City and County of San Francisco Tuesday, March 05, 2019

>> okay. If I could call this

meeting of the board of directors to order. Ms. Bummer, will you call

the role.

[Role called]

>> Mr. Chair, you have a quorum. Please be advised that the ringing and use of cell phones, and pagers, and other electronic devices are prohibited at the meeting. Any personal responsible for one going off in the

room or ringing might be

removed from the meeting.

So we do ask that you put your cell phones off

because vibrations do cause microphone interference.

So turn your devices off.

Item four, approval of the

minutes from the February 19th regular meeting. >> okay. I as sume there

assume there are no questions from the board.

Seeing none, we close.

Is there a motion on the February 19th minutes.

>> motion to approve?

>> Mr. Chair, item six,

introduction of new or unfinished business by board members.

>> Chairman:   board

members, anybody have any new or unfinished business.

>> I would like to

introduce a motion to continue the conversation

about affordable howf. Housing.

There is possibility,

potentially in the future,

of pursuing development at crusuo yard. I just want to make sure we're keeping an eye on our contribution to the city's affordability challenges. Is one. Do you want to do the

second one now, too?

>> Chairman:   please.

>> we spoke at our workshop about operator recruitment challenges, and I want to know if you can do an update on how

the work is progressing to increase improvement and

meet our hiring goals.

>> Chairman:   director

riskin, we'll leave it to your discretion on whether to bring it back. Please do address both of those issues at a future date? >> I'd be happy to do.

>> Chairman:   any further items?

I know we'll get our next

report on metro issues. I will say, so that the public knows, we're keeping an eye on this. That there have been certainly some service improvements, but we had an issue with the train control system, obviously the other day, and an

issue with the embarcadero station, and hopefully those will be addressed in your next report, and

we'll see the same metrics that metrics. And I think that takes us

to item seven, which is your report. >> good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and members of the board and public and staff. I will speak a little to

some of the muni service issues as an interim, so

you don't have to wait two weeks. Before I do, I want to ask tom mcguire to come forward, to recognize the

city employee for his outstanding efforts in support of vision zero.

>> good afternoon, tom mcguire, sustainable streets director, and I'm here to ask you to recognize one of our colleagues in the department of public health, devon morris. Since we adopted vision

zero at 2015, this board has always urged us to

make sure that all of our

efforts are data-driven,

and devon has been at the core of using new and incredible ways that have

proven to be a model for

every city that has adopted vision zero. He is focused on improving

the quality of traffic collision data.

He has built good working relations with different departments, the san francisco police department and the

california highway patrol,

and published a traffic

collision data base called trans base. To make it easier for the public and our staff to get information about crashes and to map that data.

He has done the diligence and hard work, finding duplications, and working through the mess that collision and crash report

data can often be.

Extensive use of geographic systems, and he developed the an analytical

tools to create what you

hear about, every time we come asking you to support

changes to our streets.

Devon's professionalism

and responsibleness is

only part of it, and we're

lucky to have a public servant like him on our team. I would ask you to join me

in recognizing devon morris for his help.

[Applause]

>> data people are known for their public speaking, and so we expect something grand from you.

>> yeah, so I'm actually a developer. And public speaking is not my forte. So I don't have any prepared remarks. But thank you for the recognition. As it is a team effort, I would like to thank all of

my colleagues with the P.D.A., and police department, and the department of public works, who have helped me throughout this process. So thank you. >> thank you.

On behalf of the city and the agency, we appreciate all of your work. This is -- I know at some level it is just data and development, but what you're doing is saving people's lives, so thank you for doing that.

[Applause] >> so staying on the topic

of vision zero, I want to acknowledge that last friday, here in san

francisco, was a tragic day on our streets, and it

capped a week that saw five serious collisions, which as of today left two

people dead and at least three more seriously injured.

So just to walk through those.

On last wednesday, February 26th, a

westbound driver fatally

struck cho chang, a 64-year-old woman who lived in the richmond district, as she was

walking across california

street at 18th avenue. It currently being investigated as a

hit-and-run, and the mini video unit is providing some additional support to the P.D. As they search for the driver. Last friday, the first of

four, starting at 1:50 A.M., a driver drove the

wrong way down a one-way

street at mccallister, and the driver struck a tree and remains in critical condition.

And a little afternoon, a 38-year-old man walked out of the hospital driveway

on to the side, and he was hit by a driver and remains on life support.

That evening a driver on mancel street crossed over the dividing line and struck a car heading in the opposite direction.

It was a head-on collision. The crash killed one of the drivers, 44-year-old

gerald gracebotch, who we

understand was a teacher at san francisco state.

And at 7 P.M., a person walking in the crosswalk was hit by a driver driving on jackson street, and was seriously injured.

Now, this is just kind of preliminary information publicly available that we know. Obviously the police

investigations are under way, and we May learn more. In the meantime, as part

of our engineering rapid

response protocol, our sustainable streets division engineers have gone to all of these locations and immediately there are some things we're doing, such as updating the signage at california, leavenworth, and the mancel locations,

as well as daylighting on

the corner of divis and jackson. And as we learn more about the details of the

crashes, we'll add other safety improvements as

they become evident.

Also, yesterday morning, a muni vehicle struck a 96-year-old man walking

near west portal. Thankfully, as we understand, he is not seriously injured. But, still, obviously a bus striking a 96-year-old man is cause for concern. So we've placed the

operator on non-driving status while we try to determine what happened there.

So a very, very bad few days.

And just as a reminder, I don't think you members of the board need this, but to re-emphasize for the public, that vision zero

is premised on the idea that even one traffic faltlity on our streets is unacceptable. We believe that every one

of these is preventable, and we don't consider

these crashes to be accidents. Since vision zero was

launched in 2014, we've implemented more than 230 miles of safety improvements, initiated

more than a dozen public awareness compaigns, and the police department has

issued nearly 175,000

citations focused on the most dangerous driving violations.

Part of that data that we were acknowledging is data that helps us understand what types of driving behaviors are most likely to result in serious and fatal collisions, and that's where the police department has been

focusing their enforcement efforts. So clearly there has been a lot done, but events

like last week remind us that that's also clearly not enough.

Last thursday, as I had indicated to you before we would, the city released its vision zero action strategy, which is a document that includes commitments from 14

different city agencies, charts a path to zero deaths by transforming our streets, reducing dangerous driving, and

connecting the response to

traffic deaths to our city goals around equity, climate change, and affordability. And it also reaffirms the city's long-term commitment to vision zero,

and for the first time

extends beyond standard

engineering and education actions, needed to achieve vision zero. This is some of what we shared with you and got your comment and support on at the board workshop back in January.

So we do want to ensure that tragedies like this

don't go unnoticed or unmentioned or unresponded to.

And they do demand that we

all recommit ourselves, as

a city, not just aus as us as the agency, but all of us in the city, to recommittee

ourselves to getting to zero, and asking the public to join us in making sure our streets

are safe for all who use them.

So more work to be done.

On a lightly related note,

I wanted to give you -- given that speed is one of the -- I think it is the leading primary collision factor in serious and fatal collisions, an update on speed bumps, which we might have seen

an increase of in the

city, which there are

various versions of, speed

humps, raised crosswalks, and recently we approved a large number of them, including 50 in direct 11 alone, as part of a traffic calming initiative

we have been undertaking with supervisor safai.

And we installed 86

devices, and this first

month we've installed 54

devices in 40 locations,

and we anticipate another 207 devices at 130 locations. It is a lot of numbers, but it is to say there is a lot that we're doing in, and generally in response

to requests from our neighbors and communities

to slow down traffic on their streets. Meanwhile, additional applications for traffic calming are increasing, which is a good sign,

which we know clearly represents an appetite on the behalf of people of the city to make their streets safer and get people to slow down.

So encouraging signs there.

The chair did mention the muni subway performance, and while we'll have a more formal update at the next meeting, as we will each month, I did want to acknowledge that after going almost two weeks

without any major service

delay, up until last thursday, we did have a

number of issues.

And as we know here, it is great that we had two weeks, but transit folks know you're only as good as your last commute, which right up to this morning we had a few that weren't so great.

So just to give you -- to share with the public a

few that we had, last thursday morning, from the start of service until about mid-morning we

experienced two different

automatic train control

failures, which created -- the main gist of which meant that all of the trains had to go through

subway operating in manual mode, which means the through-put of the subway system was very slow. And in order to keep the

trains from backing up, we

turned some trains at the portals, forcing people to have to transfer on to the trains that were running. We were able to

troubleshoot the issue

with very kind of bizarre and unusual issues, something we had not seen

in two decades of the train control system, but, nonetheless, took some corrective actions to get the system back into order, but also to work with our controllers to

try to prevent recurrence.

And we did put out a note

to riders later that day, acknowledging what happened, letting them know we're doing our best

to reduce the incidences of such issues, and really trying to be as transparent as possible about them. The following day, around 3 P.M., we had a

20-minute delay at embarcadero station, when

an operator had inadvertently caused the train to freeze up while

trying to regain ought

automate automatetive train control.

There are areas where we can reacquire communication, but in this case, it resulted in a 20-minute delay. On saturday, we had a signal violation which locked up the switch at west portal, which is kind

of a safety precaution.

But it caused a 40-minute service impact. We have been working a lot, not just with the operator that was involved

in that, but with all operators on rail signal compliance. It is something we've been working on for quite a number of months, including with our partners as the labor union. And finally, this morning

we had a few miscellaneous delays, nothing major, but

it caused slow service coming inbound for a

little bit during rush-hour. So still work ahead. We will have our acting transit director come back in two weeks with a more formal report. But I did want to acknowledge that challenges were made, and we're doing our best to both address the challenges and to communicate well to riders and be as transparent as possible.

A couple of other quick things. The 16th street improvement project, which

you approved last year and

is designed to improve transit reliability and

transit time, while addressing safety for all

users of the corridor is about to get under way.

It is new traffic and

pedestrian signals, and we got a call from way back

in the P.E. D. Days that ultimately this will be how 22 filmore will get to mission bay, and the part

of the 22 that goes up

into petrero hills, will

be substituted by another

line, so 22 will been a

strong cross-town route, connecting from mission bay into the mission and

up through the filmore to the marina. Phase one of the project is the eastern end of the

project, which is from petrero east all the way to third. And that is the phase that work is starting on now. They'll be working from

west to east in order to accommodate other construction work. And this phase is expected to be complete in a little

over a year, in the spring of 2020.

Work on phase two we expect to be advertising

soon and have that go into

construction this fall.

We are -- in order to leverage the funds that we have for construction in

the city and minimize construction impacts, we are also partnering with

the P.E. C. To replace some old underground water and sewer lines, and after this is done, the street will be completely repaved.

And so we'll have a safer, better-functioning, more transit priority street

when the work is done. Giving

I haven't given an update about parking garages in a while, but I want to make

you know that the parks

project is now completed. Nine garages with three more under construction.

So we're about at the

half-way mark. And notably, even though it wasn't an initial goal

of parks, we've seen a 72% reduction in break-ins over the past year. And that is because in

addition to the enhanced revenue control equipment, the garages have improved

lighting and signage, and

additional payment options that offer the higher level of security for

credit card transactions, but there is cameras,

there are intercoms, and along with the lighting, we think the whole package of improvements is contributing to the reduction in break-ins, which is great. What was the original intent was that -- and what we're seeing at the garages where these have

been done -- is that the operations at these operations is much more efficient, allowing vehicles to exit because there is not a cue for

folks waiting to pay for a cashier. Efficiencies are also

reducing overhead expenses at certain locations, that

in the past were manually intensive to operate. And we're getting much

better and much more real-time data from our garage operations. The new equipment went

live at the japan center

annex garage, and the post-street entrance of the main japan garage yesterday. So, again, we don't really

talk about it much, but good progress being made

on our parking garages. And then, timely finally for me, I wanted to note sunday

streets -- the 11th year of sunday streets kicks off this weekend.

It will be on saturday -- not on saturday, that would be saturday streets. It will be on sunday,

March 10th, from 11:00

to 4:00, on valencia, with activities hubbs between

14th and 16ths, and 24th and 26th. As you know, sunday streets is a program of

the non-profit "livable city," and it is presented with the M.T.A., the department of public health, and the city and county.

More generally, the annual event -- or the annual

season of events reclaim car-congested streets for community health, transforming them into spaces for everybody to enjoy. The routes are one to four miles in lengths with lots

of fun and free activities pro

provided by local non-profits, community groups, and small businesses.

I do want to note -- I know we've heard a lot about and from small businesses, but they're an

intergal part of "sunday streets," and they help

ensure that merchants benefit economically from

the influx of patrons that "sunday streets" provides. there have been lots of lessons over the years on how to make that. And we also know that typically about 85% of the participants are from san francisco.

About half residing in the host neighborhood. So it really is something that is serving our folks locally here. The first one is here in the mission. Another one in the mission

in July and two in the

excele exceler.

And June in sunset, the golden gate park. And south of market in September, the western edition.

So a robust season, and hopefully the skies will clear for this sunday. Finally, I want to ask our

director of communications to come forward and

present some work that she's been doing with regard to a request that

we received to commemorate the work and life of rosa parks. >> okay.

Good afternoon, board, director reskin, and the public, marketing and communications and

director for S.F.M. T.A.

You May have heard shamann

walton and at least one other constituent --

>> can you turn your microphone up?

I believe people are having trouble hearing you.

>> okay. so supervisor shamann

walton and at least one other constituent suggested that muni follow

the actions of a few other transit agencies across the country by honoring rosa parks and her historic protest against

bus segregation using some

of our vehicle ad space and space on our vehicles in general. And we appreciated this idea, and actually thought it was a really great time to come forward with some ideas on recommendations

for your consideration. And since February has passed, and black history month is over, we're looking forward to the

next month, which is women's history month. And we think that that is a fitting time to celebrate and honor some of the courageous women who have helped transform the way we think about equity and the use of transit, including a specific honor for rosa parks, and I'm going to talk about both of those now.

So for the rosa parks' tribute specifically, we're thinking, how do we

celebrate this historic barrier-breaking contribution that rosa

parks has made as a civil rights icon?

She is one of the most closely associated names with the fight against racial discrimination on transit. and just to remind

ourselves of the story, in December 1955, Mrs. Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger and move to the back of the bus and stand, which

is an action of defiance

that touched off a year-longmont

long montgomery bus boycott in alabama. And it ended with a

supreme court ruling that

segregation of public

transit was unjust and illegal. She paid for the bus service across the

country, and her role was

obviously pivotal to the civil rights movement, and she has been called by congress as the mother of

the freedom movement.

So international icon, nobel peace prize winner. And we're proposing we do a little more than mark a

seat for her in the front of the bus. We're proposing we do a campaign that talks about her honor and also encourages the public to ride. So we use it as an opportunity to remind people of the freedom that rosa parks has brought

to -- and the equity that rosa parks brought to bus service across the country and also here in san francisco. I'm going to show you some

creative in a minute, but because we always like to do a little more, we

thought we would take it further and talk about some of the other civil rights pioneers and what they did right here in san francisco. And these are some stories that you May not be aware of.

On one of them, almost 100 years earlier than the actions of rosa parks is

the action of a young african-american named charlotte brown, right here in san francisco, who fought public segregation

on our city's horse-drawn street cars.

She was trying to ride -- she actually did ride, one

of the omnibus railroad company street cars, one of the predecessor companies to our public system. And because of her race,

she was refused a ride on the street car.

But she didn't just stop and accept being not allowed on the vehicle. She actually went to court

twice, and she won. The second story of another perhaps more well-known civil rights

pioneer is the noted african-american entrepreneur mary ellen pleasant.

People May know or

remember mary pleasant,

mamie pleasant, as she was known because she had a similar experience in the 1860s, where she was refused a ride on one of our street cars here in san francisco, from a company that preceded the public system. And she also successfully challenged segregation, and she took her case all the way to the california

supreme court, and she also won. These two women helped to change california history by helping to make our

system more equitable, and in the system we're having today, and we're still focusing on equity in the system even to this day, in the way we schedule our

rides. Finally, we would like to go back again and do something we did a couple

of years ago, which is to

honor another trailblazer, maya angelou, and she has been hailed as san francisco's first black female street car conductor. She has written about overcoming racism and

sexism by tenaciously standing, you know, in the halls of the H.R. Director at the time to get a job with muni as the age of 16. And she wrote about that in her book "I know why

the caged bird sings."

we would like to make this a full campaign with rosa marks as our lead and honoring her, and also talking about some of the other women who have been trailblazers in his area. We would like to get your thoughts on what this

creative might look like. Okay. So at least for the first

part of the campaign for rosa parks, we've kind of done some treatments, and the other ones would follow on. All towards the end of the

month of March. Can you hear me on this one? >> yes.

>> so this is the first one.

A more traditional look at rosa parks.

And you can see the

hashtag "ride for rosa," encouraging ridership.

If I can move this one down.

Rosa, in her later years,

and then... -- can you see then -- can you see this one? Those are the three treatments. We would appreciate any of the board's thoughts on

these campaign ideas, as well as anything you'd like to add on to creative.

>> okay.

>> Chairman:   please, director torrez.

>> I want to thank you for moving on this commemoration of an incredible, spirited human being. We were members of the

same church, first a& ein

los angeles.E. And my children got to know her. She was always gracious, always lovely, and always quiet and unassuming. You can see that was bien lying a

belying a courage that was

just unfathomable to most. thank you for what you have done. >> I think this is a fantastic idea.

I love the idea of taking it one step further, and

instead of just honoring

rosa parks, but honoring other women. I love these. I can't wait to see them all on the buses. The hashtag on there is you're going to get a lot of twitter snaps of people in front of that and recognizing that. I think it is really good. It is a great educational and outreach program. I fully support it and I think it is fantastic. Thank you. >> I'll chime in and say

it is fitting for women's history month to do this at this time. So it is great that we can also use that in our

messaging as well. >> thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much for moving this along. >> and that concludes my report.

>> Chairman:   you saved the best for last.

>> I did.

>> Chairman:   start with train delays and end with rosa parks. >> you a good teacher.

>> Chairman:   okay.

Do we have public comment

on the director's report?

>> Mr. Chair, nobody has turned in a speaker card --

>> Chairman:   we have one. Come forward.

Take your time.

>> good afternoon

directors, howard strest. I would like to speak to the problem of subway problems and all of that. You're working on it it now.

You get off the surface problems fix up, and all

of the mechanical problems fix fixed up, but you still end up with the problem of how many trains you can

put through this subway at any given hour. You should all know there is a limit. It is hard to define limit, but 40 years ago, I

made a stab at it working for a contractor with muni.

And muni was talking about

putting in metro, single car trains. And I said, that's silly, it won't work.

So I went home and using

some calucos, I predicted the meltdown that would happen some years later. I'm not happy about that, but it worked. Muni went on and realized

they had to have two-car trains. And so now it is the kind of thing that you should know on midday and a weekend, you run only --

what is it, 30 trains per hour.

Two-minute head way. You have a roaring subway. Everybody is happy and everything moves. you try to do 36, 38 trains an hour, things start to happen.

We are passengers, who don't cooperate too much.

They hold the door. All sorts of things happen.

People come down to the subway platform in different modes, and all

of that, and you can't respond well enough.

The cuing theory kind of predict the problems you'll have. Hopefully the new cars

will be suitable for en route coupling. The system was designed for that. I used to watch the guys do it there on west portal station.

It was almost like a bile biological act. They were very careful about it, but maybe it wasn't good enough.

>> Chairman:   thank you. We have new trains that will be doing better.

Thank you for your time. Anyone else on the director's report? Seeing none, well close

public comment on item seven.

Move on to the next item.

>> Mr. Chair, there is no

one here regarding the cac report today. Moving on to item nine, public comment. This is an opportunity for

members of the public to

comment on issues in the jurisdiction, but they're not on the agenda. We'll start with john parr, followed by christopher peterson.

>> Chairman:   very good. Welcome. >> thank you very much,

board of directors. My name is john parr, I'm a graduate of new york university, and a senior

level of fordam university. I've been in the san francisco bay area in over

20 years working in high-tech technology. Yes, I am truly a real new york kind of guy.

But I have a big heart for san francisco. I'm speaking on behalf of the community of the -- of what I have referred to as

the lost, forgotten world.

I call it jurassic park of

the outer sunset. We are seeking a capital

investment from your team

of between $1 million and $3 million to create the first of its type, which

will require a major

paradigm shift, according

to Mr. Thomas coon, who wrote a deep essay and book about this subject.

We want a modern, 21st century, above-ground

station on the corner of

31st and judith juda street on

the starting point. It is interesting. The type of station I'm

talking about exists in san jose, perhaps, portland, oregon, and definitely exists in south market today.

These are fantastic design stations.

we wish to end what I have deemed a practice that I

refer to as station inequality. The forgotten world receives hundreds of thousands of concert-goers for events, like the outside land festival, and there are people lying in the streets, near the

stations when his happens. Perhaps some of the larger huge corporate engines,

like "live nation" rhondellesner

rhondelles can a fee to help your organization pay for it. This is just a matter in

my mind of public safety.

>> Chairman:   the next speaker, please.

>> christopher peterson,

edward mason, and howard stresner.

>> my name is christopher peterson.

I would like to thank

M.T.A. For looking into

opportunities to incorporate affordable housing. Thank you for asking for an update about that. I request that the update include consideration of a

broader range of options.

In particular,

constructing affordable housing above many of the

surface parking lots that M.T.A. Owns.

Some are very busy, so having some built entirely above. Some are lightly used, considering converting

them entirely to housing. Two parking lots that i

think would be good starting points would be

the two at lakeside village, one at ocean, and

the other ocean and 19th avenue. In my observation, those parking lots rarely have more than just a handful of vehicles.

I did submit a P.R. A. Request, asking if there are any documentation about how heavily they're used.

And I was told somewhat surprisingly that there isn't. But I think, especially for lightly used parking lots, such as those, those should be prime opportunities for the

developments of affordable housing. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker, please.

>> edward mason, followed

by howard stresner and then brian hopper.

>> good afternoon, edward mason. I'm submitting written comments for the meeting.

Here is a summary of the

February 2019, noi valley

commuter bus reporter.

It double parks and idols

on 24th treatment, street, creating unnecessary pollution, and

vehicles passing, creating safety situation problems.

We drive 36150016, and

stations and idols on the 25th street shop.

And muni passengers must street board and pass around, creating unsafe situations.

Since November 2018,

license 35a 24k 2

partially occupies the bus

stop at 24th and church, and partially blocks the

traffic lane, creating unsafe situations. These commuter bus plans

and safety and pollution violations continue. This is unacceptable price for the neighborhood to

pay to accommodate

industries in adjacent counties.

And as you well know, I continually monitor this situation.

And, you know, August 14 is going to be five years since this plan went into effect. And we continue to have

all of these violations continue over the duration

of this pilot plan and the current plan.

So I submit my comments for incorporation into the minutes. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you

very much, Mr. Mason. Next speaker, please.

>> howard stresner followed by brian hop hopper

and then nick casener. >> good afternoon.

Down here it is asking for a progress report on a large and small project that you guys approved.

The first one is 19th

avenue, to fix up the 28. You voted a couple of

years ago now to have less bowls, and the project had

to be held up to be done at the same time as the street needs to be repaired. Well, the street really needs to be repaired. It is really a mess. And now I see the trucks going out there and sprinkling a little bit of pebbles and a little bit of black tar, which really doesn't last more than a few weeks. So I don't know what is happening with that. This would be a great project.

It is going to be near B.R.T., and perhaps even better than B.R.T., in some ways.

When you couple it, it would save time, and with the signals and all of that kind of stuff, even the cars won't be hurt that much. They still have two and a half lanes. You don't lose the whole lane.

Accept they can't box the buses in. And you'll have much better performance on the

28 and it would be a great service. And a few less stops, too, and that's great.

The other little project I wanted to talk to you about, one I use almost as much -- I never calm here to

come hereto talk about the stuff I

use hardly, but this is

the 5r, which is a great line, it speeds me along

to get from presidio drive. you said you would improve moving from a near-side

stop to a far-side stop.

So a month or so ago, I saw them fixing the electrics on the near-side stop. You'll have to do it on the far-side stop. I don't know what is holding that up. These things can be adjusted slightly, carefully, and all that. You approved it, it was supposed to happen, and nothing happened. So once in the years I'm

going to school on that

bus -- the bus needs a light.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. >> can you let us know what intersection that

was, the near-side, far-side stop. >> presidio. >> presidio. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   any further public comment.

>> brian hopper.

>> my name is brian hopper, I'm a san francisco street artist,

and I'm addressing two events that occurred in 2018.

They were street closures

on beach street between hyde and larkin. The first one was the rock and roll half marathon, which took place in April, and blocked our selling spaces for that weekend, saturday and sunday, which is during spring break.

Which is a key time for us to sell. The second event took place in November. It was the golden gate half marathon, which did the same thing, the weekend of November 4th and 5th.

Now, previously, these are

after parties for foot races. Previously, and including one which took place in February, the after parties have been happening down on the

jefferson edge of aquatic

park, going west from hyde street. I wonder why this can't be corrected in the future? Thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much.

Next speaker, please.

>> nick castner, kyle peacock, lisa fisher.

>> my name is nic castner

and I live on milton

street and san francisco. And I was very excited to hear we were finally going to get bike share in glen park, only to find out that the station approval

has been pulled because of some loud neighboring voices. I wanted to remind the board that streets don't just belong to neighbors adjacent to the public right-of-way, but they belong to anybody who uses

that public space, and people passing through matter as well.

This city as climate goals and zero vision goals, and we will not reach them if we do not follow through

in our bike-share projects. Also as an employee of the san francisco unified school district, I want to

let know we support bike-sharing adjacent to schools. And the reason our district approves them

because they improve sight lines particularly at intersections were kids might be crossing. I urge you to let this project and all of the

glen park stations move

ahead in glen park and everywhere else in the city. Thank you very much.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker.

>> kyle peacock followed

by lisa fisher, and then alec garson. He is the last person to turn in a public speaker card.

>> I am kyle peacock, with a residence on third and fulsom. I came out here at the

last meeting, when we were

talking about the third treatment

street improvements that were passed.

I want to remind you about

the conversation about improving bike stations. And the ap improvements for

improvements -- since it seemed like there was a decent amount of interest in what that would look like as a project, I'm asking the board to order a study of what the options would look like for a one-way

bike lane or a two-way bike lane down the length of third street north of the bridge. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker, please.

>> lisa fisher, followed by alex garson.

>> I'm actually also city

staff, part of your climate resilience team, but I'd like to be clear

I'm here at my own time because I'm also a

resident and a parent at

delores fuerte elementary school. I support not only this bike station, but all bike

stations. To recommend this complex network throughout our city, and do work with community members about,

you know, some local and localized considerations.

But I do not support

protracted city or community processes that hinder our collective responsibility to address

our mobility, climate, and affordability challenges. As the supervisor from this district reiterated last week, we are in a climate emergency, and I

really support and applaud M.T.A.'s commitment to our 80% sustainable trip school.

In addition to the greenhouse gas benefits,

biking is the cheapest, most efficient way to get around san francisco -- no

offense to muni.

And the bike stations should co-locate near schools. 60,000 to 70,000 vehicle miles are travelled every day with parents getting their kids to school. And they're often trapped into a car solution for getting to their own jobs. And finally, we need to demonstrate to the citizens of san francisco

that the city can implement climate and

mobility action in an

expedient and thoughtful manners, and remind residents that curb space is public.

And across every metric, dozens of bikes are

without a doubt better than two or three cars. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. >> the bike share station is an item on the agenda,

which is item 11, and will be discussed at that time.

So this is general public comment for items not on

today's agenda. Alex garson is the last person to turn in a speaker card.

>> I'm alex garson. I come here with the suggestion of vasting increasing the pace of new

daylighting zones and intersections.

And to use bike routes as part of the solution. Daylight is essential for

making pedestrians more visible when they are crossing the streets, and

so that cars slow down at intersections, and we have more safe crossings for people who take a longer time to cross. This week's tragic

injuries are a reminder of the work we need you all to lead. I'm in japan town frequently, which has a

lot of seniors, and

noticed the nicely painted zones. However, they're often violated by large delivery trucks that use it as a loading zone.

It would help keep the visibility benefits of the

daylighting, and preventing large trucks from preventing visibility. There are many similar intersections that could benefit from this approach.

The current on -- street on-street bike routes have situations. Some have it next to their

businesses only to have it indefinitely delayed because someone on the block was louder than

them. On-street bus routes should increase the amount

of bike racks in the city. It is ridiculous that someone can have multiple cars and not have a public hearing about the space they're going to use.

There is the case of a car

collector, using the

on-street sections for the

cars. Thank you for your time and consideration of these suggestions, and thank you

for your service.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker, please.

>> Mr. Chair, that's the last person to address under general public comments.

>> Chairman:   would you like to speak on general public comments? >> yes.

>> Chairman:   please, come forward. Now that we have that clarified, we will speed up to number 11 as soon as we can.

That takes us to number 10. >> yes. Mr. Chair, this is item 10.

All items are considered

to be routine unless they wish to sever the item and discuss it separately. No member of the public or the board has indicated an interest in severing any of the items.

>> Chairman:   well, that's a refreshing change. Seeing that that is still

the case, is there any public comment on the

consent calendar? Seeing none, is there a motion on the -- >> motion to approve.

>> Chairman:   is there a second. There is.

All in favor, say yea. >> yea.

>> Chairman:   all those opposed. i'm making good on my

promise to speed up to number 11.

>> item 11, the discussion

on the bike share out

reach process. >> hello, board members.

My name is adrian lerner.

>> Chairman:   adrian, we realized we got to you

fast, and the fact you got ready that fast, we appreciate it. It is all yours.

>> it is honor to present today.

I'm the bike share manager. Before that, I was the lead for the agency side of the outreach team,

starting in fall 2017. So this specific effort about bike share outreach is something I poured a lot of thought and energy into. This presentation will

discuss the robust outreach project we established for bike share stations.

I would like to share a

personal confession from the start.

I was a bike share -- I wasn't a believing, and

believer, and I was wrong for a number of reasons. I think it is crucial for climate goals and better transportation for san francisco.

As always, we need to be

thoughtful in delivery on how we implement it in our city. That's what we're here to talk about today.

so why bike share? A brief review of why bike share.

It is in accordance with

our primary policies, and also vision zero for safety efforts.

The board of supervisors approved the contract that is currently in place. There is a number of public benefits. We received a large number

of e-mails in ramp up to today's topic. A lot of them expressed passion for them. To summarize them, bike

share is helpful accessing

transit, especially when

access is closed. And it offers

it contributes to public health and safety,

and reduces parking stress. I'm especially keen on this point, and it is especially important to

highlight bike share isn't for everyone. We don't expect everyone to start riding.

But even if you don't, you still benefit it from how it offers your neighbors

or visitors, or anyone else, another option to get to where you are. We've seen the public embrace these benefits. Since the system launched, we've had over two million rides, and the last month, despite the rain, we have broken our record for trips per day four times. The system is really

booming at this point.

The system overview, since

the slide was kind of adopted, we have actually launched a couple more stations. We're almost half way to our full goal.

Our target is 218 bike systems. Here is an overview of the broad strokes for a station outreach, and I'll goat into each

go into these in great detail.

There was a planning

effort, and before public hearing, at public

hearing, and then after public hearing. We engage all of the relevant stakeholders throughout. If a specific issue is identified after public hearing, it is possible that it goes back and begins together, and if they feel comfortable, we move forward with the permit. Throughout this entire time, all feedback is considered.

We make no distinction between comments in person or e-mails or over the phone. Drilling down, before public hearing, there was a system planning effort

originally in 2016 and 2017, and that included over 30 meetings throughout san francisco. But more specifically for

every site, we do a lot of different outreach, ramping up towards public hearing.

We do door to door

outreach to adjacent property. We neighbor associations

and merchant groups, and

other nearby institutions, especially groups

identified by the supervisor's office. Whether they be transit,

school safety, or other

bike-related improvements. And, finally, after we

have talked to a large

swath of folks, we move forward, if we're comfortable with the site, we move forward to public hearing or we go back to

the drawing board.

Specifically in advance, in advance of a public

hearing, there are on-street postings that

are posted near the site. That's the basic standard for our engineering and

public hearing at M.T.A. Above the public standard,

and something I help to implement, we send mailers to all of the owners and

renters affiliated to any address 250 feet from any proposed station.

And notification for any station could vary from 20 to 1,000 mailers.

And we check in with the

supervisor to find out the feedback they have received.

Oftentimes when they send us something initially, we'll kind of respond and the last word will be, I'll go tell my supervisor about this. For example, in the glen park station, that is

commonly used, we've been in close communication

with viewpoint visor sha

shaham's shaham. And then we do a final reckoning to see if there

is more needed in response

of feed bangback.

We can look into what that feedback looks like, in

terms of what we do end up considering. By far, the top two issues are usually about parking

and station eth thesks. Aesthetics. And then there are safety concerns and congestion as well. And sometimes people change their minds. A property

funding property May change their mind. Maybe somebody who originally said they liked the idea, and later, down

the line, they changed it.

And in our feedback we receive proposed alternative sites.

And it often shows why they suggested an alternative that might seem like a better option, but it is actually in feasible. One suggestion we frequently receive is why don't you just put it on the sidewalk?

Lots of people propose

sidewalk stations instead

of the on-street stations. One thing that comes to

mind is accessibility.

And utility covers. And sometimes it is

identified as a secondary identification site. so there is a delicate

balance in how we cite all these things.

When we implied from the

public about feasible alternatives, we typically

get to responses, depending on the stakeholder. Some say this is a really hard job you have, good luck. Or they respond by being upset and calling us names, and saying we're not sincerely listening to them. That makes me a little sad in my position because it means they don't feel listened to unless we agree with them. In some cases we can't

even technically agree.

We're an engineering framework, so we can't agree with them.

But in a city that is fabulously inclusive, like san francisco, sometimes

we have to agree to

disagree.

We need to document all sharing analysis and continue to be responsive.

Thank you for letting me present.

>> Chairman:   okay. Board members, are there any questions for adrian? >> one clarifying question before we go to public comment. Thank you, great presentation. I know there has been a lot of discussion about

the proposed bike share

location at vandel and

chenry, and the memo received, I think it was in January, said that the

F.M. T.A. Did decide to approve the permit. So that one is not blocked or stopped, it is just progressing forward? >> the permit was issued for that station.

The M.T. Board came back

with inquiry.

So we've been closing that

idea, and hopefully the culmination today will be closure of the inquiry. >> closure of the inquiry and then the station approval can move forward -- >> there are no other approvals. Technically we do not need another approval. >> okay. Thank you.

That's my only clarifying question.

>> I have a question clarifying.

You mentioned that one of the benefits of bike shares is reducing parking and congestion. Can you speak to us about the surveys and tate data analysis, when people use the bike share, what they're doing that of instead of of? >>

?>> you mean if they

weren't using bike share, would else would they be using? >> yes.

>> I don't have any direct data at hand.

But we did it for some of the stations in the city,

another shared mobility user survey. And I don't know if that is exactly the same, but

it is similar in spirit, and it is this idea of

people having access to a shared device. And they're using that. And because that system is in place, they don't have

to drive or take a T.N.C. I think the data says more

than 40% of the users we have interviewed said they were -- that their trip

was replacing a private vehicle or T.N.C. Trip. >> thank you.

>> Chairman:   any further questions. I suppose the one question I have -- and thank you very much for your presentation, which is

professional and thorough -- is the complaint that I've heard

from some -- not many -- is that this thing almost pops up overnight and they didn't know about it. Now, in my experience here on this board, I've

learned that that means one of two things. One, it popped up overnight and they didn't

know about it, despite whatever outreach there was. Or, two, it was implemented, as everything is, at a time and they just didn't like it. So I'm going to focus on

the first category.

And ask you what specifically is done at

the actual site, where the

station will go in, and is there signage, a picture,

a mock-up, something so that someone who is going to be affected by this

thing cannot really possibly say I didn't know about it? If you're going to say that bike station is going

to have an affect on my daily, weekly, even monthly routines, is there something at the physical location, like a sign and a picture and a phone number that is big enough

and sort of replicates the impact that this station is going to have, such

that no one can say, I didn't know about it. >> per the standards for public hearing, we're required to post things out. And the postings we have mod fight

modified, specifically for bike sharing stations, to show what the stations will look like.

>> Chairman:   a posting, I get that. I'm just wondering if there is more, and if there is room to go more? Because there are a lot of postings, and a piece of paper doesn't take up parking spots. It is just a piece of paper. >> absolutely. I understand what you're saying. And on top of that, to your point, we've had cases where public hearing postings get torn down, too.

We wrap them in saran wrap, but they are not meant to stay there forever, and people will take them down. This concern you're bringing up is exactly why we implemented the mailer system for this program.

No other program, no other kind of spot-based improvement that we perform has to do that level of mailing. And that's because we wanted everybody to know.

And we have fine tuned that mailing. That mailing is not the same thing that goes up on the poster. He has

it has an image and a street view. It has a drawing saying, this is what it will look like, and these are the spaces it will take up.

So it is much more detailed. You can imagine, it is difficult to do something

at the site, a posting, that is in between the actual station. But properly conveys what

the station will be without maybe doing a temporary cardboard station. My mind goes to creative at that point.

>> Chairman:   so you guys are covering this, and I understand the mailing and this and that. I'll just say, the feedback I got is -- I'm not suggesting you put up a cardboard thing.

But I just wonder if as we go further in this, if there is a way to actually do something at the site

that can't be mixed. A sign in between parking spots. Just something so that we

can look back and say, if this piece of property really is a part of your daily, weekly, monthly activity, there is no way you could have missed this.

And maybe that is just not possible. Maybe signs and signage get torn down and all of that. But as least as we start with this, because as you know, we've gotten a little bit of resistance because this is new. And those issues we're going to have to deal with, but the last thing I

want is for someone to be able to credibly or correctly say they didn't know this was going to happen.

>> your response encapsulates kind of our challenge. What you're feeling is exactly why we try to do

so much research and outreach engagement before

with the supervisor's help --

>> Chairman:   and I get all of that, and I think it is fantastic. But it is just the one thing that seems to me that maybe a little bit of

a hole in this was a more demonstrative suggestion of what is going to happen at the site.

When we change bus lines,

we can send out mailers and make phone calls, but the best way to tell someone whatever number bus is going to change, is

to put notice on the

whatever number bus and whatever number bus stops.

I think I May have sparked

some more cardboard art suggestions. >> I do have a question. On the website, you can see where our key bike projects are.

But where is it for the go bike project?

Is that a separate website? >> there is a bike share website on that signage,

and that one will link to the proposed go bike stations. So there is a map that has all of the stations. And that was actually recently covered in a

discussion with the supervisory committee. >> I'm just trying to see how easy it is to find. Because people go to our website, and that's where we put notice up for weaver sort of hearings or things that we have. Do we typically put the bike share notices on our calendar, like we do with the other kinds of meetings?

>> it has a regular notification --

>> is it among the regular

calendar of notices? because on our front page of the website there is a calendar of notices, and I

know it is a pain in the butt, probably, but if we

could put every meeting about everything -- whatever meetings we're having, if we just put them there, because people do look, first and

foremost, on our home page for these things. And that's -- even if they would Miss Everything else, if it was on the home page, under our calendar, I believe I think that would help quite a bit.

I mean, in general our

projects at M.T.A. Don't happen that quickly, and I think that is part of the

challenge with the bike

share program.

Granted, I don't think that's where we are with

all of our projects, the solution of where we want

to be, but whatever we can

do in the upfront, so, yes, we weren't trying to play hideball. And the fact that the

process doesn't seem as

transparent as the other processes we have.

>> Chairman:   yes, please. >> what about paint on the

surface of the street? Some kind of temporary paint where it would mark out where the bikes would go.

>> Chairman:   bike share

station coming? [Laughter]

>> Chairman:   coming attraction. >> but that couldn't be torn off. It is a little more permanent. >> you could.

There is a logicistical challenge. You have to reserve the place before you actually implemented the station in

order to stripe the potential station. And are you putting this paint down in advance of public hearing? Are we painting the

station and then possibly not permitting the station? Because then we have to go and erase the paint. But I like where you're

going with it.

But, you can imagine there

are some logistical challenges here.

>> Chairman:   we're not going to solve this with the discussion here today. And we appreciate everything you're doing,

and don't take it as

anything other than appreciation. We're just trying to give you some feedback. We get the same feedback you do, and sometimes it

makes us unhappy. And that notion along the

lines of what director

shue was saying, that was is permanent -- not permanent, a very visible suggestion beyond just a

poster hanging, or something, so no one can really Miss What's coming

would seem to me, if

feasible, would extentuate our our outreach

reach -- >> I have one more comment.

>> Chairman:   sure. >> the question always comes up, and I think about the bike share -- I

went in front of a u.

A

u. P.S.Store.

That's a terrible a

location.

There are issues because -- it's a little

bit of a bottleneck, but

luckily it is not a highly trafficked street, but, still, it begs the

question if a u. P.S.

Store isn't a frontage, what property fronting would not be an appropriate location that

wouldn't cause conflicts?

I want people to use bike share.

I don't like to drive.

I am that person. But I also hate -- I

wouldn't want to be going

around a u. P. S. Truck to get a bike.

Can you tell us how you look on what is on the block space and.

>> Dana:   ing

determining what goes

there. Can you talk about that? >> if you're asking me to

talk about block spaces in general, that's more complicated. I can tell you about the bike share program, we do not -- as a policy, we're very proud we have a history of not putting stations in front of any organizations that said,

hey, don't put this here. A home or an organization. We have a pretty good record for that.

In terms of that U.P.S. Organization, I think they talked to the store manager there, and the store manager was excited about it.

But I do know that it has been led to other loading issues, like you're talking about.

>> so my only point isn't necessarily about whether or not an owner or a person gets to veto in

front of their place --

what I meant is, how do we determine a use, or types of uses, on a street in which you probably wouldn't want to have a bike share pod. That's my point. That's kind of the consideration that people get concerned about. I don't personally think it is great that someone

can veto it just because they don't want it in front of their house. But I do believe if there

is an actual natural conflict in terms of traffic flow, how do we

look at that in this conversation? >> director, I just wanted to add one piece to this discussion, is when the first generation of bike share stations, including

the one at 29th and tiffany were installed, i

think the M.T.A. M.T.A. Was probably more reliant on the public partner to do a lot of the outreach.

One of the things that adrian and his team have

brought to this -- we've brought it up to the standards you set for all of our projects.

I don't think any of us will pretend that there might not have been some stations that were cited

with outreach, which we

look back on and which we have done more.

But today we're doing more

outreach and indepth conversations with the public, than we do for almost anything else.

And we're really talking about one or two parking spaces here. So I think the level of

effort to do outreach here is proportionately much

higher per amount of parking space than we do

for a lot of the other things, to achieve all of

the goals you've set up for us.

>> Chairman:   good perspective. Thank you, tom. If there are no further questions from the board,

we'll entertain public comments, subject to director brinkman's

clarification on where we

are. [Names called]

>> hello, my name is christopher peterson.

I want to give a big picture comment, of

course, affective and expeditious noticing and public review of projects such as this is important. But it is also crucial

that it really be

genuinely expeditious review.

In my experience, far too

often, projects that are

about improving access

from the automobile, just take too long. The board of supervisors is considering an

emergency regulation regarding climate change. The intent of that is to

get the city to really act quickly on the kinds of

things it needs to do if it wants to play a positive role in addressing climate change. And certainly reducing the use of the automobile is a core part of that, and bike share stations is an important part of that strategy.

So as the agency considers the procedures to use for

these bike stations, I implore you not to do

anything that results in a prolonged plotting process that just ends up killing things through delay. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you

very much. That's difficult news.

I love prolonged plotting, but I will try...

>> charles debarge.

>> charles debarge. A successful bike share system is in line with our

mission to promote the

bicycle for every day transportation. We want to connect san

francisco to a safe,

equitable, and sustainable transportation system.

In November of 2015, this

board of directors passed a resolution for bike

share to be fully deployed by early 2018.

Here we are, a year later, past that timeframe, and we're not there. And we still aren't in many of the outer neighborhoods. So given the current state of expansion, which is moving pretty slowly, we are concerned that this

agency is not providing adequate leadership to successfully expand bike share in san francisco and make it the system we know it can be. San francisco is often a city in paradox, and I think we've heard that through comments. We're looking for urgent

solutions, but often after indefinite bureaucracy. So I'm here today to ask you directors, please don't add to that bureaucracy of bike share,

in this case, and respect the exceptional work that often shorthanded staff, such as adrian, they've done that for individual stations, for entire neighborhoods, to get this

system really moving. What this board needs to do is increase the resources available to the livable streets team so that can staff up.

new york's D.O.T. Has at least a dozen staff working specifically on city bikement bike. We need to step up and do the same.

We urge forgo bike to expand services, and have

a more thoughtful and affective strategy on how they can successful expand more quickly. If we can't expand, that means fewer people are

able to access this system, leaving some neighborhoods with little

to no access to bike share. We hope this board will actively support bike stations, including the one at glen park.

>> Chairman:   thank you. Next speaker, please.

>> I'm ericka emson, and I

live on route 56, which is

a small, but mighty sliver of district 8, up from glen park.

I have engaged in the extensive community outreach that has been undertaken for this bike share.

And I have written to wholeheartedly support this bike station. As this station is the

next link in the bike share network that will hopefully extend to the southeastern

neighborhoods.

Adrian alluded that bike

share goes nicely with

many city policies. I wanted to public note the language in the

transit first policy, section 8a, which states "all officers, boards, commissions, and departments shall implement these principles in conducting the city and

county affairs, including to public transit, making

sure it is an economically sound alternative to automobiles. Within san francisco, travel by public transit, by bicycle, and on foot,

must be an attractive alternative to private automobile. Three, the decisions regarding the use of limited public street and sidewalk space, shall encourage these spaces, and shall strive to reduce traffic and improve public health and safety."

skipping to number six "bicycling shall be promoted by providing convenience access to transit, secured lanes and

bicycle parking." and

public bike shares are innovative, and already in

successful use, where

demand often outstrips supply. I ask that you please do

not ignore the for transit

first policies that you're governed by.

There is equity, climate

change, and affordability, all of which bike shares contribute to.

>> Chairman:   thank you. Next speaker.

>> I'm dan connelly. And go bike is a major

issue I don't use a car.

One, biking sphrawf

infrastructure is prioritized by the city's transit first

provision, passed in 1973, amended in 2007, and supported by 62% of the voters in 2014.

San francisco has been in flagrant non-compliance with the city laws. Go bike is a network which requires global, not local design.

It depletes bikes from the

glen park, and it means

bart commuters cannot rely on the bikes being available. Which means they need to drive or bring their own bikes on the train. Three, it has been claimed the station is unsafe.

This is patently absurd.

We're a data-driven city.

Boston, new york, austin, chicago, barcelona, paris,

and tokyo -- in each case the networks were rolled out quickly and broadly. There is no safety problem with bike share in these cities. To the contrary, putting

more people on bikes makes

the intersections more safe. So in summary, this

process has made a mockery of san francisco's claim

to be a transit first station.

It makes a mockery of reducing pollution.

I strongly urge you to facilitate the roll out of go bike.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker please.

>> matt hill, laurie, and john winston. >> thank you. My name is matt hill, and I'm a san francisco

resident, and I have one

daughter at delores fuerte elementary school and a second one starting in the fall. I support the bike share system. I think it will make that intersection safer. It's not a safe intersection right now. And I also wanted to comment quickly on the bike share community outreach process. It takes way too long right now, as we've seen with this station, taking over two years to approve it.

S.M.T.A. And the city have

the climate goal to be sustainable by 2030, and

the vision zero goal of eliminating all traffic deaths in san francisco.

And we should be a world

leader on both climate action and safe streets.

We still have a lot of co2 transmissions from cars.

And we've had traffic

fatalities this year involving cars, and we

need to embrace mode shift away from cars. And bike share is a great way to get people out of cars, moving us towards our climate and vision zero goals.

If we allow an over two-year process for a

single bike share station, then we're not taking these goals seriously. We cannot do anything about people with intractable positions. I've met several people in san francisco who will

never approve of removing on-street parking. They're locked into a car culture. And the bike share should

take that into account. Don't shy away from informative change and embrace mode shift from cars to bikes.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker, please.

>> laurie stasakelus, john winston. >> hello. Let it be on the record because in the newspaper and recent social media, I've been vilified by saying I'm against bike share. I am not.

I'm very much in favor of a bike share. I just think there is a better location, somewhere near randall and chenery

that is not on the main streets. So it is really about an issue of safety.

There are plenty of spots within 100 yards tha that they should be considering.

I think outreach should equal active listening. What has been our experience is it has been completely one way.

Going back, in spring 2018, motivate told the world from glen park news, and they said they would go door to door.

Our experience is no one ever knocked on our door. In fact, he talks about getting notices of people of 250 feet away. I live within 250 feet away, and I've never seen a thing. The notice on July 5th of the hearing was posted, so I give them credit for that.

And also for director borden's clarification,

the way that the notices

go out now is about the bike share is that there

is a sub-note within the engineering hearing notice. There is nothing that comes out and says, by the way, bike sharing is coming to your neighborhood.

It is usually item 20, 22, 23, on the year ago agenda. At that meeting, which was held on the 6th of July,

the friday when nobody was

at school, nobody was in town, people -- and nobody

at the school was even notified.

There was not a proper situation. The bike coalition did send a member, who admitted to us in the hallway, he didn't even

know where randall street was. Mote

motivate sent a hired hand. and the other eight people

who attended were in opposition.

>> Chairman:   thank you. >> I have many more things I would like to discuss if there are any questions at a later time.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. And thank you for coming down.

>> john winston, chris

spouse, henry hartville. >> my name is john winston.

I'm going to wear my hat

as the chair of the balboa reservoir C.A.C., and I'm

not a neighbor of this bike station. But I am an integral part

of the neighborhood in

that the balboa reservoir, we're removing 1,000

parking spots to build 11 units of much-needed housing. And those 1,000 parking spots are not allowed to

be used in the E.I. R. As an impact.

That's california law. It's true, that said, we are removing a thousand spots, and the people in that neighborhood, the people at city college, are depending on some way to get to school. And it's not going to be the way they're getting there now. So we as a city will have to mitigate that issue,

that impact. And one way -- the biggest way to do that is to give

people choice in their transportation decisions. and bike share is one.

Not everyone can ride a bike, but it is one of many choices that people can make. Getting back to randall and chenery, that's not a neighborhood issue. That's a city-wide city-wide issue.

It is part of a network of bike share stations in the city. Without any one of them, the whole thing falls apart because you need to

be within an easy walk to a bike share station. People need to be able to get from city college to

glen park, to randall and chenery. And I really think that

removal of three parking

spots should not be an impact that should be considered at all in this issue. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker, please.

>> chris spouse, henry hartville.

>> good afternoon, chris spouse.

I do a lot of things in the neighborhood. I see a lot. I'm representing northern

glen park and southern millie valley. Look, I didn't want to come here today. We've said our piece already. But what I saw in social

media, and now employing joe back there to vilify my neighbors and this board for simply standing

up for process, for people

who are standing up and saying -- this is what they're saying, but this is not what's happening. So this whole process that

adrian explained -- I like adrian, he is a nice guy, but he is just wrong.

I am on all these boards. I am very much in tune with the neighborhood.

I had no idea this was going on randall because I would have been to every single meeting. That street is a nightmare. There is no study. There is no traffic data.

It is an on-ramp to 280, and yet they're treating

it like it is just some suburban street. Okay? The school traffic is just one aspect of it.

Those people going to the southern tier, going down to silicone valley, are not going to get on a go bike. Parents dropping their kids off are not going to get on a go bike. It May take a few cars off the street, that's fine. We support it. Put it down the street. Put it on the side of the street. Put it some place nearby. That's all we ask.

And yet there has not been a single compromise. We didn't get notified about it. When we rant about it, then they finally did some outreach, not before. Never gave us a meeting, never showed us data.

And they have simply never offered a compromise or any kind of alternative. They haven't even looked at it -- at an alternative. That's all we ask. And then finally, they

asked that this board approve all go bike stations from now on.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. >> because clearly the bike share stations --

>> Chairman:   you're time is up.

>> henry hartville.

Constance flannery, jean barrish. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.

My name is henry hartville. And two things to know: one, I am a homeowner on

randall street, near chenery. When I say homeowner, I paid off my mortgage last year. I saved and accelerated my parns. Payments. Two, I do not own a car.

I rely on public transit,

on car sharing, and I walk. So I'm certainly open to bike sharing. The concern that I have about this location is I

can see the location but I never received any communication in advance that this location was being considered.

The discussion that there

are postings or graphical drawings of what the bike

share will be are not factual. I haven't seen anything around the neighborhood about that. I do understand the value

of the network affect of having regularly positioned bike share stations.

In a previous life, I

built airline hubs, so I know how you can generate

use and utility by having more frequently used locations. This location is not the ideal location.

It seems that there are options available.

And it just seems there

seems to be re

resistance to moving it to somewhere that would be safer. There is a lot of high-speed traffic on randall treat,

street, and that, I think, would also place bike users in jeopardy. Thank you very much.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker.

>> constance flannery. >> hi. I first appeared before

you in early July of 2018

with a petition from 40

immediate neighbors of the

proposed sites forgo for go bike.

All opposed the site. I live across the street

from the miguel arlington spot. I have a car. I have a garage. I'm not against bikes either. Bikes are great. But this is not the issue. The issue is safety.

These are unsafe sites. Since I last was here and had a petition from 40 neighbors, I now have it from 80. All of them live within a

quarter of a mile of the

proposed sites. All feel these are dangerous sites. The parking -- excuse me,

the street of randall -- I'm particularly concerned about the side of the

school because I feel it is really unsafe for the children and the traffic with people going down

randall, people going down chenery, people going down

arlington, trying to get to 280. It is a really unsafe location.

I didn't get any of the notices, either. I found out about it from

a friend, and I went door

to door, and for. Go bike did

for go bike did not go to door to door.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. The next speaker.

>> my name is jean barrish. I came here to listen. I didn't intend to speak. But in hearing the presentation on the go bikes, and having read something about it, there is kind of an overriding issue that I want to address. How do you justify the privatization of our public streets? In my understanding of the agreement that has been reached with the city is

that the go bike company will reap practically all of the projects without paying for the use of the streets, and the city is going to get practically nothing. I'm just puzzled by this.

Maybe there is an explanation. I like the idea of using bikes.

I don't have a car. I rely on public transit. So some of these other issues people are raising don't bother me. I think bike riding is great. This whole idea of giving

the private streets away troubles me. It is starting to feel

like the google bus 2.0 system. I wonder if you can address that.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker please.

>> bill foley, and our last speaker will be david

emmanuel.

>> hi, my name is bill foley. I have lived on the 100 block of randall street for over 30 years. i do not support the bike

racks going on on randall street. I cannot think of a worst location for them, to be

honest with you. It is primarily due to the

safety concerns with the traffic along with the narrow street.

I would support a rack about 150 away, around the

corner, on san jose

avenue, that is on the actual bike route to glen park, and it is flat. This location is on a hill, and honestly, it makes no sense. I'm surprised that people

who look at it think it is an actual alternative. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much. Next speaker, please.

>> david emmanuel,

followed by howard

strasner.

>> >> thank you. Good afternoon, I'm david emmanuel.

I live in glen park, about

a block away from the randall street proposal. My experience is a lot like my neighbors. I had no idea this was being proposed until a notice came out. It was a technical notice, and it was very difficult

to even understand the footprint. The director who offered the idea of striping the area, that would be extremely helpful.

Even if just done on the sidewalk. During the last six months of the outreach, I think it has been very lacking in the fact it was very difficult to find out the specific criteria that was

being used to select sites. M.T.A. Did not share any kind of traffic or safety studies that were conducted at this location. And they didn't justify during their outreach meetings why they rejected alternatives and what we

thought were very viable nearby sites. I support bike share.

I think the randall street

is a bad and unsafe location. I think there are locations several hundred feet away that will be viable. I think at these outreach meetings, there could have been a consensus reached, and we could have come to agreement, and we could

have already had a bike rack installed on a parallel street on arlington, and we wouldn't be in this sort of confrontation right now.

My request is that the directors approve any type

of type of final sites so we don't have to go through this process again. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you.

>> howard strasner followed by herbert weiner. who will be the last person. >> director, I have to speak again.

So recently they did some work on my street in front

of the house, and they put little sandwich boards for a few days. These May have to be more permanent and stay there for a couple of months. Of course, if you really had an expedited process, a few weeks would be enough, but that is not going to happen. That would be the first thing. The next thing is everybody comes here and makes it sound like, gee, it is going to be unsafe for the bicyclist to come down through this area. The question has to be

asked:   will keeping that

space as a parking space make it safer for anybody or better for anybody? That's your basic question.

Now, maybe it is better to be 50 feet away, around the corner, but not 200 feet. We went through that on the mission. This is our space.

Everybody has their space. So maybe a few feet is

okay, if it really is

unsafe for bicyclists.

But parking spaces aren't safe for anybody. Thank you very much.

>> Chairman:   thank you.

Mr. Weiner. >> herbert weiner. I do not live in this area at all, but I do have a

public concern.

I'm concerned about the

encroachment of go bikes in every area of the city.

It is ford motor company, paradoxicalley owns

ically owns go bike.

There is ford motor company logo on the bike station. Now, are we giving away

the city to private interests? This is my concern about it. Also, okay, it is only three parking spaces, but so many parking spaces have been given up.

We don't see the concerns

of motorists at all expressed before this board. We don't even see them

sitting on the board.

And I feel this is an unfair representation.

The community meetings are basically dog and pony shows.

I have never seen this board reject proposals for bike sharing. Maybe I'm wrong about this. I'd like to know.

But I basically don't like this whole business of giving things away to privatization.

My gut reaction is I would rather private privatize this whole board than to give away the city to privatization.

Anyway, those are my sentiments. thank you.

>> Chairman:   thank you very much, Mr. Weiner. Any further public comment on item 11? Seeing none, we'll close public comment. Directors, is there anyone with further questions for adrian or staff?

If not, are we prepared to discuss this and move on? >> I've been patiently

waiting to discuss this.

>> Chairman:   proceed. >> thank you. Thank you.

>> Chairman:   feel free to prod or applaud.

>> we already established this spot has issued the permits.

Is it up to you when that

station goes in, or is that motivate, the company

that puts the -- that's the big question, when is that station going in.

>> I'm not sure I've ever seen you run someone off like that. That was pretty good.

>> well, I guess --

>> if he gets it wrong, adrian, just punch him. >> I didn't want to leave

the impression that adrian

was personally -- I think in our last meeting, I told adrian we were going

to put the deployment of the station on hold until we had a chance to brief you on all of the

processes we use. I wasn't going to -- >> and that's perfect. We had talked about that. And I think our city attorney addressed us, what sort of was the process.

That was perfect. Because as we heard, there

was a lot of still public feedback to here. So that's great. So since we have you up here, then there is another -- there is the question of that station. It is approved. It will be going in at

some point. And the second question

is:   people are asking for us to approve or disapprove every single station, which we don't do because the program is rolling out. And so individual stations don't come to us.

In your opinion, do you think that would make it easier and faster? >> I think it would be easier to roll out the bike share -- to catch up to the schedule we submitted

committed to the city, if we continue to have the city traffic engineer and

not the M.T.A. Board

approve it. >> excellent.

One more question:   have we

had any bike share user injured while they're docking or undocking. Because I use them all of the time. I'm not aware that we've

had any bike share user squished by a car while they're docking or undocking.

>> we've had no reports of

a user being squished by a car while docking. >> that's sort of the end of my questions. I just want to reiterate my support for the bike share program.

I use them all the time. I'm with you.

I was not a skeptic of bike share, I loved the

idea of it but I didn't think I would ever use it. I'm anxiously awaiting for it to get out to the oceanview, so I can ride to the elementary school where I volunteer, instead of doing something else to get out there. So I think a lot of us are waiting for the expansion

of the program because, as

we know, the more the city covers, the more riders we're going to have.

I think this is -- we've kind of scratched down to a bigger question than just this one bike share station.

And that is:   do we, as a

board, and do we as a city, accept what we all say? As people pointed out, there is a climate emergency. The board of supervisors is getting ready to declare there is a climate emergency. The mayor has committed san francisco to climate

goals that make us carbon neutral by 2050. And we have vision zero that relies heavily on mode shift and calls out climate action goals as well. we're a policy board. We approve these policies.

But then we inadvertently occasionally slow things down or the public slows things down by not sort of accepting we have all discussed these things and talked about them and reiterated our support for these goals time and time again. So I just want to say that the last thing I ever want to do as a board member, and I say this all of the

time, is not support staff.

So I feel we have approved

this over-arching goal, and we send staff out there to do the best job they can. And I appreciate the fact that the outreach for

these bike share pods are improving. I think there are some great ideas about mapping it out on either the sidewalk or the pavement to show exactly where it is going to be because I think that helps. A little stencil that

says, coming soon, more information, something so people can't Miss You

knocking on their door, can't throw owe way

away a public

notice with the circ clers

circulars

that come in junk mail. But the last thing I want to do is slow down the expansion of this bike

share program because it is proven to be so popular. and what we're hearing from the public is more and faster. What we're hearing, is

more jump bikes, more for go bikes. And the idea of this being a privatization of the public right-of-way, one

could argue is that every single private car parked on the street is a privatization of the public roadway. And for those of us who haven't owned a car in the city for about 20 years, I feel like I'm due my little space in the curb around the city. Because I've never parked a car in your neighborhood

ever in my entire time in your city.

But I would use a bike share pod, and park it in other places where I've never done a car. I appreciate all of the work you put into this. This was a great discussion. I'm glad we had it. I really hope this is the

last time we have to discuss sort of station by station, or whether we support this program or whether this program is a good thing for san francisco because it is a good thing.

>> Chairman:   director torrez. And you see you didn't want to have this discussion last week? >> and now I glad we $. It is important

did.I do believe that -- and i do drive an electric car, and thank God it fits in my garage because I can

never find parking, because -- I still believe that people who drive cars ought to have an opportunity to park their car, but I believe a balance is important.

>> I want to say I'm 100% supportive, and I think we need to meet our climate goals, and affordable housing for all of the same reasons.

We have -- there are processes and reasons why they exist. I don't want to make this more of a process. I don't want these bike share stations coming to us. One of the challenges is there is not a clear

articulation of what the policy exactly is. We decide where a bus zone

goes based on street size

or street width, and I

think the fact we can't easily articulate it, the perception is a private company picked the spots

and we just approved them. The question of privatization -- I don't care about the issue -- I think that is a false

argument because every private automobile is privately owned. So that's not an argument for me. But I think the question that we rub up against is this person picked this spot, and do we have any criteria that would unpick that sport, right? Is it just because they've decided that the the best place where the network has to be?

Is there 50 feet difference that would be better or not. That's the big question. Because the question I've

asked, looking at the

29th street U.P.S.

Station, because you say, we don't want to see conflicts.

If it is a pickup or drop- drop-off area, that makes sense.

When we talk about

experimenting with T.N.C.,

and pick-up and drop-off zones and all those sorts of things. Whatever policy you would

create around shared curb

space and conflicts you might anticipate. If we were having conversations about that, I think it would be a

little less problematic.

I'm not talking about

people who general

generally don't want something, but they believe another place May

be slightly better. How did we determine this

is the best spot? That's my own thing. I think people like going

down a check list and

saying these are the five

criteria and they passed.

I think it is easier and cleaner on our part if we

say we have these five criteria and that's how we made that choice and that's how we agreed. that's the only thing I would say on that.

>> Chairman:   anything else? >> I have a quick question. Thanks for the presentation, it was really informative. What is a typical length of time between kind of the beginning and end of the process you outlined

for when a spot is picked initially. You go through the process you outlined, and it actually gets turned into a bike station.

And maybe we can accept the station we were talking about a lot today. >> based on that question, the reality is this actually came up in our preparation for this presentation.

The shortest time in two months.

I think if everything goes

very smoothly. This station is kind of an example of how it can take a lot longer. I think there is an average, but the standard deviation is big. The average is probably four or five months. But the standard deviation is about two months. So anywhere in there.

It is a big range. This is intuitive of working in san francisco. Different supervisors and different stakeholders. We're trying to be as inclusive as well. >> no. and I appreciate the

process and I think it is really important we're being thoughtful with the neighbors and all of the stakeholderring. I'm very much supportive

of the bike sharing network being built out.

So I would encourage us to

do what we can in terms of

kind of following director borden's comments, making sure we're transparent, and efficiently implementing this process

so bike share stations can get put in the ground quicker.

>> Chairman:   director e gan? >>

egan. >> pie

I would love to see any data, is it actually

reducing the demand for parking? One said they don't own a car. If bike share is part of inducing people to think about living without a car, it does reduce car demand.

So I'd love to hear those.

I have seen many more electric bikes. It wasn't working before. And it is working now. I see people all over the place riding them all over places, across the goldengate bridge. They're everywhere. I wonder -- it is interesting to me the demographic if electric bikes are allowing and inviting a kind of person who doesn't think of themselves as a biker to maybe try a different mode because it is just as fast as or faster than sitting in traffic in your own car

or taking a lift. Any data you can share with us as we proceed in

terms of how electric bikes are informing the system would be great.

And then we heard safety concerns.

I would imagine if a person -- you said 40% are using a bike instead of driving, in the aggregate, that would lead to improved safety outcomes if people are riding bikes instead of driving cars. I wonder, again, it doesn't med need to be now, but if you can bring the stories of what is actually happening and playing on the ground, and we would love to hear

those.

>> Chairman:   okay. Anything else. This is an explanation item, where we have gone through what it is you're doing at outreach. I think adrian and tom, you've received some feetback of maybe things you could look at for the future so no one can say they didn't know about this. As far as action, there is no action for us to take, and the projects have

already been approved and they will proceed. With that, this item is closed. Thank you everybody for coming down who came down on this one.

We will move to item 12.

>> the discussion on light

rail procurement to

upgrades.

>> my new best friend on the staff. >> I thought I was your old best friend. >> there you go. >> good afternoon. >> you can get everywhere by sucking up.

>> julie kershbalm.

I'm here to talk about the procurement.

As we discussed when I was here last fall, I believe it was my first presentation in this role,

we are working very hard

to expedite the brada replacement.

Most recently, we've talked about the financing aspects of that work. What I'm here to talk about today is some key next steps where we're taking the lessons learned that we've gotten from the expansion vehicles that we've already purchased,

and using those to inform the next phase of vehicles.

So we're -- if you look at the lifetime of this contract, we're about a quarter of the way through, so we really have an opportunity to learn from these first 68 cars

and to build an even more fantastic car for the

future.

We continue to make good progress on the expansion vehicles.

We have 48 that are

available for service.

With some

we're seeing on a typical

day between 25 and 35 of these vehicles out in service. We have all of our operators familiarized on the vehicles, which is a huge milestone, and it is contributing to us being able to pick up the

mileage on these vehicles.

[Please stand by]

>> the new vehicles are

lighter, which makes for a quieter ride for both passengers and our neighborhoods. The interior design is much more spacious and

designed to enhance customer flow.

We don't have a perfect apples to apples comparison because we dont

don't have automatic

counters on the bradas. We have updated passenger information, really clear information about the next

stop, as well as these vehicles are delivering on

our goal of having them be very easy to maintain.

A lot of the systems can

swap out, so without having to slow down the use of a train, we can

take a broken component, work on it on a work bench, and then put it back into a vehicle when

it is repaired.

So the yellow line is seaman's commitment to us,

and we're working with them month by month on some of the key issues that we're seeing, and making sure that they're addressed.

We will also be starting

with our March reports, will be including the

L.R.V. For the breakdowns in our pegged reports as it is one of the key items in our sex

strategic plan.

[Please stand by]

You can see the ebbs and flows

of that graph as we worked out

some of the new kinks related to

the vehicles.

Just as a second data point,

this is another pro curement, reliability program they worked

on with calgary, as they rammed up the vehicles they saw performance in the 5 to 10,000 mean distance between failure range and then escalated up to

the performance goals.

As we look to the next vehicle,

the phase two, we collected information from a lot of different sources. We had a lot of information that

came in organically, just people's experiences on the

vehicles through 311, twitter, and letters.

We also solicited input through

a survey from our operators, we

got ongoing feedback from our mechanics, and then most recently, to really make sure

that we had kind of an objective set of input as we considered

design changes, especially to

the interior of the vehicles, we

conducted an intercept survey of the customers so we weren't just hearing from people happy about the vehicle, not just hearing

from people upset, but more of a random sampling and complicated that with two focus groups.

I'm incredibly grateful to our communications group for putting

that survey together.

We surveyed over 300 people, two focus groups on the trains. Lower portion of the 3rd street

is closed right now, so we took

two groups of people, both focus groups included seniors and people with disabilities, one was conducted in english, one

was conducted in cantonese, and

we were getting more nuanced feedback.

In May we will be bringing more

formally a request for change orders to the phase two vehicles, but I wanted to give

you a sense of the three categories of changes we are considering.

The first is things that will

help the operators in the vehicles. We've gotten some very simple

and actionable feedback. So, for example, the driver

panel right now, there's a lot

of buttons that open different doors, for example, and they are all the same color.

And we got the feedback.

Could the door that we used to

open the front door for customers using the wheelchair ramps on the rail system, could

we make that blue so when I just have to open the front door I

can quickly spot that button. Great idea.

We are definitely going to be incorporating that. The maintenance side, also looking at ideas that will make

the vehicles easier to maintain, so one example is right now

there is not a very easy way to

grip the wheels when we want to true them, to round them out

when they flattened out.

So, we are working with siemens

that has three prongs in it, to

more easily grab it to do the

wheel trueing.

The passenger changes as I said were informed not only by what

we heard through 311 and through twitter, but also through the

passenger and surveys and the focus groups.

And the first thing we looked at

was just generally how satisfied folks were with the vehicles.

And this was I think really

exciting to see the customer

feedback very much matched our

experiences with the trains, in fact, folks that were very

satisfied outpaced people that

were very dissatisfied by 4-1.

Some of the areas that we really

had kind of strong positive feedback really spoke back to the key features we were trying to design into the trains. Plenty of place to stand, the train is attractive, trains are easy to enter and exit and they are quiet.

So, the survey reinforced that design features we intended

really did translate.

There were also some places

where the survey identified room for improvement, and that primarily had to do with the seat design and the interior of

the vehicles, but I will point out that even here we saw more

than 50% of the people were satisfied with the current

seating configuration, but about

a third disagree with the

current design of the seats.

The focus group feedback allowed

us to drill down further and understand some of the input that we were getting. some of the feedback that we

heard mirrored what we heard from this board, including seats

being uncomfortable and

slippery, the need for more seat definition.

We also got some requests for

more handles and also multiple lengths so that somebody very

tall could have a hand hold and somebody very short.

We did also hear from people who

were in the focus group who use wheelchairs but they did really

appreciate the vehicle was easy

to get into, that it was more

spacious and easier to navigate

in a wheelchair than our current

vehicles.

When we drilled down further to

some of the feedback from

customers with disabilities and some of our shorter customers

who participated in the focus

group, again still very strong overwhelming satisfaction with the vehicles, really mirroring

what we were hearing from everyone, but lower satisfaction

with the seat height and the

overall seat design.

So, what we are hear today then

to get feedback on is how we

have taken all of that feedback

and basically created three

categories that we need board input.

The first is additional hand

holds to make sure the open

space we have were utilizing as

effectively as possible.

Second is the seating type and

the third is the seating layout, perhaps the most complex.

So, the first category is on the

additional handhelds.

What we are recommending is more

handhelds and also multi-length handheld, shown at the front

edge of the photo on the right. it's something that bart has

been using, fairly successful use of these kind of multi-height hand straps.

The second thing we would like

feedback on is potential archway

that we could put over the top of the train.

There will be a tradeoff, we

estimate that folks 6'4" and

under will clear that archway.

But taller folks will not.

Incidentally, the passenger --

the passenger --

>> tom maguire made a face back

there.

>> the --

>> wait 'til public comment, tom. [Laughter]

>> the passenger messenging find

is lower than this arch, so it's not the only place that we ask tall people to duck on the train.

But it is -- it will be a

tradeoff. The second thing we are bringing

you for consideration is three different seat types. The current seat design we have

is a bench design, and the

second seat option b is more

closer to what we have on the

busses, so, kind of a more individualized seat and the

third type mirrors most closely what we have on the current.

The seats themselves, we do

estimate that we'll lose about

one official seat per quarter of

the train but that's really debateable. We are seeing on the benches,

people spreading out

intentionally or in the intentionally and not realizing

the full potential of the benching.

The one place we have gotten positive feedback from the

current seat design, parents,

like scoop up myself and two

kids and we can scoop into a

smaller area than we might

otherwise be able to do.

And then the third area for

feedback has to do with the seat

layout, and as I said, this has

some of the biggest tradeoffs,

both cost implications as well

as the schedule.

As a baseline change, what we

are recommending is that we do lower three-quarters of the seats about two inches.

That would put them similar to

the height of the bradas.

The seats currently are higher

than the bradas because they

match the section where we keep

the train control box and we are recommending that we don't redesign that section of the train because it would be a substantial redesign of the vehicle. That's the train control box is

sort of a fixed dimension that

we don't have another obvious

good place to move it.

One kind of additional advocacy

for the bench seating design, although it does raise concerns for some people, one benefit, nobody is riding backwards.

That's something that the forward-facing seats, forward some of the time but backwards

other times. So, some of the benefits of just

dropping the seat, you know, we do retaken the aisle width, preserve the current number of seats, it does not have a

scheduled impact, but it does

not provide any seating variety, does not address where the

people are looking for more forward-facing seats and one of

the nicer things, they come with a stanchion built-in so you

don't have the increasing in handholds.

The second thing we looked at was in addition to lowering the

seat bench, we also looked at an option where we would convert a

small section of the vehicle to forward-facing seats.

This would allow, for example, somebody who has a disability and really can't stabilize

themselves on a bench seat to

have a forward-facing seat but it leaves the majority of the

seat design intact.

This also, you know, retains the wide aisle. It does start to introduce some seating variety.

It would reduce seats to about

four fewer, but it meets the accelerated schedule and where we have the seats we would also

then have the handholds. The second option that we looked

at builds on that kind of smaller section of

forward-facing seats and extends forward-facing seats to the

whole side of the vehicle, except where we would have space

for people who use wheelchairs.

This is -- retains again the

aisle width, it actually increases the aisle width, you

don't have the people's legs to compete with. It provides more seating

variety, meets the schedule,

adds a lot of handholds.

Reduces the seats, optimal seating of the bench seat by 12

seats or fewer.

And then the last thing that we

looked at was a kind of a combination, where we kept the

bench seating on one side, and

then looked at double transverse

seating. The nice thing about this design

is that it does preserve the

current number of seats but it

is a significant redesign of the car body.

The seats right now cantilever from the car body.

It's very easy for us to clean under the seats right now

because they are, they -- they

are not connected to the ground,

but this design would require up

to seven months of design and

engineering work to carry the additional weight.

It would -- it would give us

back to kind of the contract schedule, not necessarily the accelerated schedule. And there would be costs

associated with it.

So, this is just a summary chart

to potentially guide our discussion.

And ultimately this comes down to what I think is, it's a

somewhat subjective decision,

and that's why I included this

survey at the bottom here, we asked two questions.

Being able to fit more standing

in each train is more important than seating. 50% of the people say I agree with that, and then we asked the

same group of people, you know, is seating more important than

the train's overall capacity,

and 50% of the people absolutely

agreed with that.

So, what I think in all these

choices what we tried to do is consider things we thought went

back and preserved the performance goals, how does the

space flow, get in and out of

the vehicle, and a balancing act

of seats versus standing spaces

and some kind of time tradeoffs

built in. In terms of our next steps, in addition to this conversation,

I'm also going to be sharing

this presentation with our citizens advisory committee with their feedback. We'll begin this month and work through April to negotiate these

change orders and pricing with siemens. Bringing it back to you for

final change order approval in May.

The final expansion vehicles

will arrive this summer and then

our goal is to get the first

replacement vehicle, this is December, I think we are pushing

more for October if not, if not sooner with ultimately the last vehicle being replaced. Oh, no, sorry, the December date

is solid, it's the October of

2025 when we see the last brada

off into the sunset. So, that's my presentation.

I appreciate your attention and

happy to answer any questions you have.

We have very interested to hear

your comments. >> public comment on this item? Given us the options clearly and

not making a final decision today. So, if we can call public comment.

>> edward, followed by katherine

howard, and then greg miller,

the first three speakers.

>> Mr. Mason, welcome back.

>> hopefully the new seats will

be designed to the military

standard for considering the passenger comfort.

Existing seats are unacceptable, they are too hard to sit on.

There's no drain holes for water

as I experienced today with a

puddle of water on a seat.

Passengers currently avoid

sitting as closely as they can on the bench seating.

On the grate at the park, you go up the hill, you are really going sideways and if you have

back support problems, that's an

issue right there. We are focussing on capacity and

we are I think this whole thing is really treating the passengers as cattle on this.

We are expanding the fleet and

my question is, what is the eventual design if senate bill 50 is approved where we are going to increase the capacity of san francisco's population.

This is what it really boils down to. You are really not considering

the customers capacity here.

Also, we talk about forward-riding.

Well, once you get to embarcadero station that becomes backwards riding, keep that in

mind in any discussion that goes on.

And the development impacts of san francisco, we are developing south of market area, but the

way I'm reading this, we are really talking about the

expansion of housing in the

sunset district and that. So, that's really what I think is the design behind it. You are already going to have,

from 151 cars, another 100 cars going, and operating.

So, there's your excess capacity.

So why are we sacrificing

individual comfort that you expect? And, what's going to be the

future of transportation in san francisco because you've got so

many competing with rideshare and everything else, you are really -- >> thank you, Mr. Mason.

>> decreasing the ability.

>> kathryn howard, greg miller, Miss Krup.

The last person to turn in a speaker card. >> kathryn howard. First of all, specific seats

should be lowered two inches.

Use the model of the seating

options, option three is the

best of a bad group of choices. Where is option 4, 4 across? Your survey a choice between seating and people being able to get on the train. Of course, people who have to

get to work want to be able to get on the train and they'll accept just about anything. Is this your goal, the worst experience possible as long as

people can get somewhere?

I live at the end of the nju line. I see people at the stop taking uber and lyft, at the end of the

line where they could get a seat.

Could it be that taking muni is such a bad experience people

will pay more not to do it? Eliminating seating is adding to that feeling.

It discourages people so is that soon only the desperate will ride public transit.

You will have to subsidize it

more and more and some day

public transit will become

infeasible and it will go away.

Instead of what is sometimes

termed and I had the term before ed used it, a cattle

car mentality, I suggest thinking more about how to make the street cars more comfortable

to ride in, and to attract everyone, not just those who have no other choice. Thank you. >> thank you. Next speaker, please.

>> greg miller, followed by robin krup. >> hello.

Greg miller.

I'm 70 years old, 5'7", and regard myself as relatively fit

and agile for my age. With regard to the seating, I

find it very uncomfortable. Given the height and slickness of the seats and their orientation relative to the path

of travel and acceleration, I

find I cannot maintain a comfortable position, I can

barely get my feet on the ground

to get steady at times.

I often end the ride with a distinct pain in my back. I wonder what it's going to be

like when I'm 80 or 85, I don't

drive, I would like to take muni, and not uber. With regard to getting a seat, that can be a problem. If I'm returning to the sunset from downtown after about 3:30 in the afternoon, I find I can't get a seat about half the time. And then I'm going to have to stand for maybe 30 minutes to an

hour, depending upon how slow

the travel is to get home. Finally, I'm worried about the

wide aisle design and the lack

of effective handholds and not sure the presentation with the overhead bar will help people who are relatively short. A few weeks ago standing on one

of the new trains in the center of the aisle, because he could

not get close to the age, a sudden deceleration and I lost that handhold.

I skidded back on my heels, flailing my arms and narrowly avoided falling and pulling down

other passengers at the same time. I think the wide aisles present

a real risk to passengers and

financial exposure to our city.

I would encourage lowering the seats, certainly.

Testing out different handhold techniques, they all won't work,

and I encourage option three or something like that that would both give more seats and also

narrow that wide center section,

which I think is going to be a risk for people. >> thank you for coming down and sharing that with us. >> robin krup. >> welcome, thank you for coming. >> hi, everyone.

I came before you last July and testified. I want to repeat what I said last July. Took one ride on the new cars and got injured because I cannot

ride on a bench going sideways.

My pelvis, back and neck went out, I had to go for my chiropractor, that was it for riding the new trains.

Then I did my own survey.

Surveyed 100 people

approximately in muni stations and half of them said they were fine with the new trains and I said is that sitting and standing, and they said yes.

So, you have 50% able-bodied population I found that could hang upside down if you needed to. They are fine with the trains

and I used to be like that, too, when I was healthy.

the other 50% said no, this is a

problem, and that's why with we are up here. We have not solved the problems with the other 50%. The first statement out of some people's mind, muni took out half the seats. That's a group of people that do

not want to stand, they want to sit down. The other basic half was unhappy

with the sliding on the benches or we want the transfer seats. So I need to tell you, that's the only kind of seat I can ride. I cannot ride any other seat.

Only transfers for my back. I need for back support. I looked at the options. None of the three options will work for me. The first one, the cars are --

the transfer seats are in the back.

I can't negotiate from the front

car door where I board and I thought that train takes off while I'm walking or standing I get injured. So I need to get immediately to

a transfer seat as a disabled

person from the front door. Eight is too small, for the volume of people that want to sit down and be comfortable, so I want us to think about the

transferred seats again, when I

look at a solid car, over 20 seats. The driver helps me, he says can

somebody get up for this person and somebody usually does because there are over 20 people in the car.

If you have only eight maximum I May not be able to ride, and I'm very concerned about that. >> thank you very much for your time.

>> herbert wiener, followed by rachel height.

Those are the last two speakers. >> if anybody else wants to

speak on this item, turn in a card. Otherwise Miss Height will be the last speaker.

>> herbert wiener, I'm an

80-year-old passenger.

Now, I rode the new L.R.V. And one problem I have with it is

the seating, it is uncomfortable, and I'm thinking

of people with back problems,

and this is -- this is not considerate of that.

Also, there should be some forward-facing seats. And what I'm wondering about, if the car has to come to a sudden stop and you are sitting, you

know, on the side, are people going to be colliding with each other? That's the other consideration.

Also, I'm concerned about the exterior of the L.R.V.

What is -- is it made out of

metal, made out of plastic? It doesn't seem to be as durable

as the brata.

So, vr many good things about

it, but these are questions that have to be considered and you

really have to take seniors and

the disabled into consideration.

They constitute at least 20% of

ridership, and they have been

consistently neglected by this board.

The bicyclists carry more clout

as seniors and disabled and this is disgraceful. Because seniors and the disabled are the most vulnerable of our population.

>> thank you, Mr. Wiener.

>> good afternoon, chair, directors, executive director of san francisco transit riders.

We are the city's reader-based advocate for public transit.

As an organization, I think a

lot of you know this. We do a lot of talking to

transit riders, we don't just listen to twitter.

And what I want to say is the survey results today are very much in line with what we are hearing. We know people like the new

train, they like the way they look, they like the new and improved on board announcements and signage, and just generally they are pretty cool.

But I -- what a lot of people

said today and what we are hearing is that the seats are

absolutely terrible.

We are excited to hear muni is moving forward so we are super supportive of that, with the two-inch reduction. We don't have an opinion on how

you do the seating configuration

but are supportive of some type of divot.

I'm a daily rider, so I like the

bus style seating because it's

very comfortable on muni.

I want to quickly thank director

kirchbaum and her team, and the

focus group with cantonese and people, seniors and people with disabilities that's awesome, and my organization as well. Thank everyone, especially the

transit team, for actually listening to riders, and considering making changes that are going to improve the

experience for riding muni. Thank you. >> ok.

I'll close public comment.

Julie, come back up. directors, any specific questions? Procedurally, we are not making a decision today. A final recommendation will be

coming back to us, so today is

the day to provide input, if you have it.

[Please stand by] >> so we're really looking for some guidance today so that we

can negotiate the final arrangement with the contractor and come back to you for authorization the end of May.

We're looking for feedback today and soon thereafter. Not at the end of May.

>> so you can put director torez

down for the seating needs to be reformed and needs to be lowered and we need to deal with the sliding forward and backward

that the current horizontal or

current vertical non-dented seats pose. Anything else? >> I would be happy to serve on any subcommittee to work with

the contractors directly. >> look at that.

>> pro bono, of course. [Laughter]

>> anyone else?

We're just going to go around the horn then. >> I think that of the options,

I mean, option one was the most appealing. I do understand and I want to

figure out how he can deal better with seniors and people with disabilities who are having challenges.

I mean, I know that at peak hours, when the trains are crowded, people really just want to get on them.

That's the number one challenge.

I see it, whether it's on bart, people don't want to sit.

They want to stand close to the doors. Now you've literally have a situation on the trains where

people are standing like sardineses and the they will stand in their face because they're just trying to get on

the train. So, as much as I would like to figure out how we can accommodate more seating and

maybe in the longer terms, since we have trains coming as late as 2025, maybe we can add back more

seats on some of those ladder trains.

Right now, we're having massive crowding particularly at peak

rush hours and people are

literally squeezing to get on

the trains. Having more is standing room available and wider aisles makes

a lot of sense. And just because the behavior is even when the seats are empty, people are just choosing to stand as opposed to sit in a

seat because they don't want not

get out of the seat when the train is crowded, right. Lowering the seat height of

course, I'm 100% supportive of

because I don't reach the floor.

Obviously that means I also slide around.

So either options two or three

with the seats, I'm not really -- I personally think anesthetically the option b looks better than c.

I don't really have a -- >> so your top two would be two or three?

>> option one but the seats,

there was a, b and c.

Seat for a, b or c and option 1.

I prefer seats in b but I'm fine with b or c.

Which is more secure and people sliding? Situations with quick stops on

buses and obviously more hand-holds.

The over arching once are top for me and I typically can't get the high ones. The strap once are the ones I

can typically reach and because

on a crowded bus, people are

reaching across each other so straps of differing heights makes the most sense. >> thank you. Thank you. Good presentation.

It's quite a challenging task to

try and make these street cars work for everybody at all times of the day. I think the lowering of the benching is

benches is a great idea.

I think as far as the seating type, actually I prefer c

because I feel like with b, people put trash behind those

seats when they are higher than the edge of the window. I think for the people who are

cleaning our cars at night, c will be easier. We do need some different ot there

divot to keeppeople from sliding.

I wonder if that transverse seating should be blue to indicate it should be given up

for people who need that seating.

That's the only input I have on the seating. I don't know which option -- I of course want to go with the option that continues to meet our excession rated schedule, that's the only input I have for that and in addition to the fact we need some forward-facing

seating for people who do have back problems that prevent them from riding sideways.

Other than that, that's my only input. Good work.

We look forward to you making

everybody happy. [Laughter]

>> thank you. >> one of the things I think about when we look at this is out until 2025, it's just that that is six years from now. How quickly the world is changing.

Are we just thinking about how we're future proofing the system as much as we can knowing that the demand is going to look

different for whatever reason in 2025.

I make that as a general comment

how we are protecting against future change. It's a game of maximizing

different factors, right. And so, when I get on the train, I just want a seat.

For me, maximizing the number of seats would be one principle to keep in mind. There's different comfort of seats and it's kind of like, a

seat is better than no seat I think.

A second one would be I agree

with Dr. Borden, it's so crowded at the peak period. People are just jamming each other so just more standing space.

You see it with the older buses where you have two and two and

just a tiny little alley and people don't know if you can

have one person or two people. It's just so packed.

I do think also, maximizing

standing spaces is another core principle.

But I think there are options.

>> we May have surveyed her.

[Laughter]

>> twice. They maximize standing and seating. The other thing is I agree with

the director brinkman we do want to delay. No one wants a delay. We want to hit the schedule and minimize cost.

We can all agree. A general principle. We want to carry ford.

I would just think that you should make this decision not us

in terms of what is the configuration but we should giving you high-level guidance in terms of the goals we should

achieve in the final design.

>> not to refute everything, I do just want to point out I appreciate that you included

people with disabilities and focus groups. It's so important because those folks have more particular needs

that aren't as flexible as other riders. I think it's a really good factor.

To the folks who really wanted smaller aisles, that is a problem for some people with

disabilities because obviously

for me, in a wheelchair, if it's a narrow aisle, people won't move into the aisle and I can't

even get on a train if it's crowded. The more standing room in the middle actually that pro voids

better access for wheelchair users. As far as the options go, I agree with the majority of the

folks who have spoken.

Options 1 and 2 preserving the schedule and offering some seat options facing ford for those

who need it that would be my preference.

And I think yeah, cost considerations obviously is going to keep things under

control and on schedule. That's my -- thank you so much for doing this. >> you are not going to make everyone happy. I will tell you that. It's a question of, you know, how unhappy and where can we draw the compromise. The main feedback you are

hearing is the current

configuration is not widely popular. Everything else about the train is. So let's focus on the positive for a moment. They're quieter, they seem to break down less. They have better communication systems, it's a smoother ride and there's a lot of good going on here.

And so, people are excited about the new trains and I'm glad we're bringing them online.

But the one consistent source of negative feedback is the seats.

So let me give you.

>> Mikaela:   my view on that. If it's clear we need a change. Lowering the seating, you are

getting unanimous support for that.

As far as the overhead or the hand-held, I think I'm hearing pretty consistent support for that.

The reality is if you have a wide aisles but not the ability

for three people to stand across, you've lost

tractor-trailer capacity benefit of the wide aisle.

So the arches and maybe even hang-downs from the center of the train to accommodate that person in the middle of the group could be something that you could look at. But certainly the arches to me

are something that make sense.

And so we come to the seats.

This is where, you know, it's interesting. You understand the pressure

we're getting too. Capacity is important but safety

and comfort matter too. If we're trying to design a

system that will make it attractive for people to ride,

we can't simply focus on capacity.

My personal view is that the

alignment that we went to most recently with the breed of cars with two across and four backwards and one on the side

was what I've seen the best

balance of safety and comfort with capacity.

I think that's probably most

well struck by option c2 or 3 here.

My preference for for 3. At the least we have to have option 2. I don't know if it's possible to

have a mixture within the trains

and I suspect it's cost prohibitive to have different

designs train to train. >> it is more expensive. >> yeah, ok.

So not cost prohibitive but more expensive. If we were to go to option 3, the delay is seven months. >> up to seven months? >> up to seven months with the first roll out and the roll out after that would continue as planned over the course of several years.

>> you would still shave the 18

months off at the end.

>> you know, I mean, we're

hearing people say that the

current seating alignment

without forward and backward

seating is unsafe and leads to

injuries and is not hospitable for a large number of our riders.

We can't ignore that. We need to change. I personally favor 3. But I think 2 at the least gets us some of that and I wouldn't

mind looking at whether there's

something akin to the breed of style with the 2 and 3 or

something that is a hybrid of

two and three but to be clear, again, I just think we have a safety and a comfort issues and those are valid issues for our rider base. I don't think the current configuration is addressing them and we need a change.

My preference would be c3 of the current options and I've tried to give you broader concepts so if you can look at different options.

If you want to look at different

options you can. >>

>> the design implications of

two and one like the most recent

design would mirror and be no

more extensive than option three. We could secretary manufacture to

-- ask the manufactureto do either. >> I might favor doing that and

talking to our ridersy unions and interesting parties to see

what those options look like.

You've talked about capacity elimination but if you factor

these things together, the addition of the arch and the hand held in the middle should increase capacity.

Is that correct? We try to preserve as many seats as we can sort of along the lines of design that we've talked about.

I get that the goal here is to

really address this during crunch time but again, these are

trains people are riding often. We need to address the comfort

and safety issues clearly. That's loud and clear.

>> all the discussion of sliding

on the seats reminds us that we need to minimize the stopping

and starting and our transit effectiveness work we're doing towards that helps.

As the director pointed out, it's when the train is breaking or accelerating that people get that uncomfortable sliding action.

Anything we can do to get these

trains moving more smoothly and more quickly only stopping to pick up and drop off passengers never getting stuck at a signal

and never getting stuck behind a car in the train's right-of-way that will help so much and it's going to main people won't be

sliding if they're on the side way seat and people won't do this except when they're coming to a stop. We'll just keep this in mind and I'll remind everybody of this

next time we're talking about a transit priority signal or a red

transit lane for our street cars. thank you. >> the train doesn't turn the

way the buses do.

The train goes laterally.

The most comfortable season position is forwards or backwards. That's just the reality of it.

It's the beauty of train riding. There's not a lot of heavy

turning and it makes the train such an attractive thing.

So here, I think we went to a seating style that doesn't really work with the way the train operates.

We're fixing that. You've got my view on how we

make our riders comfortable.

>> our next challenge is the seating. Make it more comfortable. And number two, I know you can't change this and thank you again to staff for all the hard work you all put into this. One thing I keep on getting from

my staff, who commute from here

to oakland, is backpacks.

Why can't people be courteous to remove the backpack once they get on a train. It might make a little more

space for people and it becomes

less crowded.

It's sir

a simple courtesy.

I know you can't do anything about it. >>

>> we have signage on the new train.

>> can I make one more comment. When I think about the new york city subway, we have a lot of

bench seats situations and that is a fast-moving train. It works ok.

They have a little but it looks

to be a much more comfortable design than contemplated in either b and c in terms if there's a scenario where the

family you talk about needs to spread across multiple seats. Are these the only options

because I agree the current benches are uncomfortable. Are we limit today this universe

or are there other opportunities

that allow a maximum use of the

increased comfort?

>> we're not -- we're only limited by time and research. We can certainly look at how new

york is handling their trains.

>> is there anymore feedback?

Not that you wanted it in the first place? >> we're good. >> you have cross purposes here. That's the difficulty of this assignment. I get it. I think we've all tried to give

you our views and I appreciate your willingness to look at the

additional option of how the two and one. >> we appreciate it. It's been very helpful discussion. >> ok. >> one that you can tell the

public has a great deal of interest in.

More outreach would be wonderful. That was just a discussion item.

We will move on to item 13.

>> awarding contract 1306

improvement project to sunset boulevard to ntk construction

for capital improvements along

the corridor between the zoo and

sunset boulevard and not to

exceed $29,000,000.39357 in 600 days. And you are making environmental reviews findings.

>> so this will help us set the bet. Do people care about the train

seat or $29 million contract?

I have my bets. Please.

>> good afternoon.

So I'm amy lam, the project manager for this project from cpnc.

I'm here for your approval to

award the contract improvement

project to sunset boulevard to ntk construction company.

So I just want to give you a

general overview for this project. We will put also we pace our

track and then overhead contract

system and P.U.C. Will join the project to repave the sewer and water. Of course, the intent of the

project is to improve the

chances, performance and make it

more safer and accessible to the

pedestrian and also we replace

our city over 100 years. The limit of the work is from

sunset boulevard to the zoo. That is we're still in design

and we're working transit for

all this consider dinnation. My plan is up to today, I will

work with the contractor.

What is the game plan? What is the baseline

construction and then I'm very

fortunate, I have a good team.

We will continuous low update

our set of community. And our supervisor. >> thank you, very much.

Are there any questions on the presentation? Seeing none. We'll open it up for public comment. Is there any public comment?

>> just one person.

>> hello. Welcome.

Podium is all yours. >> eileen, coalition for san francisco neighborhoods here on

my own behalf. I'm requesting a 90 day continuance for this item.

I have been advocating for three

modifications for contract 1306 replacing concrete boarding islands with modular boarding

islands for the out bound stops, retain the inbound clear zones

and re-evaluating the need for transit-only lanes. Both the mta and the fire

department have openly acknowledged that concrete

boarding island slow down emergency response. Rank-and-file firefighters have

also stated they slow down when

they approach the boarding islands and they court the median and they cross the median to give the boarding I'll more clearance by crossing the median they place themselves at risk. And improving pedestrians safety

should not be at the expensive emergency response. If it's forward looking concrete

boarding islands should be re-evaluated.

And in terms of vision zero and

ada compliance, modular boarding islands are com rable to concrete boarding islands.

In terms of cost performance, modular boarding items are

$50,000 compared to $150,000 for concrete.

Photo 1, on the overhead is a

boarding island in oakland.

Photo number 2 is a boarding platform in downtown los angeles.

I took this photograph myself.

I showed it this morning at

the -- modular boarding island

would be a transition to hi-tech solutions.

I believe the mta should proactively fund development of hi-tech alternatives to concrete boarding islands that way we

would not have to do trade offs between pedestrian safety and ergency response. >> thank you. Any other public comments on

this item? Seeing none.

Ok Mr. Winier.

>> herbert winier.

I want to plead that you not

have this idea with feet and concrete about the boarding island.

I think overhead traffic lights,

you know, would ensure safety.

And I think it's very important

that these boarding islands not

endangerer the life of people

who are in critical need.

I mean, seconds count sometimes

in saving the life of a person in mortal danger.

And you don't want to place a

person at extreme mortal risk.

And these islands do this.

I think there must be a better solution for this.

Certainly the mta planner should

really explore this.

They're expensive and the money for the boarding islands can be

used for other purposes. Possibly to add more coaches on the l line. Which I think have remained

remained the same. The service hasn't improved, the

only thing we have are boarding islands.

Really nothing to show for it. Thank you. >> seeing no further public comments. We'll close public comment. Does anyone have any questions

or comments for director riskin or staff? >> just one quick comment. I so appreciate and I know a lot of people in the city do, when we do these big projects we touch all the infrastructure in the street. I know it's something former mayor lee really supported doing

the water, the sewer. When we explain to people, for example, on van ness, that the transit portion of the project

has not even started yet, people are kind of amazed the infrastructure work under the street can take so long and I don't want to throw our fellow

agencies under the bus by any means -- made a joke there, but

if we could just rebehind people the important work, it's not just transit, it's actually sewer, water, infrastructure and it's going to be a really good project and the safety improvements and travel time provements and the infrastructure improvements will be much appreciated. Thank you.

>> thank you so much. Fortunately, we know how to

build a sewer and water so I really understand how they build

the utility work. I will explain it to the public

and share what is the status of that work.

>> this project is going to make it safer for people to ride. It's going to be safer for pedestrians and it's going to be more attractive for people to ride. This absolutely serves our transit needs as well as our vision zero goals.

I fully support the project. This action item is to do with the contract. How many bids did you receive? >> total five. >> right. >> this is the lowest qualifying bid of five? >> yes.

>> so this is a robust outreach and contracting process and your comfortable that this is the

best bid that will meet the requirements of that bid? >> yes. >> very good. >> is there a motion on this item? >> so moved. >> second. >> second. >> all those in favor please say aye. >> aye. >> any opposed. Ok. Good luck. >> thank you. >> outreach with that community. They like that. [Laughter]

>> item 14, whether to invoke the attorney client privilege and conduct a closed session. >> motion. >> motion. >> second.

>> all in favor please say aye. >> aye. >> here we go. Fellow directors, does anyone

need a break or can we barrel through?

>> barrel through.

>> susan promises it will be

quick.

>> they discussed the city attorney and the board voted to settle the case. 16 appropriate to disclose or not disclose the position discussed. >> motion to not disclose. >> is there a second. >> all those if favor say aye. >> aye. >> my opposed. That passes. We are adjourned.