a better way for this
because the safety for all is
not necessarily being addressed
as adequately as I think that it
could be if there would be more time to invest in it.
I am here today to urge you to vote to delay, please. Thank you.
>> thank you. Next speaker please.
>> sarah bertram here?
Michael felled dram. >> michael feldman.
A parent of the friends school.
My message is the same as every
other friends school parent. Stop and rethink what you are
doing and revisit the whole plan. It is interesting what I have seen today.
It is uncomfortable for me and
the people in the friends
community that somehow friends and the bicyclists are against one another.
I think in general both are
supportive, I am sure.
Bicyclists don't want the kids mowed over.
I can assure did you parents
would like to see safety for
bicyclists.
I find thow whole think a bit strange.
I guess one thing I would like
to point out we keep saying that
surely kids will get hid by the
-- hit by the bicyclists. I believe that.
Not on purpose but I will tell
you I am sure some of you have kids, maybe all of you have kids.
I don't know how old they are. You can recollects the younger days.
You will will remember kids are space cadets.
No matter good intentions the
odds of the kid doing something stupid and get anything the way
of a bicyclists is 100%.
We don't want to see that and I
doubt the bicyclists want to see that.
I urge you to reconsider how thumb is done.
>> next speaker, please. >> hello.
Thank you for allowing us to
speak today.
As I said here to listen the such respectful dialogue between
the two parties who do feel we are pitted against one another.
I feel the needs of both are paramount. The safety of bicyclists is not what it could be.
That video you showed, I see that a lot.
It makes me worried for the bikers.
The plan now is not, I don't think, taking into consideration
this nature of the youngest children and most vulnerable at the friends school.
Crossing an active bike lane is
not the safist improvement on
that part of valencia street. My 6-year-old in the morning is
trying to unbuckle the seat
built and put on the backpack
without falling out on the curb.
The safety measures the school employed to make sure the kids
safely get to school is important.
They are not immune to other safety issues.
They have been on lockdown because of gun violence.
They had to evacuate the front yard because of people in the front.
This plan should be delayed and restructured to create safety
for both the bicyclists and the youngest most vulnerable children at the school. Thank you.
>> next speaker please.
>>. >> good afternoon. Thanks for taking lead to put this forward. I will try not to have our
family dominate the time here.
I will beacon size.
We have a couple of kids at san francisco friends, as lindsey told you.
Until a few years ago I worked
in the mission and would
commuter up valencia accrues 17th on a bike.
I am in a car when I drop the kids off.
I look at kids like molly on the bike. That would be saw some.
I have seen the cargo bikes.
I would love to do that. Having ridden up valencia before
I am not going to do that with my kids right now.
I love where this is going. You
you are not going to find parents pushing where this is going.
I do not have confidence where
these kids who want to sprint in
for the 8 minutes on the awesome
playground are going to have the presence of mind to manage this process. I love where we are going, I
want to put this pilot in place,
it is too early right now. Thank you for your consideration.
>> next speaker please.
>> kaetlyn kavanaugh, jimmy. >> hi. Tosh honest I don't bike.
I find it exhausting.
Accolades to those who do.
I carpool all day every day to all parts of san francisco.
I have two sons at san francisco
friends school and my husband bikes valencia to work.
My concern is the pilot program
is being rushed and the children
attending the friends school and
parents and care takers involved
in pick up and drop off are not being in consideration as much
as they should be. Safety is crucial, of course. I am not convinced neither
should you this is the best solution. Thank you. >> next speaker.
>> jimmy, paul, natasha.
>> good afternoon, directors. I am jimmy.
I am a san francisco resident
since 2012 and recreational cyclist.
I frontally ride my bike on valencia street.
I want to thank you for the
upgrades in response to mayor breeds' directive. Improvements are needed.
It is great to see it happening.
I urge you to make the
improvements a here's and -- a priority. valencia is dangerous four cyclists. I have experienced this many
times from dangerously close passes by motorists to car doors
to pedestrians walking in the
bike lane without looking.
I urge you to work towards a
protected bike lane.
Motor vehicles are dangerous.
We should be using infrastructure changes to discourage the use.
We can achieve this by making
major corridors safer and more
convenient to bikes and scooters.
You can make positive changes by encouraging people to do the right thing.
Thank you for your time and attention. >> next speaker please.
>> good afternoon.
I am paul valdez.
A valencia street cyclist
survivor.
The bike coalition, the people
protected bike lane movement.
Thank you for expediting the mayor's directive for the pilot project.
The recent community workshop warpings
workshopwas appreciated.
It including a protected bike
lane with better intersection visibility and parking and boarding changes.
I am here in support of the pilot.
A no-brainer and teaser. The dangerous movement on the
corridor as we know is the entire stretch of valencia.
I know there is a long term project.
I look to support the protected
bike lane we deserve to be shield would from the tnc's on
the streets that compromise our safety.
Let's get this built and the
next phase of the improvement project can be constructed with
safety for all cyclists,
families, students, children's and pedestrians.
To the parents I will go out and
cross the kids for you so they
are safe. >> thank you.
>> next speaker. Tasha, nick, bryan.
>> hello.
I am natasha and I am a community organizer at walk san francisco.
We are excited to see this expedited.
This is important to making the
streets safer for those walking and biking. I have been hit buy a car on
valencia suffering a broken arm
with a long time in the cast.
If safeties improvements had come sooner that crash would
have never happened.
It has some of the highest rates
of pick up us in the city.
There are dangerous conditions
for people walking and driving. Walk san francisco believes the
changes included in the project will make valencia safer for everyone. We urge the board to pass the project. Thank you.
>> next speaker please.
Bryan, nick. >> I am bryan.
I ride my bike on valencia every day.
The current bike lane is dangerous by design.
It is a parking lane for uber
and lyft.
The mta needs to separate the
bike lane to mission on the south end. Don't stop at 15th.
Let's get moving to make it all safer. Thank you. >> next speaker, please.
>> nick barron. Adrian.
>> good afternoon.
I am a 20 year resident of the mission.
I live on valencia street. I bike it daily with my 3
year-old daughter, and we fell
off our bike last week going around a lyft.
She got a concussion.
I wasn't expecting that to come
up in my head.
I applaud these parents for
speaking with the safety issues. We need the safety issues for all user also. I believe there are real concerns about this block of valencia street and those
schools, there are also valid
concerns about the entire length
and safety of the bicyclists and those getting out of the uber
and lyft on the streets.
Valencia is a parking lot for uber and lyft.
I understand the concerns of the parents.
We need to look at the entire picture.
On the block I believe there are
already various measures taking
place on the projects to
mitigate the issues.
There will be a railing.
There will be yield signs and
many of us are prepared and
signing up to be traffic guards.
A lot of schools do traffic guards for those commute hours. As someone who tried to get
through that block when parents
block the bike lanes, it is a really difficult issue.
I think we need to look at the big picture.
This is good for the entire use length of valencia. We should definitely work with
the friends and millennium schools.
Let's not lose sight of the need for valencia level transit improvements. Thank you.
>> I am glad your daughter is on is okay.
>> barron and taylor.
>> I am nick.
My partner and I have residents.
We work downtown and we commute
on valencia every day.
It is an experience where we are fearful often. I think many people have
addressed why the double parked lanes.
I am certainly feel for the parent that have to have concern
about kids' safety as well.
Payment as he stated we can't lose sight of the big picture. If there are other ways to help
those children feel safe with cross guards I think that would be a step in the right direction.
Also, I want to reiterate what
many other people have said.
This pilot is very important,
however, I feel that the other
parts of valencia are more dangerous sometimes.
I encourage you to act swiftly not this but other parts.
I have been hit twice on the valencia corridor. It is something that is
personally concerning to me and
my partner who is here.
>> next speaker, please.
>> aiddrea and emily.
>> thank you. Thank you for letting me speak about this important issue to me and my community.
I strongly support this.
I live on valencia and 23rd in the mission. I would like to see it all the way from market street.
This is an amazing beginning. This little stretch.
It is little but it means a lot.
It is the beginning of something huge for 15 or 20 years.
I am excited to see the
commitment to the four month time length set by the mayor.
I hope to see the start of construction next month.
I want to use my bike every day
to go to work, buy groceries.
I want to feel 100% safe while biking on valencia.
I am not worried for the kids.
I would like to bike on the street for my kids without having to worry.
This is the way to do it to get there. Thank you so much for your time.
>> next speaker please.
>> taylor, emily, marsha. >> I am taylor.
I am a member of the sf bike
coalition and latino club.
I am in support of the bike lane
to save lives, encourage more healthy active transportation and getting people out of
private cars.
After witnessing the last fatal bike crash three months ago I
saw another crash between 14th
and 15th at valencia where the proportioned project is happening. After helping the man recover
from the shock, we grabbed a beer together.
He wanted to be here together.
he works as a maintenance worker.
He is a 25-year-old latino raised in the mission.
A few weeks before the crash he
started bike to the tenderloin. He shared how the biking every
day improved happiness and
helped with depression symptoms.
Since the crash he stopped using
his bike due to the injuries.
The crash went unreported.
There have been 278 reported crashes on valencia. There are thousands of others like the one that I witnessed
and the one that he described a
few minutes ago. If we add drawn out community
process to every block, we will
never achieve vision zero in san francisco.
Let's find the solution for the
700 children in the two schools. A crossing guard seems like a reasonable solution.
There are thousands of children
crossing streets and bikeways throughout the mission at public and private schools.
We can find a solution for the children. Thank you.
>> next speaker please. >> emily, karen.
>> thanks for letting me speak.
I am emily.
I lived in the southern san
francisco for 17-years biking on valencia street that time.
I will bike over to the friends
school to go to the services. However, during you typical rush
hours times I ride on the red
carpet omission because I find
it safer surrounded by giant
buses than to ride among parents
in the S.U.V.S checking kids
in the bike lane and ubers
afternoon LYFTs and door bash
earns and the party in the neighborhood and going to the
suburbing to live in their mansions and gas guzzlers. That said I am in support of
this block of the protected bike lane.
I have a feeling of urgency
about extending to entire
length of valencia street.
By framing this as parents concerned trolling over
youngsters versus we who are
trying to save the planet by
getting the heck out of our gas
guzzling vehicles, we need to be
united anal lined to save the planet from drowning and burning up.
That is my two
two cents.
>> next speaker, please.
>> I am tamra marsh.
I am a member of the bike coalition.
I support protected bike lanes on valencia street. We need to do more.
With working at mike's I don't
go a week without hearing about something on valencia street.
It is a scary place to ride.
I got hit on 14th straight.
I have -- 14th street.
I have pins in my shoulder.
Two weeks ago my co-worker got
hit on 22nd and valencia.
Pedestrians need a safe place. Please approve this first part
and work on the rest. >> thank you very much. Next speaker.
>> karen, rebecca, georgia.
>> I am karen reese.
I am the parent of fourth grader at friends school.
My daughter rides her bike every morning to san francisco with her father. Her own bike.
i am grateful the city of san
francisco and the mta and made or breed are working hard to
make biking safer in san francisco. I have seen great progress in
the 21 years I have lived in san
francisco to make biking safer. However, for the protected bike
lanes I am concerned not sufficient consideration has
been given to ensure the safety of the children attending
friends and the project has been too rushed.
I ask the board of director to
delay the project to allow more
thorough assessment how children can be protected.
I am concerned they May run
across the bike lanes when they exit the car.
Would it be possible to have a physical barrier between the
bike lanes and island, crossing
guards and cyclists to allow the
safe crossing of the bike space.
Can children line up to allow
unloading of the cars payment? Will the timing work for
unloading car to avoid a backlog
of cars during rush-hour traffic?
I I know how important protected bike lanes are.
I was hit by a car while riding
my bike with my 4-year-old
daughter in the bike trailer.
I sustained a permanent compression fracture on two vertebra.
My daughter was protected by the bike trailer. I ask you to protect our children.
At this stage there has not been given sufficient consideration.
>> thank you.
>> next speaker.
>> thank you, board and thanks to the mta staff.
I am here today as a mom of two
at san francisco friends school.
I bike commute to and from the school extent for wednesdays we
walk with about 10 kids.
One day I carpooled six kids to
the school in a mini van.
I am supportive of vision zero and the bikeway and I commend all of the work of those in the room and the staff getting it where it is now.
Like many other parents for the
changes proposed I am concerned that adequate design
considerations focused on bike
traffic and things like a crossing guard which the school
requested but was told it wasn't
possible our moving the carpool
to clinton park we were told it wasn't possible.
As others said smarter people in
the room can figure out better than we can haven't been added to this plan.
I also feel like we want this to
be a successful model for the im
implementation around the city.
Lit's approach with belts and susintenders so it is --
suspenders so it is a model for other places around the city. Thank you. >> thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
>> georgia williams brat. Is she here?
No.
Devan brady? Mural Mcdonald.
>> thank you to the board.
I live one block and I bike on valencia frequently.
I am in favor of this project and strongly opposed to delay.
Any delay will just increase the possibility of more
life-changing injuries like described here.
I strongly urge the board to
make this pilot happen also kin
it all the way to mission
street, and I think fulsome
street is a great month ticketed -- protected bike lane.
I have not heard of anybody hurt on that lane.
People get off the bus and get
to the bike lane esly.
It is not a great safety concern.
I wish that some of the streets
are fantastic. More consideration could be
given to closing it off to cars entirely.
>> next speaker please.
>> I am mooreial Mcdonald.
I bike valencia street daily as
director of public affairstor skips scooters.
As a cyclist and citizen I make
a decision about when to ride my
bike or get in a car based on safety.
I have to weigh my desire to bike and too get exercise and the benefits with that against feeling afraid.
Once in a while, I feel afraid and get in the car. I don't want to make that choice every day.
I want to feel safe when I make the ethical and healthy decision to ride my bicycle.
As somebody excited about the
movement in the new mobility space. I see a future with many more
individuals in the coalition of road users that need protected bike lanes. This can't come quickly enough
for the safety of those
currently riding bikes and those newly considering getting out of
cars and adopting smaller
lighter vicks that need
protection.
[Please stand by] >> they do it all the time in
market street and valencia. People just want to get to the
outside. Biking is extremely dangerous. It is like a slalom weaving in and out of uber who are jerking over in front of me.
I almost hit 11 time but again I was able to swerve. We have to be alert. We are always alert.
We are especially alert around children. Please approve this project and consider extending the length of valencia.
Thank you for your time and attention. I appreciate your service pic I
understand you don't get paid a lot. Thank you.
>> thank you for all your work with bikes and caltrain.
Picnic speaker, please. >> is.
Here cloth. >> good afternoon, commissioners I am a bicyclist who occasionally rides on valencia and I am from the netherlands
which was mentioned earlier. Everything he said about this
design was right. I think the only thing he got
wrong was the notion that people will be dropped off by car to go to school. That is crazy why we do that. I have never been dropped off at school by my parents in a car because they have better things to do and because everybody
bikes there or walks. It is an obstacle course. There is double parking
everywhere.
It is not uncommon for there to be three double parker seen
anyone block, which is crazy.
These changes are long overdue. They are fantastic. There are mixing zones involved.
It looks like there is an intent to say it does change those and I would repeat the call from the other speakers to bring this to
the length of valencia. As for kids having to cross the
bike lane, I would like to point
out how pernicious the notion of
cars is as a default mode of transportation. Kids have to cross car traffic and we would put a crossing
guard there peerk we do that as
a reality that we accept. Cars are infinitely more dangerous to the lives of children and any human then
bicyclists are. I think we should put a crossing guards there. We should put a speed table there. We should take measures to slow down bikes and make it safe.
But I think we should not pretend that bicycles are more
dangerous or knew when we allow
cars to take over public space. I wish people got more worked up
about that every once in a while
>> are you all here? >> thank you for the opportunity
to share with you today. >> we hope they will be able to bike themselves to school. Since we live in the mission, valencia street has been part of
our commute and our oldest is in preschool.
I do not love biking in san francisco. Especially valencia street.
There are times when it is extremely emotionally and
mentally exhausting to be on high alert the entire duration of the ride. Not only because it is myself on
the bike but also because of my two precious kids.
Every time we bike in addition to the regular negotiation of the vehicles next to us, the
bikes behind us, the doors being
opened cat dealing with a double parked cars is very challenging. We have a large and heavy
electric assist bike which is difficult to manoeuvre. There are times when there is a double parked car and the traffic will not let me move over. I have to come to a sudden stop,
which is dangerous for those
behind me on their bikes as well anything that can be done to create a safer condition for me
to bike with my kids, I would really appreciate it in this city. I want to enjoy biking with my kids and not have it be something that gives me an anxiety attack every time I go
out there. I want to feel like this that he values and supports us decisions we are making.
The improvements on valencia street will hopefully be a step in the right direction. I'm encouraged to see the improvements being presented here and I hope they are just
the beginning of the plans and that the roads will be safer for my girls when they start to bike in the future. If I have another couple seconds , I will show you my girls on their bikes on the
overhead.
[Laughter]
>> the no sound but they
are screaming, hi daddy! [Laughter] >> thank you very much. That is adorable. I love their unicorn horns on
their bicycle helmets kick. >> good afternoon, directors. I'm a resident of the mentioned and I know valencia street pretty well. -biking there every day for
years now and have been very involved in this project and know it very well. There's something to note here is that valencia street has been known as one of the most dangerous streets for biking in san francisco since 2008. It has been a decade that we have been dealing with this danger. This is not being rash.
Sfmta has been slow to move this forward. We finally see urgency to make our streets safe. I respect the parents, but it is a perceived danger that they are afraid of.
It is not an actual danger. Valencia street is an actual danger. We can't keep giving -- kicking
the can down the road and say we will delay. If I thought there was a reason to delay this to come to a
better solution, I would be in support. I'm always complaining about designs and this is the best design going forward.
This is the only feasible design the parents think there is another option but this is the safest designed for everyone. What we need is enforcement and
we need to ensure everyone -- cycles are being careful and that students are crossing properly. I would also like to add that we need a sense of urgency about climate change. Everyone forgets that just watch
what weeks ago, your kids could not be outside. We are dealing with climate change. The greenhouse gas emissions from transportation in san francisco are increasing. We know we have an issue with parents driving their kids to school. We can't keep kicking the can down.
We have to have a discussion. Your kids May be slightly more dangerous crossing the bike lane , but not any more dangerous than driving them on the highway and not more dangerous than what we are doing with ignoring climate change. Thank you. >> thank you.
Next speaker, please. >> thank you for your time, directors. I appreciate it. I live in the city.
I bike by valencia every day. It is a frightening nightmare.
I support the enclosed bike
lanes from market to mission.
One of the things, we blame the T.N.C. But there is also all the
restaurants on valencia who have runners. They park their cars and they
leave the cars and run and get their food and come back out.
What we have is a public subsidy for a private enterprise. We are paying for these
businesses. ironically enough, it is the same thing with the french school. It is a private enterprise. Is not a public school.
It is 33,000 a year to go there. I would suggest they hire people to ensure the kids can get
through the bike lanes safely. Thank you. >> thank you very much.
Next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. My name is john cabot I am a
current resident and former
resident of d9 and I work with
livable city which puts out
sunday streets.
I commuted to work on valencia
street for quite a while, and I have to say, it was always
harrowing to have to swerve
around all the T.N.C. And everything that just happened on
a day-to-day basis and that is me as an abled bodied person. I can't imagine what it's like for a youngster or someone who
is navigating this street for
the first time. As a representative of the city, I want to say we fully in
support -- fully support the fast tracking and improvements
on valencia street.
We would like to expand this out to the entire corridor. Working as sunday streets for the two years that I have been there, it is amazing to see what we can do when we put people
first on valencia, and when you
see the kids out, learning how
to ride a bike, but you also see folks writing and everyone is
coming out and supporting and people before me have talked about how this is how it happens when you put people first. People come out and enjoy these spaces.
I fully support the improvements
I will be there when these improvements are on the ground
to help make sure that the kids
can get home safely. Thank you. >> thank you.
Next speaker, please.
>> hello.
I am a year mission resident. I bought my first bike when I
moved to san francisco at 24th and mission and I have been riding my bike almost every day
since then. The first time I was hit by a
car was ten years ago.
In front of all el toro. The second time was five years later in front of a pizza joint around 25th and valencia.
Since then, I still get those anxiety attacks so often that I
will not ride my bike or be
terrified to ride my bike. Luckily, now I get to ride on
harrison street in the soma. They have a wonderful protected bike lane.
I saw this morning they are adding folsom street coming back both of my rides are safe, but
anytime I think about going down particularly to 24th and
valencia, I used to think that 24th bus and the taxis were bad ten years ago, but it is a nightmare now with cars picking
up door-
-dash services, and stuff like that. As much as I am filled with anxiety, I think about other
early -- other differently abled people or kids who do that path. I have seen more and more kids
writing really fun bikes on valencia street. Want to hear about the parents
of bicyclists, I get that anxiety again almost like when I
got hit. It makes me terrified for what happened.
When I was hit, both times the
cars pulled into the bike lane and nudged my bike. Both times I was okay. I am one of the nonreported
statistics.
I loved what happened on the
bike lanes in the soma and I can't wait to see something
happen like that and valencia street.
>> next speaker. >> hello. My name is rick. I live in bernal heights. On a volunteer in the bike
coalition for the last ten years
more than ten years, actually.
This year my wife and I went from having two cars to one car.
We did that because we want to reduce the carbon emissions, and we want to reduce the amount of
traffic in san francisco. We write everywhere accept my wife will not ride on valencia. It is too dangerous.
I wrote here today. And I wore my bright yellow jacket. It is don't run over me yellow cat because I have been run over before. I know what it means to have your life out of commission
after being run over by a car. Not by a bike, but for me it was
a bus. I've been hit by a bus and a car
I think that greatest danger is
of cars and buses to pedestrians they don't have any business
being on the same streets. On my way here, I met a window washer who carries all his supplies in his pocket on his bike. He is trying to set up a fleet
of window washers on their bikes that is what we should be
looking towards.
On my way, I dodged four cars and was forced to move into the traffic and this is a huge
problem.
It is a design problem, and it is a political problem. Cars run this city and we have to get rid of the power required to decide how we will do
everything.
This summer, I spent time in copenhagen, and amsterdam, and they know how to do things. I heard it from the other speakers.
It is safe to ride their. When I came back here, I felt like I was returning to a third world country. It is time that we enter the
modern era and that we have
infrastructure that supports the
future of transportation, which is pedestrians and bicyclists,
not automobiles and google buses >> thank you very much.
Next speaker, please. >> afternoon, directors. I am a new resident of district six. I moved here about six months ago. I live on top of the eighth
street improvements and I
use folsom every single day to
bike about a mile to work. Every single day, I passed several crossing guards that
protect children crossing the
road and bike path and to the bike lane.
I think a similar solution could be found here.
I really do want to ask our friends at the school to stop
stealing my agency. We are trying to pay us close
attention as possible, and I would argue we are more vigilant when we are not so close to
moving vehicles.
Why the haste? It is ten years before we start
seeing even worse ramifications with climate change and doing everything we can to get more
people who don't look like me to use bike lanes and use active transportation modes to get around the city which is
worthwhile.
This is a world-class improvements. I look forward to writing it
does riding it. >> yes, put that down and S.F.
Gov will turn it on.
Thank you, S.F. Gov. Into the microphone, please.
Thank you. >> thank you for letting me speak. I am representing my two
daughters.
I wanted to argue before you
today about proportionality, and
this is my daughter, lod --
elodie and she has been writing basically since she was born. This is her today.
She rides on valencia. We turned west on 25th.
She rides on the sidewalk.
>> right now I can jog along side of her and she is not even
four years old yet. She probably won't be able to
bike on valencia. What I submit to you
respectfully, is proportionality proportionately how many more
kids will be protected and will
be biking on valencia street as this project goes forward versus how many kids just aren't on the street right now, that's all I have to say. Thank you. >> thank you very much.
Next speaker, please.
>> S.F. Gov T.V.
Thank you. >> hello. My name is jim. I have lived and biked in the southern half of san francisco for nearly 20 years.
I'm here today with my daughter,
and apparently my assistant as well.
She is a fifth-grader which is four blocks away. Her brother, who you can see
there, is a second-grader.
We have been moving a cargo bike on valencia street since oscar
was one. There are many families using the bike lane. I suspect there are more children who are users of the bike lane then there are crossers of it.
I understand that parents at schools on their stretch don't want the children to cross bike lanes. It is clear to me these parents are not self entitled
millionaires driving gas guzzling S.U.V. Is. They clearly care about their
safety and their employment. I believe that with traffic arts
crossing, it should be safe.
May be -- we have made our point with traffic arts crossing, the lanes should be safe. A guard can make cyclist stop as children cross. I am happy to volunteer as one of these cards and I'm confident I will find other children's
children's parents to do it. many would probably volunteer
for this as well. Vision zero is an excellent goal but is only meaningful to the extent that we build the infrastructure to make it happen the mayor clearly understands
this peer changing streets requires compromise between
different stakeholders and also requires that drivers change their habits.
I have not heard why all these parents have to drive. Many of them who probably take
public transportation or bike. I think I heard mr fitzgibbon say he will not bike because he doesn't feel safe. >> thank you.
Thank you.
You did a great job. >> hello. Thank you for the chance to speak to you.
I am a d5 resident in a strongly support the approval of this project.
I ride my bike or a ford go bike every day around san francisco,
and often on valencia street. Biking is beneficial to our communities because unlike cars, it does not emit pollutants that
are noxious to our health, it does not emit greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, it is healthy as a form of exercise, and it relieves congestion on our roads.
When I asked my friends why they
don't bike in the city, they say because it is dangerous. It is dangerous. We have heard many stories today about how dangerous it is. We need more protected bike
lanes like this one to make biking accessible to everyone in
san francisco. the more protected bike lanes that we add, the more bikers we will have, and the safer our streets will be.
As for the school, let out a crossing guard in front of the school like we do for crosswalks
and intersections with cars. Thank you for your time and
consideration. >> thank you very much.
Next speaker, please. >> hello. My name is diane. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I am a member of the san francisco bicycle advisory
committee and I am a bicycle safely -- safety educator. I have been writing in san
francisco and in this continuous
has just carried for almost 20 years. And my observation is valencia street has become much less safe
with the advent of uber and other rideshare companies. I ride literally every day.
I ride to my day job, I ride to
teach, and I ride more errands and for recreation.
My observation is that people who walk, people who are on bikes,, in people and vehicles
are distracted.
I know that the sfmta is largely
an infrastructural organization,
but I think it is behavioural change that would go a long way
and I continually advocate for
more education of people who
walk, people who bike and people who are in vehicle so they can
use infrastructure more safely. Infrastructure changes happen regularly in san francisco and nobody is educated on how to use
them properly or safely. I don't like this being a pedestrian versus bicyclist,
versus car driver situation, and people tend to be very territorial about the areas that they think that they own. Car drivers don't understand when bicyclists are in the bike
lane on valencia that to pass a double parked car, you have to
go into a traffic lane which cyclists are able to and they don't understand that and they get angry and they act aggressively. I am not necessarily against
this project, but another thing
that I observe is that less than 50% of the time, people crossing in a crosswalk or midblock on
valencia or any other street look for traffic going their way they are looking at their device and looking somewhere else, but they're not looking for traffic. That will happen on this pilot
project because there is nothing --
>> thank you. >> next speaker, please.
>> lauren followed by ivan. Those are the last three cards that I have. >> thank you for your time today
I live and work in the area.
I commute valencia every day. I am scared and it doesn't need to be that way. I am scared for myself and scared for my daughter and scared for my husband that he
May not come home one night. We need change now. I support the project now and I support the extension of the project down the street.
Thank you.
>> next speaker, please. >> hello.
I am ivan. It has been a long day.
i will try to keep this quick.
Quick is how I want this to go. I want the changes on valencia to be implemented as quickly as
possible. I could tell you I have lived there for 20 years since before the bike lanes went in. The bike lanes that went in over
my dead body that the director of the M.T.A. Of the time said.
I don't want them to go in over a real person's dead body like
they had to do on folsom street. The bike lanes happened overnight. It was truly only after two
people were crushed by trucks and we don't need a tragedy like that on valencia.
Let's get these lanes in now on a trial section and all the way
down and as quickly as possible. Thank you. >> thank you.
Next speaker, please. >> if we have anybody else who
hasn't spoken and would like to, if you would line up to your
right on the side of the room.
Do we have our last speaker? >> herbert weiner.
One condition I would like to have the pilot project is that the bicyclists in this area walk
their bicycles on the sidewalk. That would be legal and I think that's a fair exchange, and it protects people who walk on the sidewalk. Thank you.
>> next speaker, please.
>> hello, my name is jj.
I live on valencia street. I will keep this short.
I commute every day on bike. Every day it is dangerous. I have friends and my fiance who
would like to bike, and they say it is unsafe. I can't disagree with them. I have seen the bike lanes work on folsom and I feel really safe
there. I would like the same sort of safety afforded to me on valencia street. Thank you. >> thank you.
I think we have one more speaker
>> good afternoon.
I am a 30 year resident of 23 rd and valencia.
I bicycle at the bike lanes regularly. Several times a week.
I too take videos as I go and I would love to show them to you today. I think the ones that have been
shown to have made a point.
I hit a person when I was on my bicycle on 14th street bike
lane not too long ago. I hitch them. It was an uncomfortable moment
for both of us. That is what it was. Two months ago, I watched a
truck right took a bicyclist on valencia street, and I will say that the sound of a bicycle being crushed under a truck is
not one you soon forget.
So I would recommend that we not worry as much about the bicycle
pedestrian interaction as we do about the car interaction. The cars that come in and park in the bike lanes to do
drop-offs is really dangerous.
It is just really dangerous. I no longer bicycle in the bike
lane, I generally bicycle out in
traffic.
I can go as fast as the traffic. I am not slowing of anything down, and it keeps me from
having to go in and out, and it keeps the cars from having to go
in and out in the same way. Very often, people will rush and erase me to the red light. That is a common thing.
It is part of what you live with
but with the situation as it is now, all of these different cars
coming in and out of the bike lane, it is really, really
dangerous and I recommend in support this initiative. Thank you.
>> thank you very much.
I see no more public speaker -- I see, did you already speaker? Please come up. One more public speaker.
If there is anybody else -- this will be our last public speaker. >> thank you for letting me
speak.
I am in support of the protected bike lane.
I have a four month old and a 4 -year-old. Right now, as a mother, without a protected bike lane, my
ability to bike is a lot more decreased.
I think for parents with
children, it is really important
, and I want to make that comment to you guys. >> thank you very much. Congratulations. You had the last word. Public comment is now closed.
Before I turned to my fellow directors for questions and discussion, I want to thank all the speakers. I think it can be a really emotional topic when we are talking about safety, and everybody did a really good job of being really respectful to each other. I really appreciated to, because
a lot of times these
conversations can't devolve. Thank you very much for coming in and thank you for being respectful. If we could have you back up, I am sure we have questions and concerns from board members who would like to start us off. >> I will start. I saw you put in the boarding
island which is an interesting initiative.
As a possible, or do we consider sensors or flashing yellow
lights for when you've got close to those locations where we are
expecting people to cross quiet it is -- is it possible we could
add that to the project? >> I will talk a little bit about the treatments that we can
use. I will let kimberley talk about the specifics of a flashing light. I think it's really important to
note that the design of the
island is something that we take
really seriously in terms of how we are treating interaction between cyclists and pedestrians we have built in a number of design features to make that a
safe interaction, whether it is by putting a railing along the
south or marking the crosswalk, including signs, marking for
cyclists that they have to yield and something that we do routinely as part of these projects is continue to tweak the signs on the markings after
the initial implementation. As an example, when we did the eighth street protected bike lane a couple of years ago in
front of the holiday in, we did a loading zone there. The implementation is we went
out and tweaked it. and then it didn't work exactly as we wanted. So we tweaked it again. At the end of half a dozen iterations of when we put -- where we put the markings on the signs, we found something that works. I am confident that with enough work, we can also find something that works well. Whether or not that is flashing yellow lights are a variety of science. I don't know. We are committed to working on it until it is functioning the
way it is supposed to. >> I was just talking about the reflective ones that are on the
sidewalk.
I guess, just related to that,
the notion of crossing guards,
and I think -- I mean for the
most part, we are talking about a limited period of pickups and dropouts in the evening and the morning. People do come at other parts of
the day, but I don't know the
process for crossing guards. I know we don't really oversee
them. But is that something that we
could do here? This might be a question for the director.
I remember we had an issue for funding for crossing guards and it was kind of complicated. >> yes.
>> I can address that briefly.
So we actually do employ over 100 crossing guards through our school crossing guard program. There is a guard stationed at the corner of 14th and valencia today which is not directly in front of the school but it does serve children who
are going to certain schools in
the area. I think the idea of providing
some kind of human presence, especially if this was approved when it was first built, would be a very good idea. Crossing guard is one option. A parking control officer May be one option.
We have people who are very skilled at managing the flows of pedestrians and keeping them safe in the streets. I think there's a lot of options for that.
>> these things -- I think we could still incorporate them
with the intent in supporting
the pilot today. >> absolutely.
>> I guess, the other question I had to, is there a reason that people can't travel or stop on
the park caught one of the things that came to my mind as if I was concerned about conflicts, I would come down
either one or go up a different streets. I used to live on pearl street so I'm very familiar with around
there.
Is there any reason why people cannot do pickups and drop offs on those streets? >> yes. We did speak with the school yesterday, and we are working
with them right now to take a look at other opportunities or
pickups and drop-offs.
>> I think that that seems like
-- does two streets are not very highly travelled. I think it seems like a viable
option for people who were concerned about that conflict.
I think the board is a creative
solution to the situation and it is thoughtfully done. I was surprised to see there was so many people concerned about
the conflicts. I spend a lot of time and valencia street. It is surprising.
I understand why we can't do the corridor at this time, but being on the evenings on valencia
street and watching people stop in the bike lane nonstop, and people almost getting adored, it
is absolutely unbelievable. There is a natural conflict that resents between does exist that
between restaurants and businesses. They need to get their goods. There is no where to park.
They end up in the bike lanes. We have to stop these conflicts. When we talk about the number of
people who have died, it is really critical to figure out.
I am commending you on these items and I am eager to see how
they will work. I am excited. I think if we can come up with the groups that we have been talking to her around some
around safety for the pilot that
we can look at, obviously some education with students at the
school, kids will run. They will not be looking.
This is -- the human presence is going to be really critical, and then the flashing lights. Will we be timing -- will there be any timely -- timing related -- we are not adding a cyclist
late, but will there -- cyclist late, but will there be any
timing where people -- >> the question I believe is asking how we will be slowing down cyclists.
>> if there are people there
back sometimes I bike. And if you try to go as far as
you can through as many lights as quickly as you can you do get a bit of a head start -- head
start. Are we looking at making sure that we are slowing people down
as they come onto the block of valencia? Is that it even possible to do that,.
>> at the intersection, they
will be receiving signal separation. Cyclist and right turning vehicles will have their own separate phases. Our team is working to the timing for the intersection as well as taking a look at the intersections within the project
within the area of the school loading zone, cyclists will be encouraged to slow down because the bike lane is a little bit
narrower adjacent to the islands essentially it would encourage cyclist to go slower and also potentially go single file in
that area.
>> can we do sensors related to people and the light because I don't know if it is possible. In the times when there are a lot of people on the boarding island to, it would make sense, or a lot of people coming in at
that time if there was a sensor that could sense the people and slow down that timer.
I don't know if that is possible I know sensors can do all those great things.
[Laughter] >> we will be sure to take all this into consideration as we are working through our signal timing design.
>> to be clear, we know that
this project has been under
works for a long time. It seems very fast for everybody else, but it is not fast enough for people who cycle on valencia
street, quite frankly. When we talk about over 200
collisions, it is hard to say
that we need to wait longer for collisions to happen. I guess, the important thing to say is that this is not the end
or working with schools. We are looking for ways to make
it safe in the process.
That is the point of the pilots. It is to see what works and doesn't work and tweak it before
we roll it out more broadly.
I do commend you on that, and I think whatever we can do to work with the school around the crossing guard, the flashing light, and using those two other
streets, where there will not be the bike lane and boarding islands for people who are super fearful, and maybe do that with
the younger student and all the older student, I don't know. It is something to think about
their -- something to think
about their. >> thank you for all the hard
work on this paradigm supportive of the project overall but have concerns that were expressed by the parents and I think that
those are valid. So whatever we can do to make them happy I think would be ideal. I feel like we are not that far apart. Could you talk a little bit about some of the things that were asked for but we couldn't do, media sounds like the
crossing guard, or a P.C.O. It
May be an option. >> yes, the project manager is aware that there is a loading rail outside of the school. The school felt there was not
enough space for loading so we have made some other adjustments to the design to make sure we
are providing a little bit more loading space.
>> like widening it?
>> on the block of valencia
which is just north of the school, there are two spaces that are available that we're
going -- we will have open for school pickup and drop-offs. We are also taking a look at the loading zone on the other side
of the street where millennium school and an unseen greek orthodox cathedral are located to see if we can extend the
times for the passenger loading to provide additional spaces as well. And another request that came from the school was to have a
left turn restriction coming out of the park.
It goes eastbound towards valencia. There was a request to restrict the left turn during pickup and drop-off times to help with the flow of traffic. Is something that is included in the legislation brought here today. Some other things are working on
today are the crossing guard to take a look at that. We are also looking at additional loading zones in the
area to help us -- help those
operations overall. >> are they okay with the crossing guard, I feel like if that were my kid, I would want
peace -- I would not want a stopping just a crossing guard
and a stop sign.
That is where this is really critical. You don't want to impede the
bicyclist going through. The other piece that I think about is eventually we will see a lot of electric scooters as well. That is a whole different ballgame when you have people who are renting a vehicle or are not familiar with the road design. That is where you need a live person to make sure that they stop the bikes and electric
scooters and give priority to the five and six-year-olds. >> we have heard the concern
about having a crossing guard or enforcement out there. Our team is taking a look at
that to see what we are able to provide.
>> can we commit to that in some capacity so they know that they will have some kind of relief when this gets going and it is
not just mayhem? >> yes.
We can commit to that for the first two months after
construction and use that two-month period to figure out what the right to use of the human presence to regulate the flow of bikes is.
We certainly can commit to crossing guards or some combination of that.
>> I think that would be great. >> thank you. Anything else?
>> R.H. >> I want to thank all the
parents who came out today.
There are two issues I am very concerned about. First of all, I support the mayor and her leadership in this whole area, and the staff, and I know how hard you all worked on its.
You are dealing with little ones these bicyclists have to be
slowed down at the school site. And I travelled that road all
the time to get to work to oakland and I know and I see how
fast some of these cyclists go. You will have to have a live
person there or some other means by way of slowing down the
bicyclists and protecting the
children there as they are crossing. I encourage you to continue to work with the school or schools
to find out a negotiated plan that can help in those areas and
keep parents judge of mind at
ease as a figure out how to deal with the situation. We are a city and we have to get along together but we also have
to be protective of each other. Thank you again.
>> thank you. Anything else?
>> I have a couple of -- one quick and detailed design question. That is for the couple segments where we have floating parking or the parking that is protecting the bike lane, can you discuss the path of travel that somebody would take from the car to the curb?
I know in the past we have had
consensus in the way that they can access the curb from that
parking. >> would I be able to project
this slide, I will ask the project engineer to come up to walk you through the curb ramp
design for that.
>> okay. >> I am an engineer with the project.
As you can see, this is really
hard to see. This is a little easier to see. This is what the school loading
will look like.
Where I am circling, we have this icon that represents the
curb ramp.
So at all of our parking spaces, there is a minimum 5-foot
accessible path next to the parking spaces.
And each of them should connect to a curb ramp. They will connect to the curb ramp. If it doesn't connect to one
meant block, it will connect to one at the corner.
For these parking spaces here, it will connect to the curb ramp at the corner. For the parking spaces here, it will connect to this curb ramp.
We will have an accessible ramp that connects to every single
parking space. >> can you show the one that has the parking spaces on it because
I know it is hard to see.
I just wanted to -- thank you. >> we can try and pull a better image. >> the other point to make here is that the project is adding
six new programs as part of the design.
We did go through the design with the accessibility staff identify where new ramps would be needed and where they are needed we are adding as part of the project.
>> great. >> we can sense the more detailed image to you
specifically. >> thank you. i appreciate that. >> thank you. That is a really important question to bring up. >> yes.
>> just one more thing.
Just to make sure that I am thrilled we can put someone out there to help for the first two months. We want to make sure we can keep working with the school and get them happy.
I know the vice chair has kids
who are the same age as mine. We both really get it in terms of what the parents are thinking
through this. We also support the safety measures as well.
I think that it is really
important to try and get to a place where everybody feels like they are benefiting. The school will benefit from a lot of the safety measures overall. We just want to make sure that piece of them getting across isn't a source of daily stress for the parents, and fear for the kids. It could be done.
>> this is a design that folks May not be familiar with. We are also committed to having an educational aspect of the project particularly when the bike wait opens to all users are familiar with how to use this,
rather whether it be a cyclist,
or a parent trying to access the zone, or to someone driving through. There will be an educational
component to the project as well >> goods. Thank you. Directors, thank you for your valuable inputs. there's almost nothing left for
me to add to that but I will add it is to reiterate some of what we are- -dash we have been
hearing from the public on the board for making the kids crossing the active bike lanes safe.
We will say one of the parents
use the term belt and suspenders
we will do everything we can design wise and human intervention-wise during the pickup and drop-off times to make sure that those kids are
safe when they cross the bike lane. I also want to reiterate what one of the cyclist said. When you cycle in the city, you are pretty much ready for
something to get in your way at any moment and I know because I bike in the city. You're almost just always ready for something.
When you know there are little children, you are being extra aware of it and being extra careful of sudden movements that
little ones might make. Bikes can stop quite quickly in
a situation like that.
We will go for the belt and suspenders of extra signage,
having the P.C. Over a couple of
months, and I understand you are looking into working on the surrounding streets to maybe
facilitate drop-offs on those on guerrero and clinton park, and whatever that third street is
that I can't remember. Fantastic. Those are things that the board would appreciate a report back
May be in written form or gesturing the director's report as it goes on. especially for the two months of
the P.C.O. Might be there. And whenever you have to go out to reengineer other little fixes
if they are needed. Other things that people brought
up that I thought were really important are the ideas of scooters. We do have electric scooter is continuing to use our bike lanes we need to start thinking of
them as bike and scooter lanes. They really could continue to
explode in our city. The notion of so many unreported crashes on valencia street is
really sobering. Especially when you hear that a lot of those unreported crashes might be from our neighbours who were undocumented and fear
getting involved with any sort
of public hospital or police officer.
That is really sobering to me. Again, climate change. We just had a horrible example
of why we need to encourage
people to not drive as much.
Those days we had to spend wearing masks and trapped indoors were horrible. Everything we can do to help the
world not contribute car emissions to climate change is great.
I want to do a shout out to the friends' school. They have a good transportation demand management program, and
although there are -- I don't know how many kids, there are 500 kids going there. From what I understand, they
have some of the best carpooling transit biking and walking rates in the city. A really big shout out to that school for being a partner in doing this and making sure that
they have as many children not arriving in private automobiles
as they can. Thank you everyone for your work on this. Thank you, directors for your remarks.
Do I have a motion to approve class.
>> so moved. >> second. >> any opposed clot hearing none , this is approved. Thank you for coming out. I really appreciate it. Why don't we take a short break before we move on to our second
and last agenda item.
[Laughter] >> that is not how I was going
to introduce the item. Writes. This was not a recessionary kind of conversation.
We were charged, as you recall, by mayor breed to focus on and accelerate improvements in muni
service. About three months ago, we
responded with a list of actions , short, medium and long-term that we proposed to
take in order to meet that call.
Three months in, we wanted to
report back to you. We also set ourselves some targets that we were aiming to meet. We wanted to report back to you
and the public on how we did and
what actions we took, how we did relative to those targets, where
the work ahead was, and how we
are looking at this going forward. Our acting director of transit
is here to expeditiously walk you through a high-level summary
of our report out on what we have been focusing on the last three months and what we are looking at going forward. >> thank you. Welcome.
>> good afternoon. >> as managers of san francisco 's transportation system, we have no more
important role than providing
transit service that is safe, reliable, and equitable.
Muni is woven in two every
fabric of our san francisco
community and it is critical that we deliver excellent
service to meet our agency and
our citywide goals.
This summer, I don't think we
lived up to that target, and as
a result, our service delivery was not as high as it should have been.
We did feel systemwide impacts for both our bus and our rail
customers.
Part of why that happened is we were taxing the system in a very
unique way.
In addition to our ongoing need
to replace operators for hiring and for promotion and retirement
purposes, we were also training
on new technology, including our
radio box, our farebox, we had
an M.O.U. Mandated general sign-up where operators had an opportunity to transfer from bus
to rail, which also comes with a high training buried burden, and
we were bussing major rail lines
where for every two car train, we need three or four bus
equivalents in service.
So that is how we got to this point.
As we look to the future, muni will be increasingly important.
The city will grow to over 1 million people. the need to carry people efficiently and safely is going
to become more present. Despite the different
performance, I am still confident in our overall plan to
deliver excellent service and build on the improvements that
we made over the last five years
we are one of the only systems
in the country that is bucking a really negative ridership trends
our ridership is stable and where we made investments in transit priority in larger
vehicles, we are seeing a significant ridership increase.
Things like equity first
planning, free muni for youth,
seniors and people accessibility , transit first
streets, the greenest fleet in america, north america, actually those kinds of things or what I
think will continue us through the next several years of
investment and improvements.
Among those, one of the things I'm most excited about is we will continue to talk about the
fact that muni is currently the greenest fleet in north america.
That is coming from a very different point where we were four or five years ago, and we had what -- we have one of the
oldest fleets in america.
As ed indicated, to keep us on
track, and I think as a strategy
to develop some really ambitious near-term targets, we developed the agency improvement plan, including the actions we
identified for the current 90 day cycle. We have been focusing September, October, in November on delivering this work.
It was a very effective management tool.
we had weekly meetings where we
checked in with people on their progress and where we identified where people were running into barriers. I do think we achieved some things that we hadn't achieved in the past, or maybe would have taken a longer timeline to
deliver.
We also wanted to hold ourselves to measurable outcomes. That is one of the key things
that I will report on today. We wanted to get our service
delivery up to 90 6%, would ultimately, this number has to be 100%.
That is critical to reliable service. We also wanted to reduce gaps on both the rapid bus lines and the metro lines.
You guys will hear me start talking a lot about managing service gaps. What I am talking about is
reducing the amount of unexpected wait time that somebody might have on the bus service.
If you expect the bus to come every ten minutes, does it come
every ten minutes, the reason for that is that san francisco
has a lot of unpredictable
congestion and delays. So I'm not that confident, for
example, on the eight bayshore
that I can say, on any given day , it will take this amount of time to get through the 101 freeway.
But what I can say is all of the vehicles are experiencing the same delay. If we are very closely watching
the spacing of those vehicles from our customer perspective,
it will be a seamless experience
on the left -- less frequent routes, we are focusing on on-time performance, because of
a bus comes every 20 or 30 minutes, somebody is more inclined to look at a scheduled
and on a 38 gary, which somebody is more likely to walk out and take.
And then our last metric was around reducing preventable
collisions. The safety continues to be our highest priority. I'm really pleased that this is
one of the areas that we -- that were most effective during the
last 90 days. So the first place that we really focused was putting
service on the street. Over the 90 days, we
accomplished a tremendous amount we familiarized all of our l
R.V. Operators on the new siemens vehicles which is
allowing us to get more of these vehicles in service and really
get these amenities and customers more quickly.
We also increase the size of our rail classes and we are now delivering 100% of the rail service. That is important because almost a quarter of our ridership is on the rail system, and those are our highest capacity vehicles. We also converted part-time operators to full-time which helped with our hiring, but hiring continues to be -- hiring new operators continues to be our biggest challenge.
We are looking at a whole range of things, including
partnerships with the city, potentially on helping people
get their b. License, which makes them great candidates for
our program, and reaching out to
untapped areas of the workforce.
The next area we focused on was enhancing service reliability.
Again, consistency for wait times, and on-time performance
on the lease frequent routes.
We started using new tools in the transportation management
centre that allows us to know how evenly the vehicles are spaced, and also how many people
are in the vehicle.
If I have two vehicles and I need to decide, okay, which one will I slow down, or which one will I light maybe turnaround, I
can choose the one that has very few people on its. We have real -- realtime
ridership information on the bus side right now.
We also replaced some of our most vulnerable infrastructure that was creating major subway delays.
I noted out a little bit on this but we do anticipate as a result of having better switches to
exit certain areas that we will have fewer subway breakdowns.
And we delivered on a major transit priority project completing the gary rapid early improvements.
What I am most excited about as we look forward to the next 90
days is moving the rail system
over to our modern transportation management centre we are just wrapping up the final installation pieces of the radio on the rail system, that will allow us to introduce these more modern management tools on
the rail system. And the third area I wanted to highlight for you today is
safety.
Here I think the investment I am most excited about is an effort
that the safety department ledge across the agency to try and
reduce sideswipe his. The streets in san francisco are
very narrow and these are our largest source of collisions. We have looked at everything
from how we train operators, how we stop at a stop that has a double parked car, because one of the things that we were
finding was that by trying to
sneak in to get as close to the curb, you were leaving the corner of the bus out, which was
making it very vulnerable to sideswipe his. We also looked at the back of the vehicle itself and added some reflective tape to make it
more visible to motorists.
We saw almost a 20% reduction
year-over-year in sideswipe his. That contributed to us needing this reduction and collision
goal. >> these are our results.
The service delivery, we are near meeting our target.
We are at about 90 5%. We did have a new operator class
graduate.
We were there to welcome our newest members to this family and I was really wonderful. We are going to continue to do everything we can to increase operator hiring sideswipe
process. As well as got very close to meeting our goal on the outer rail system.
We will -- now our focus is on
sustaining this work. We did not meet our own time
performance targets on the circulator routes. The routes that take people from
hilltop and bring them down into our core system. The owl routes which are infrequent -- infrequent. We did focus heavily on making sure that service was on those routes, and that we weren't
missing service, but we continue to need to look at new ways to
enhance on-time performance.
And then finally, as I discussed ,, we reduced our
preventable collisions by 5% and
we will continue to focus on
collision reduction.
Moving forward, I plan to take
the month of December to reflect
on our progress and learn. We will also invite more feedback from the folks closest to the work. I often think that they really
have the best ideas, and we also have some actions that we didn't complete.
They will roll forward with the idea that the next cycle would begin in January and carious
through March -- and carry us
through March. In that period, we will be doing
a two month closure of the tee
line. The scale of that construction
is smaller than twin peaks, but
we are very actively taking the
lessons from twin peaks and making sure we apply them to the
project so we really minimize systemwide impacts while still providing really excellent service for our tee line
customers.
In the next 90 days, I think our
biggest challenges are going to,
as I discussed at the last meeting, be greater reliability.
Really reducing subway delays, and focusing on operator hiring.
Those will be what I put out to staff as I challenge them to
identify actions and strategies
to continue to improve muni service moving forward. Thank you. >> thank you so much for the presentation.
Directors, questions, comments, concerns,. >> I have a question. Is it possible to employ this strategy that you did for this
90 day plan in a more long-term fashion so we can continue --
continually -- put the spotlight
in the way that we did in a
finite period of time, I ultimately think it takes that level of scrutiny and teamwork
and priority to achieve these
things for the long term. >> that is what we recommend. >> absolutely. I think it has been a very
effective process and tool.
This is really what the mayor has challenged us to do.
And I think when we talked about
it here, the board seconded that so this continued enhanced focus on service delivery his. Absolutely it is something that while we did not hit all of our
marks for the first 90 days, we think the process was effective and it is something we will carry forward. >> can we get this report every 90 days or something?
It would be helpful for us, even if it is not here, at least
every 90 days to get an update
on how we are performing in these areas.
I think also, it will help us when there are problems to head
them off more quickly. >> sure.
It is a good idea. >> yes, director class payment door.
>> this is very helpful and very helpful. It feels like the real wildcard is the operator shortage in what we will do long-term to address that. I feel like that is happening in a lot of arenas where staffing is a challenge including with teachers, for example,. Is a big issue in our local public schools. I'm wondering if we can talk about more of what we think could be jonah long-term in terms of addressing that issue.
I feel like if we got everything out there but nobody to drive
the buses, it will be an issue. >> yeah.
What I would say since julie is in charge of hiring operators, she is in charge of putting them
into service. So we have been thinking a lot about this. It has been quite a while since we've had a challenging hiring
folks to work part time, but now , recently even to find folks who want to work full-time is
becoming more challenging, as
the unemployment right mac gets down to zero, it is getting more
difficult.
As julie said, we are partnering
with the city of office diversity office of economic and workforce development to explore
ways we May be able to work with folks ahead of time to get them
more ready to get more people
ready to be operators such as
licensing requirements or other work readiness skills.
We are looking hard at the way we are making people aware of
the opportunities going far beyond just posting it up on our website, or even sending it out
to C.B.O. Who do employment support and looking at many different ways to make sure that
people are aware of the
opportunities. So there is a lot of thinking that we are doing and steps we
are taking to try and broaden the pool to increase the number of folks who apply to actually
follow through in the process.
What we have found in the last time, for example, we had a pretty good return in terms of
people applying for the job, but when we called them in for the next step, a lot of them were not interested.
We are also looking at looking
how to speed up the process. You are right.
This is our single biggest challenge.
It is being felt right now most acutely with regards to transit
operators.
But we are looking at areas of maintenance, particularly skilled crafts. We are having difficulties. We have had some calls for positions when we have not been
able to get anybody. For certain types of technical positions. This is something that I know
other city agencies and schools and others are having.
It is a challenge given the economic dynamic of our region
right now in our city, but we
are very focused. I did discuss this with the mayor, and she gave some support and direction for working with the economic development folks here.
That partnership will be helpful but this is something that will
take a lot of focus in order to bring in the staffing that we
will need to provide the service
thank you.
>> I love the report.
I love the idea of breaking down the rapid bus lines being measured by gas, because we know
gas is incredibly frustrating for passengers, versus looking at on-time performance for the
low-frequency routes, I know all of us were forwarded the article
about on-time performance and what that means, and what that
measure, how that measure is implemented. I think that is a really good way to look at it, your example
of the nine, if the buses are coming every ten minutes and
they're all stuck in the same traffic, you will be only
waiting ten minutes for that bus whereas on the low-frequency routes, although a lot of people
are using their next muni on their cell phones are on their
devices, it is still having that best not show up on time is kind
of a bigger issue.
To speak to the hiring, I was fortunate enough to go to the
training department and they let me try to drive a bus. It was amusing for everybody. They do such a good job out there.
I know that -- it struck me that the last couple of classes, the
graduations I went to, we do not get a lot of women making it through the classes.
I am sure it is a combination of
we don't get as many women applying, but I wonder if it is
worthwhile looking into doing, I don't know. A women only class. I do wonder, I know I felt intimidated with the idea of driving a bus. I do wonder if women are not applying to drive the buses because they do feel that it is
just an overwhelming idea to drive that big of a bus.
I wonder if there is some way we
can widen our hiring pool by making that job appear more approachable to people and particularly women. That is not something that I expect an answer from.
Just an idea. The last flute just a few classes did not have a lot of women graduating. They do say that women are later on the equipment then the men.
[Laughter] >> maybe that is something to look into. Thank you so much.
I know that this has been a big focus.
I know it's been a lot of work.
I know with all the other
challenges that are going on, that this took extra time.
I think it is really showing
results and I love the idea of since we are going to continue
to look at this in 90 day cycles , let's go ahead and have a brief presentation back to the
board after the end or close to the end of each 90 day cycles so
we can look at what is working
and we can acknowledge -- speak knowledgeably to all of these situations. That will be super helpful. We will get a chance to watch the progress until you good good
job when you come back. Shows good progress like you have done with this one. Do I have any other comments
before I go to public comment,. >> I have to support the idea
about a women cohorts. It could be a really interesting
report. >> a lot of people have done that as a way to encourage more women to join and it is something, I don't know how difficult it is, but if we could do something like that, it could be very good thing that he doesn't have to be a woman only class with some sort of feedback from the drivers to show other women out there that you can do it.
I do it.
We had a number of women at the award to have been driving in
the city for decades. It could be good. Doesn't have to be -- and eat we need to show women out there. >> many of our trainers are women. Many of the team leaders of the
classes are women. Even the managers of the training department. I think you're onto something
here. We will explore. >> that does remind me of one more thing. After going through that class, I did say to the trainers and I
said it to the operator, that from now on, now that I understand how hard it really is
to drive a bus, and in particular the idea of pulling into the bus stop to get your front door within 12 inches in your backdoor within 18, you have to take the front corner of that bus over the curb. The curb where everyone is standing with their toes hanging right on the curb.
You can't really do it when your passengers are so anxious to get to the bus.
I did pledge that now every time a project comes to us, one of my
questions will be, how does this make this easier, and safer for
our operators to do their job? That is my pledge. If I don't do it, everybody hold me to it that I will ask that question.
>> did you drive a bus class. >> I did. It was terrifying. The trainers were so good. >> not on the road where there were real people. >> just in the parking lot.
I believe we do have -- thank you so much. We look forward to continued improvements on this character we have any members of the public while. >> yes.
>> yes, mr weiner?
>> I realized that this is a
formidable task, and I appreciate the 90 day
accountability. I have some suggestions.
The one thing, the turnarounds
are a nightmare. Some transportation managers throughout the country will say this is america and it is apple
pie. But it leaves a bitter taste in
passengers' amounts.
This happens on the one
california line of presidio and california street, there are so
many turnarounds that have been, and people are really inconvenienced.
Also, there is a city of vehicles on sampson and market street where you have to weighed
a long time for the two to come in. And the three jackson sits there waiting for passengers.
Also, accuracy in the
transportation panel.
You can walk away from the bus stop thinking the bus will come 20 minutes later, and three minutes later, it comes and you
have to run back to the bus stop and there is a lack of a travel
panel operating. Thirty-second and gary street is a major transit point in the
city. That panel has been not operating for years. It should be.
It is also -- a statement was made that transportation has to
be woven into the fabric of the community. That is a very accurate statement. But you will have to walk a quarter of a mile to the bus
stop and that is making it difficult for people. Especially the seniors on the disabled.
I'm wondering if it isn't a violation of the american
disability act.
In conclusion, I want to say you provide one very important service. Some senior citizens cannot drive -- >> thank you." time is up. >> that is at. >> thank you very much.
Do we have any more public comment?
C. And none, public comment is closed, and I believe that concludes the business before you today.
>> remind us, do we have another meeting class. >> there is another meeting
