City and County of San Francisco Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Roll call: .
>> please be advised directors emergency
heinke and torr session will not
be present.
Any person responsible for an electronic device going off May
be asked to leave the room. Item 4. >> I have a motion.
>> Madam Chair, no one has indicated they wish to address. >> motion to approve. >> all in favour? >> aye.
>> item 5, communication's Madam Chair, none.
Item 6, introduction of new or unfinished business by board
members.
>> I just wanted to tell chair
heinke, he's getting props to move more strategies in san
francisco to a bike-pedestrian transit lane situation only. I wanted to mention that and
tell him that he's really
getting just so much excitement
and support and after the
unfortunate incident in the
tenderloin where a young boy was
hit, there's so much interest in
that neighborhood, so many
families with young children,
overly affected and they're talking into looking into car-free seats.
It puts a lot on staff, but it's gotten a lot of people excited and happy to hear it's moving forward. >> thank you.
Any other directors have any new
unfinished business?
Seeing none, we will move on to the director of transportation
report.
>> as you know, we have been
conducting staff and stakeholder outreach most of the summer and we're community to receive subject input through a survey
we post ed this summer and
received 344 employee responses and 295 295 stakeholder responses and we wanted to summarize some of what we learned through the surveys.
The top areas of focus where the employees want the new director
to focus are on long-term visual
ship, setting clear priorities, ensuring safety operations of the transit system and standing up to political pressure, providing strong, responsible and fair leadership and ensuring customer service to the paying
public, inspiring and empowering
staff and ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion and service
to customers.
In terms of the stakeholder
input for the next director,
where safety for pedestrians and cyclists, safety for transit
riders and a vision for environmental and financial sustainability.
The interview questions that we are asking the candidates came
from the input we received this summer from staff and stakeholder outreach. We are actively seeking out
individuals that must closely
fit the ideal profile, and that profile was itself generated from a lot of that staff and stakeholder input we received. As we consider candidates, we are string
striving to find the focus from employees and stakeholders.
so that is my report and any question, I'm
s, I'm happy to field them.
Any director who's were on the
search committee, want to contribute highlight level comments?
I want to thank director eakin
for directing that cause. We'll move on to the director's report.
>> Madam Chair, it would be report -- >> for public comment. >> it doesn't look like anyone submit
submitted a speaker card. >> any comment on the overview of the search process?
Seeing none, we'll move to the director's report. >> item 7, director's report. >> good afternoon, I'm going to
start with a review of recent
activities and when I'm done
I'll ask julie kirshbaum.
It's on the opening of the
center and I want to recognise thousands of mta staff, every division of the agency who made the launch of transit service in
the opening of the chase center and overwhelming success for opportunities of thousands of
fans, workers and just regular
san francisco people who wanted to get around.
On friday, the metallica concert, there were 500 passengers on the bus service and 3,000 to 3600 on the t-line
and the tn-shuttle line. According to the giants who
operate the large parking lot at
lot a, very few cars in parking
lot a and so, we did not see the
feared karmagheddin that many of
us were prepared for they parked or traveled on foot from somewhere else.
As many as 1500 using tnss.
The 78x, the nonstop to the bart
station was crush loads and 79 loads was half full. Over the course of a few events,
we did see muni ridership going
up but did not see the traffic crush materializing. We had additional tests last week.
The first time that we had a dual event, meaning a giant's
game at the ballpark and again,
got the same -- observed the same smooth conditions on the streets and didn't get a lot of negative and only positive
feedback from the public.
Bike use was light, only 30
bikes at the first event and one of the works in progress we have
is cleaning up the operation of
the smooth operation of bicycles on 6th street between third and the bay and then, bees, the
completion of the fully bike
path.
We have construction all over mission bay and the dog path and
as streets open, we'll be tweaking
tweaking signage, with safety post and the convenience of
everyone trying to travel is prioritized.
I want to acknowledge we heard criticism last week of the
impacts of the chase center on
riders on the number 8 bus. Specifically, we missed about
three runs on tuesday on that
bus and we immediately got into
dialogue with supervisor walton representing the constituents
and we offered free service on
the 8th, 19th on thursday and friday, but more importantly, it was a wake-up
call to us to make sure the message -- the promises we May
the public, we would not let the chase center events disturb access to the eastern part of
the city, making sure that
message is communicated to the
details of where we send a spare bus where we're short a vehicle or two. The other things will be works
in progress and we were, on the
hole, the way we worked.
Next up, I would like to invite
our new resource directors, and I would like to introduce you to
her, as well.
As you've told us consistently,
getting our human resource's
operations is a top priority for mta, as well, and kimberly joined us as a new director of
human resource.
She has 25 years working in state and regional transit
agencies and came to us from ham hampton road's transit and oversaw the entire operation of the resource's department from talent, acquisition and
policy development and an divert expert in human resources.
Before hr, she was an urban
planner and passionate about developing efficient public transportation systems and
creating the dynamic workforces fostering the charging ration
collaboration to get there. Maybe kimberly will say a few words.
>> thank you, thank you so much.
Everyone has been so supportive
and welcome ing. Not only the employees but san
francisco as a whole. i'm skated to be here
scooted
excited to be here and make sure we're working together to
be inclusive and have a diverse work environment.
So I really am excited and thank you so much. >> you're welcome.
>> thank you very much. Thank you. >> welcome to the agency and
happy to see you on board. I just do want to flag that in
the course of the search process, one of the things we've heard a lot about is that we are ensuring mta is an environment
free of harassments and free of discrimination issue. The board received a letter that
I'm sure you received a copy of
from change mta, concerned about the issues and they're
persistents at the agency. I see no reason for a new director to come on and I'm
happy to meet with you any time. I feel these are foundational
and urgently address these issues and wipe them out.
Thank you so much. >> thank you. Looking forward to working with
you. >> welcome
another scooting
exciting thing to
announce, last week,
September 10th, the county
admitted 17 million to the
overall flier fleet and doing a properly funded overhaul is the
way to make sure the investment pays dividends over the use of the buses. So we don't have to retire them early or deal with maintenance issues down the road.
This is a good example of
funding and planning for keeping keeping our flu down the road. A couple of street improvements,
over the last three months,
we've rolled out traffic signals
to keep traffic flowing on some of busiest streets in sanfrancisco.
We installed new timing patterns
at 50 intersections in eastern
soma, east of fourth street and another 50 intersections on california pine and bush in lower pacific heights.
The improvements that we put in place include making the signals
for visible, higher visibility
to pedestrians, separation between pedestrians and traffic
and we've installed -- activated
two more red-light cameras, two
more red-light cameras are active and two are turned on and issuing warnings and another eight installed by the end of the year.
So we're ramping up quickly in that programme. Some morning, I will join the
director of public works and
some other city officials at
eighth and judith to ribbon cut the straight scape improvement.
It's a multiagency project and
we're reorganizing the end
judith stops and also doing some
needed sewer work from public works and puc.
Customers and pedestrians along
juda will see new cross-walk
ramps, newly striped cross-walk
and improved traffic signals to
go along with the sidewalks at at
the transit stops.
I know outreach is on the board. I'm proud our team has won awards for public outreach and planning.
The 2017 bryant project was
awarded -- was given an award by association for public
participation, better known as iap2 and specifically gave an
award for diversity, inclusion
and culture category and for
improving one of the slowest routes and able to reach populations in soma and tenderloin.
That was recognised by the transit riders who gave out a
rider first award and at those awards, they recognise the planning team that quickly put
in place the resign, the common
sense pilot at the west portal
this year to improve and make
the lightrail service smoother.
We're giving free muni tickets
and for the t-third for providing
providing readable signage and to 250a for successfully pass ag contract to improve conditions
for operators and kept riders moving.
That concludes my report.
I will turn it over to director
borden, to julie.
>> Dr. Kirshbaum.
>> good afternoon.
I'm the transit director and
thank you for talking about the upcoming schedule changes.
These are a part of our ongoing
approach to make incremental improvements to improve or reliability.
We're in a resource constrained environment right now as a result of the operator shortage,
so we're not doing big ads to the system, but we are constantly making shifts and refinements to make service
better.
The changes go into effect early 2020. We're targeting January.
Although it May be early february.
And some of the things that
we're doing is enhancing
reliability, making new or
improved customer connections
and also we believe will help
with less misservice.
On the reliability side, the
first thing we're doing is we'll
pilot in the morning a change to the rail system where we're
going to turn the j-line along
ebarcadaro rather than turning it at ebarcadaro station. It's an experiment but we
believe it will decrease congestion and really reduce the amount of delay that customers
are spending stuck between
stations particular lookly between montgomery and ebarcadaro but we'll seeing it between powell and montgomery. The cross-over move, because we
don't have a dedicated pocket along the ebarcadaro, the cross-over move, we've tested
and it takes about 90 seconds.
So there will be some delays if
there's an end train or a
t-train coming in either
direction, but we believe that
delay is better than the big
delay that we're seeing in the tunnel itself.
If it doesn't work, you know, we have the ability to quickly revert back to the current system, but we think that it
will make an incremental improvement.
Then as we discussed, we are
looking as we develop our capital programme at an additional pocket track along the ebarcadaro which would
really, I believe, help with the terminal. The second thing I'm excited about and we've waited a long
time, is that we're upgrading
the buses on the weekday. It currently has longer buses on the weekends. We've been holding off on doing that because we've needed coaches, the bigger trains for some of the rail construction that's been happening, including
the warrior's platform that was you have completed.
But we're excited to be rolling
that out and getting a lot of positive feedback from folks
that are experiencing crowding on that service. This will also allow us to
retire some of our very oldest 40-foot buss that we've been
holding onto. There's small incremental changes. Unfortunately the city continues to slow down and so, we have to make adjustments in the
schedules to keep up with that
negative trend.
The second category of changes is looking at ways to have better connections and one of
the things I am most excited
about is that we are going to be restructuring the early morning
service for our rail customers.
On some of our routes like the
t-line and m-line, we provide a
route downtown but on others we we don't.
We force a surface lane to west portal and then they transfer to a bus.
When we interviewed the early
morning customers, many whom are going to jobs and making
connections that without reliable transit they wouldn't be able to get where they needed to go, about a quarter said they were transferring two times just
to access our early-morning
service. Additionally, we're putting extra rail miles on the system
when we don't need it.
The bus loads -- the customer
loads are more appropriate for a
bus at that hour.
So what we'll be doing, we'll be
pulling out the trains a little bit later to match when the
subway open and deriving direct connections on our bus system.
This is something we will do extensive customer information
campaigns so those early morning
customers know what to expect. They'll be told, you don't have to get off this and this will take you down to make your
destination.
This reduces the number of vehicles
vehicles on tonsend.
We've been hearing feedback, the 9r, which is something that has had positive feedback, for
example, in visitation valley
isn't starting early enough. We will be implementing service
to rinkon hill which is something we've been work on working on
for a long time and something this board off proved.
Another change is an equity
change, currently the 29 sunset is not very customer-friendly.
We don't have a very good
lay-over at the end of the line.
So what we do -- and we've done
it for many, many years -- when the bus gets to third street, customers have to wait through the entire operator lay-over before heading to the end of the
line. So what we're working on is to
try to work to get a terminal and a location but if we're not
able to, we'll do the terminal loop twice. So we will take customers
directly to the end of the line. Well go back and do the lay-over
and start the line again and
pick them up.
I also want to flag on the 29,
we continue to get a lot of feedback about all of the
schools and all of the activity.
I know we had an interesting
presentation from students last summer.
Our transit planners are doing a
year-long process with that
class to look at the needs of
students along that route and
looking at how we can get potentially some skip-stop service or express service focused around the school time.
We don't have the resources do
that now, but I'm optimistic as we continue with our operator hiring that we May be able to consider ha in the future.
So I wanted you to know the
planning work is going on, even toe
though we're not able to add if extra service. The last areas we're looking at is to sea what we can
see what we can do to mun minimize misservice.
We're changing the schedule.
We have the number of part-time operators. Even with all of our recruiting
efforts, we only have about 35 part-type operators
part-time operators working in the system.
So we'll be adjusting the schedule to reflect that.
We'll be as a paper exercise, we're going be reducing the
amount of service on the f line. It will not be different than what we're delivering today because, unfortunately, we just don't have enough operators trained on the historic fleet, but as our training improves, we'll be able to rachet that back up and it will be more
stable because instead of having big gaps in service, everything
will be more smoothed out to match our actual resource levels.
We will also be making some judgments adjustments to the lrv schedule to reflect the number of
vehicles we have.
The end result will be fewer car trains in the system. The last thing, we've taken a
hard look at all of our routes to shift resources and one place
we're pursuing this is on the richmond expresses.
We currently provide one trip after 7:00 P.M. On all of the rich monday routes.
It's a very expensive trip
because it forces or schedule to
go from 12 hours to 13 hours, which doubles the number of operators that we need. And they're not very well utilized.
So we are going to ask customers
on the richmond express to use
the 38 rapid and one california
after 7:00 P.M.
So these changes right now, I
know January or February seems
far off, but in scheduling world, we're actually kind of in the heat of developing those changes.
This will also be a general sign-up for our operators, so
they will have the opportunity
to change modes. This will be our last traditional general soon-up,
where people can go from bus to rail.
One of the things we changed in the contract negotiations was
how we do rail training, by the
commitment that we would be doing one more traditional sign-up. I do believe that the rail service will be more stable than
it was the last time we did a general sign-up.
The last time we did a general
sign-up, we had about a six-month slow down in training because of the blue light phone replacement in the subway and
we've had an extended period of shut-downs in the subway impacting our hiring.
Our hiring levels continue to be
good on the lrv side.
But this will have some impacts.
It also means that instead of
our October class being 60 students, we do have to rachet
it back to 30 students because we need trainer capacity to train existing operators on their new modes so people will
go from a 40-foot bus to a 60-foot bus or a motor coach to a federally
trolley and we need to meet
those contract obligations.
I think that's the end of my presentation and I'm available
to answer any questions have. >> directors? Director eakin.
Thank you for the update and I
know it's making tough decisions, making a decision you don't want to make, but we've
been so heartened to hear of the
strong sizes at the operator classes and I did note a
decision to temporarily reduce the size of the October class and I wanted to hear you speak
about what's the constraint
there and any way to trouble-shoot that.
Can we ever bring in contract
part-time trainers or
temporarily supplement or training force to allow us to keep the momentum with the
recruitment?
>> thank you for that question. We -- the constraint currently
right now is the number of
trainers. Although, we have worked very
hard in a multi -- year
multiyear process to
develop a trainer classification. That eligibility list we expect
to be done December-january timeframe which allows us to
increase our training staff for the first time in many years.
So I think that we'll have to, as those new trainers become qualified to lead classes of
their own, I do think we'll need
to rachet up even further the
class sizes that we have and I'm
going spend quite a bit of time in my October presentation to
you sharing where I think we're
at with the training when I think we sort of stabilize but
what I think we do to ultimately
put this shortage behind us. And not have to be making these tough trade-offs that you're
talking about. >> directors?
Director hemminger. >> thank you, clear.
The 31x used to be my bus.
And I through it over for the 5r because it's a lot better. [Laughter] >> so good for you on that.
I recall that the last bus on
all those richmond expresses was 6:00, not 7:00.
So you must have expanded it or lengthened it when I wasn't looking. So if the last bus is not going
to be 7:00, when will it be?
>> so about a year and a half
ago, maybe two years ago, we increased the service span from
6:00 to about 7:15, 7:00, 75:00
and this will move it back to
about 6:50. It recognises there is a market from 6:00 to 7:00. >> so you're reacting to the ridership trend you're seeing out there? >> yes. >> that's fine. The border
broader question, there are a whole mess of people outside of the city hall front doors a
few days ago, talking about a
dramatic expansion of rapid bus service city-wood and
city -- wide. I would appreciate what those folks are talking about and what your views of it are.
I know the rapid service was
launched in sort of a methodical way so you went for the routes you thought you would get the biggest bang for the buck.
So we're farther up the tree now
in terms of low-hangin' fruit. But it does seem to me that with
the success you've had in the the richmond district, we should build on that success and maybe
reach farther up in the tree and we May need to make tougher decisions to reach the fruit but I'm game for that.
So I was hoping we could get that when it's convenient for
you over the next few months or
so.
>> director rinkman. >> no specific questions but I
just wanted to congratulate you on some of the change and thank you from the rider point of view. Some of the early morning
changes, the seven buses, all of
these will help just address the
problems that our riders are having out there, so thank you for that. On the operator sued, you came
back from rail's resolution and at one of the sessions, one effort panelists asked all of the represented cities in the
room who was having problems with operator shortages and every city raised their hand.
So we're not alone in this and thank you for not losing focus
and continuing to push on it. And hopefully well at least, if
not solve it, we will keep up
and we'll get much closer in the
long range.
They use an outreach bus and they kidded up and drive it out to the neighborhood and park it and people walk through and look at all of the information about the project in hand. So I thought that was an
interesting idea since we're retiring buses. But thank you so much.
These are the kind of innovative changes that people are really
excited to see and addressing the little things you can do and
try them out with the turn-back on the ebarcadaro and see if they work and if they do,
fabulous and if they don't, we'll go back to the way it was.
Thank you for all of your work. >> on the richmond bus, I wanted to make sure when we change the time, do we make sure we don't Miss Any buses before that? because I used to lou
live out that
way and I remember if one of the
buses got missed along the way,
the next bus was packed. I don't know if we look at that
and trouble-shoot that better than back then. Maybe you can talk about that.
The rich
richmond expresses come out
of the 10, 12 and 19.
We're constantly in this kind of
tough set of choices, but we do
make sure that we fill the last trip on every route because we
think it's important to set people's expectations, but in
some cases, the expresses are
taking more of a service hit so
that we don't have double gaps
on routes like the 12 or the 19.
>> so to that point, are we doing better information to the customer to let them know the
last bus will be -- will be mixing
missing a route.
People can take the 5r, depending on where they're
going, there's more than one option. If we can communicate to people because they're standing on the bus stop and don't know why the bus hasn't come and it comes and it's backed. They don't have any communication. I think if we can do a better job because we know the entire
run will be missed, letting
people know sooner, then we can let them make a different choice to take a different mode. >> I think that's a great suggestion. We are doing it, but I think doing it more would be helpful and particularly acknowledging
the fact that that's a very
digital client base and making
more information available in
real-time, because in the morning, somebody doesn't have to choose, you know. Luke if
.If the express bus comes first,
they can take that but in the evening, the express has their own terminal and would be helpful to give customers
information in advance. >> about the early weekend transit, making sure you reach
out to the hospitality groups because a lot of riders are
going to hospitality service, hotel, restaurant jobs, making
sure we reach out to those, and
I know that was effective in bart when they were opening
later and focusing on that demographic.
If there's anything to increase the 30 to a higher number, that would be great.
I was lucky to be at the graduation last friday and it
was inspiring to see the new
class members about joining the mta family and having the mayor show up, which was an extra icing on the cherry for everyone
in that class and it made a big difference.
One of the stories that get I didn't
mention earlier, there was a woman going through chemotherapy and she was never late and never missed a class.
I felt inspired by how dedicated people are to choose to do this work. So just wanted to recognise that we are looking for drivers and whatever we can do to make sure
we can meet that demand to Miss
Left rounds would be great.
you can speak to this.
>> christopher peterson and then
lastly kat carter, ha who have
turned in a speaker's card. >> herbert winer, I think the elephant in the room is the
addition of more buses to the fleet.
Now you can say, ok, we've added
some more buses, but you've retired more buses, which means
the addition is much lower, if there's any addition at all.
Right now what you're doing is
reallocating the existing resources to different runs, dust routes, different time schedules than the reft of it, but the population of this city
is growing.
The fleet is growing and it
should be increased to meet the
factors. Basically, progress has been
very gracial in this agency, if
any at all. I would like to see a report on the task force because I don't know, frankly, you know, what the schedule is, when they're
going to meet, public participation or anything. So these are my comments.
Thank you.
>> next speaker, please.
>> christopher peterson followed
by kat carter.
>> I'm christopher peterson and my comment relates to the impacts of chase centre on transit service.
I think it's very important that
mta be evaluating the ripple
effects of that.
I suspect there are dust caneds different kinds of ripple effects. The friday night opening of
chase center, I trade to catch
an outbound k at vanesse at 11:30 at night and there was an
hour wait and the water for the el was 40 minutes.
I looked at the system map in the station and not a single train was running in the
direction of balboa park from
sunnydale to balboa park.
So was that kind of extreme clustering an extreme gap in service because of the chase
center or just another incident unfortunately too frequent of
there being large gaps in
late-night service on muni metro, thank you. >> kat carter and that's the last person who has turned in a
speaker card on this topic. >> good afternoon.
I'm the acting executive director of san francisco
transit riders. I just wanted to say briefly
that I support everything that director of transit is doing and I'm looking forward to the changes in January.
I particularly ride the 12 and
the expanded capacity on the 7
is certainly welcome. I really appreciate her honesty and transparency about all of
this stuff.
I appreciate that it is shifting agency-wide. We've been hearing more about what's happening and I just want to say I support it and thank you very much. >> thank you.
Next speaker, please.
>> sorry, I put 9 instead of 7 on my speaker cards. Sorry about that.
I wanted to speak to director
Mcguire opening the chase center and in that discussion,
the topic of signage came up twice. There's a lot of soonage that was
signage for thenew express buses, at the 16th street bart station. I happened to be traveling there
while there was a concert going on and there was really good
signage directing people to the
bart station as well as, like,
the signage this agency got an
award for last week about the t third that was happening.
I think it's great that the temporary signage is really good
and the temporary signage is terrible.
So I would urge you to bring the resources that you clearly
possess to bear on that problem.
Secondly, the bike lane, I think it's awesome that was implemented as part of the chase center project.
It's great and I like the huge bike share station at the stadium.
But the separation is not good right now and it's not clear to drivers. I was biking by the stadium when
there was one of the metallica concerts going on and a guy in
an S.U.V. Cut me off trying to drop off people because he went
over to the curb. Thankfulfully, there
thankfully there was a motor
cycle cop on top of it, but for
out-of-town drivers, it's not
clear and to separation at all,
apart from painted parking spaces.
So it could use improvement. General
>> general comment to address the board and not on today's calendar.
We'll start with frank reeg
followed by john par. >> can I have the projector,
please.
>> just start talking. >> good afternoon.
I'm the ceo and cofounder of rebel. For background, re york el
york
vel is the largest moped operator in the united states and I'm speaking in front of you because we would
love to bring this electric mow med
moped programme to the city of
san francisco.
I think the biggest thing here
is that our electric moped is a motored vehicle.
So each of the vehicles has a license plate.
In order to acquire that, you
need third-party liability.
Everyone of our me
mopeds has two doc certificates.
The reason it fill into both new
york city and D.C. And why scoot
has been operating here for many years safely and effectively is
because there's to regulatory grey area with our vehicle, right? It rides in the street, parks in
the street, has a license plate
and it provides enforceability for bad behaviour.
Just to close here, just two last points.
It's important to mention, revel
does not use a gig economy in any way. So with the fleet operating in
new york city, we have 50
operations staffed and all employees. There's heat
fleet managers, customer support and the same health insurance I have at ceo and all
paid a living wage. i think this is a responsible way to run a business. >> thank you.
John par, scott ellis and herbert winer who was the last person to turn in his speaker card.
>> I'm john par and the new suit
is by g george yo
giorgio armani.
This is called justice unsafe at any speed.
This book revolutionized the auto industry safety and through
various acts of congress, seat
belts were installed in cars
throughout the united states.
Then the end-line, unsafe at any speed. In this new book, he will
highlight how men, women and children and specifically disabled people are sent into
the open street to face death
while emparking on disembarking
into an open street in front of ten new trains every single day
for nearly 100 years.
There is no safe modern elevated platforms or station on that street corner. The safety of my community has
been ignored and seen as normal.
We are, as I have said before this board, at the back of the bus. And we are out of mind and out
of sight along the end corridor.
I am asking this board to allocate $16 million to build a
proper elevated train station just like you did for the warriors for 40 million for the
first time in my community, the outer sunset.
This will be a wonder, probably,
to see in the outer sunset and
practically beyond imagination to do that.
i'm also requesting that a low-level improvement project
promised and approved through
any sole efforts -- >> thank you.
>> -- to be approved by shawn kennedy's team. >> sir, your time is up.
Thank you. >> so please have this work done as soon as possible.
>> scott ellis and herbert
winier. >> I'm the new operator of business development on the west coast and wanted to take this
moment to introduce myself to
you and director brinkman, I'm
sorry I missed you at revolution. I just wanted to introduce myself if you would like to see my face around. >> nice to meet you. Next speaker. >> the last person to turn in a
speaker card, herbert winer.
>> herbert winer, please spell
it weinr on the board, thank
you.
I had a real problem with the 27 bus last week. I arrive at the bus stop, ok, the bus is going to come in five minutes and then it's going to
come no one minute and then in less than one minute.
And it kept changing back and forth, back and forth and one minute, and it took such a long
time to get that bus. Now, you say the 27 is the success. I don't believe so. There aren't enough buses on that run. What you've done is you've eliminated the bus stops, kept the same amount of buses for
that run and it still runs in a lousy way. So you're not to be commended.
You're to be censored for what
you've done and this should be ruthlessly examined because a
lot of people are inconvenienced as a rule, but a lot of other
people do and a lot peach have people have
been rudely inconvenienced on that line. So no thank you to the 27 bus
line project. >> next speaker. >> that's the last person to
turn in a speaker card under general public comment. >> moving on to our regular calendar. >> Madam Chair, moving on to
your consent calendar, they're
considered routine.
I have not received a request
from any member of the public,
nor a board to sever the item. >> directors, do I have a motion
to move our consent calendar? Motion to approve? All in favour.
We have now approved or concept calendar and moving on to our regular calendar.
>> item 11, approving contract
modification 122 to contract
1300, phase two, subway station,
surface track systems with
extended term by 730 calendar
day and substantial completion
date of June 20, 2020 and pay
31,240,000 for competencable,
unavoidable delays in $8,520,000
and making environmental review. >> and director, the new
programme manager,
will be giving this presentation. >> good afternoon.
I'm the programme director for
the center subway.
I will go over this mod and the
first light I have is a summary
of the proposed modification.
It extends the contract by 730 days and it commits the
contractor to finish its construction by June 29th of
next year.
It settles the delayed claims of
the contractor, completely as of September 3rd.
And it settles the delay claims
by awarding the contractor
31.$2 million for the delay.
It also directs the contractor to follow on contractors to come
in and allow them to do their work while he's finishing his
work.
And it also says they agree to
review the remaining claims of the contractor and subcontractors. So those are the two additional
things that we have to examine. It allows the radio and control
guys to come in ahead of time. And sets realistic dates for
construction.
Completion dates as I have mentioned, the substantial completion which means the
contractor essentially finishes its construction. The original date was February 10th and then it went
on to become June 30th, but now the proposed substantial
completion which is a
contractual agreement is June
June 29, 2020 and with that
completion and the systems testing, dynamic testing,
vehicle testing, that takes 12 to 14 month. We should start running train
and carrying passengers.
We estimate summer of 2021.
So that kind of a schedule.
The next is project completion
dates.
Contract value, and this a summary.
The original contract amount was $839 million.
We have so far throughout the dur augusts
duration of this contract issued $8 million in increased scope
and changes.
And so the current value is $847 million.
This contract modification for
31.2 million added to that mix
contract amount of 878 million.
So that is the full amount.
The next slide shows us what the
cost summaries are.
The original as I mentioned was 846. The work that has been completed
up to now is valued at
730 million, so we have paid the contractor that amount for the
work that he has done and just
by looking at these numbers, you can see somewhere between 80%,
plus or minus of the work, is finished.
And the remaining work and the remaining budget the contractor
has in the original contract is 108 million.
To finish the job, they have to finish the job with the amount
of money they have for finishing the job.
With the change order which is 31.2 and when we pay this from
the contingency, which is
46 million, we have 50 left in
contingency after we make in modification.
The next slide shows, obviously, as I mentioned, we have to look
at the additional claims of the contractor and the additional
claims of the subcontractors.
So when we look at those claims
and see how much we actually
owe, that money has to be found.
We have 50 million in contingency and that will not be enough.
So the funding forces is what is shown on this slide.
We work with our staff, a cfo and these three areas are the
areas of potential funding to either in combination of one or
two or all three see what money
we need.
Now we don't need that money
right now because we are still evaluating the claims. Once we evaluate the claims and
we form our own prenegotiating position, we will at least know from our point of view what we
think these changes are worth.
Then we can sit down with the contractor.
Obviously he'll be asking for more and once we negotiate, if we can settle, and we know what
the amounts are, we come back to
you and say this is the additional amount of money that we need.
And I would say that the time
span -- I think it would be nice to do it within two or three months.
That would be nice.
So the next few slides that I
have deal with the this and the assignment that I was asked to see, when this can project be finished.
So what I did is I did an ec extensive review with my team of the work finished and the work that's left and for each station I examined what are the key elements of work that still need to be done and how much time will it take for these elements
to be completed?
Based on that, I have prepared a
few slides which kind of show in summary the work that's left to
be done and the amount of time
it would take and the longest
one is the chinatown station.
As you can see, I have listed some of the seven key elements that need to be completed.
And with these things getting done, this station can be finished by June. And that is the commitment of the contractor and we, of course, have had discussions with the contractor and he has committed to finishing the job
by this date, as well. The next station, these stations
are further advanced than chinatown and ums should be finished by April and those are
the key tasks for that station that are left to be done.
The ydm station also will be finished by April. We expect these things to be done.
And then, the key activities
that will take the longest and static integration with train control and all of those elements.
And so once the contractor is
finished with his job, then we
get into the start-up trade testing, vehicle testing and get the
getting the cpu certification and safety certification.
These are all activities that we
are programming to take somewhere between 12 to 14 months.
And we believe that this is a
good schedule. I have looked at the time and I have experienced that myself on other projects and I would say that yes, there are projects that take even longer.
We have a project in our area
that is taking, maybe, two
years, but I do not expect that to happen on our project and I feel that we have a good schedule and by summer of 2021,
we should be able to run trains.
So that's my presentation. A fine
a final slide is a completion of
June of 2020, revenue service, summer of 2021. Thank you and if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer.
>> just to be clear with everyone, when we settled this today voting on this, even though there are outstanding
further claims, those claims cannot delay the project any further because of this modification, correct. >> that is correct. >> and then related to that, you just presented a slide about testing.
I know a lot of people a a question if we're getting a
system in June of next year, one question is, can you open stations sooner and then, two
is, you know, is there any way
that testing window could be smaller?
>> I'll answer the first one. So on the issue of opening
stations sooner, I have heard suggestions that, perhaps, you could open the central subway
and have it not stop at
chinatown first and that's not
something we think makes sense
from a rider point of view. We've been talking about this subway as a connection to chinatown for
chinatown for over a decade and
I think it would be confusing opening it one station first.
But secondarily, I think talking
about testing systems, this is a
system and though the
construction work is due to be
work in chinatown, I would be
very wary of trying to open it piecemeal. Out.
>> I can add that I have had discussions with the contractor,
with our own staff and we are also working closely with the operation staff and you've had
discussions with julie and based on the experience they have had with some of the other projects
that they have worked on, it
seems like it would not be to
our benefit to try to do it sooner because it's a safety issue.
We also have to get cpu certification. These things take time and they
have to be convinced and the other thing is, they're not
committed to a schedule. Their focus is on safety and if it's not safe, they will not give us one day of slack. So that's why we have to make sure that we have the time that
it takes to get this done. And the other thing I would say
on the stations is that the
stations are not that far apart. There's only a three-month gap between the two stations and chinatown. So we're not really gaining a lot about even thinking about opening a certain station before the other one.
They should all be coming online about the same time. So it's good to open all of them. >> so I'll turn it to the rest
of the directors? >> I do have several questions on this one.
And maybe starting with the biggest one.
We have a two-year delay here and that's very substantial.
What caused it?
>> well, I can give it a shot of
what I have looked at.
Number one, these are
complicated projects and a lot
of these projects get delayed.
Two years is not an abnormal delay for these projects, first of all. I know projects delayed even
longer than that.
And of this magnitude and complexity.
The other thing is this was very
complex and different and we had
to be careful about doing the project safely.
One of the critical safety areas was tumbling under market street, under the bart tunnel
and muni tunnels. I don't know how much was
factored in or not, but that's one thing.
The second thing that was a very complex operation was chinatown
is in a very difficult and very congested urban environment, so the decision was made we're not
going to cut this station, which is typically done. You open up the street and
that's how you do construction.
So this is the most difficult construction method which was mining from below.
One of the things that happened
was that there were unexpected conditions.
The soil was much tougher to
excavate than even the planning
and the soil reports showed. So that took a lot longer. So that was one more thing.
Then the other thing is this was
a design bid built project, not design build.
what that means is if you make
changes, you have to resign the changes and then the resign has
to be given to the contractor
and then that has to be constructed.
So that takes extra time.
So while the advantage of design bid build is that you actually
get the project the way you want it, but at the same time, you
are giving up on delays if you make change.
So those are some of the trade-offs and reasons it
happened this way. >> yeah, I'm having a hard time squaring that.
It's a complicated project. Mining is not a new technology.
It's done all over the world. My understanding was, there was
a design change in the plaza at the chinatown station that had some kind of -- let me ask the question.
How much of that two-area delay did that design change have do and did that design change have
any cascading effect in other
elements of the project? >> give us a slayed
slide on the chinatown station because it
shows it graphically.
The path depends on activities.
One is concrete work and goes
through the electrical and atcs and the line at the bottom which
actually shows the delivery for the chinatown elevator. There's dust different factors at play here.
Number one, it's very difficult
to get labor, so I know the
contractor struggled to keep electricians on the property working.
I know that was an issue with
the chase center and other buildings being built in the city.
We knew there was a large amount
of lead time with the elevator. It takes a year to get components on hand and that's a different function of the large
amount of high rise on the west coast.
The design change itself, just
for transparency, it was the
decision to make sure that the
community's desire to have not
just a station head house but a
programmable plaza above the
station -- that was a decision
we did make after the project
had begun.
But it's hard to pull out and
say the elevator was 40% and the supply chain was 30%. All of the things together are
what pushed the completion date
of chinatown to June 2020.
>> did the resign have the effect of putting the elevator
on the critical path. >> it did. >> it did? >> it did.
So that's a culprit, it seems to
be and as you say, it's 40%, 70%. That at least is something that
makes sense to me as the cause
of such a significant delay.
Second question is, what is the estimated cost to complete the
project today?
>> we are working on it.
We have some ideas.
We don't have a solid number
because we while we do have the climbs from the
claims from the contractor, we
have back-up, but we're looking
at the escrow documents that the
contractor has so we know the cost items.
so once we examine all of that,
we will have a solid idea on what the numbers are.
So if we have an estimate now,
it's an estimate, it's a ballpark. >> that's what my question was,
what's the estimated cost of completion? >> let me just lay it out for everybody. There's the 32 million that
we're asking for your approval on today. And then there's the two other buckets of cost that was
referred to. The additional cost claims that tutor and most importantly, the sub contractors might come in with and then there are other
costs outside of the tutor
contract costs, the agency's borne costs won't
, so those are the other two large buckets here.
In addition to the 32, we've seen initial numbers from tutor and I don't think they're
credible or worth discussing in public. We think that -- >> do you have a credible number
in the alternative, though?
I mean, just so the public and
the audience understands, and
just so I understand, the action
before us today is to resolve delay claims up to a certain date.
It's not to resolve all claims that tutor and his contractor might have, correct. >> that's correct. >> as you said tom, that's bucket one.
Bucket two is were when you take two more years to build a project,
you have to take mtas to do it, including you.
So we should have an es
estimate of that cost. >> the first one was the estimate of non-tutor costs
which are mta plus our programme manager consultants and those
are, again, order of magnitude, $20 million. >> to completion? >> to completion. >> ok. >> the second part --
>> and if you could put the
slide up, the one I was keeping
track of the numbers, slide
number six.
>> so that remaining contingency is insufficient even to cover
the staff cost, correct. >> that's correct.
>> which is why -- and then whatever we negotiate with tutor
and the subs is gobbing just how
deep in the hole will we go? Do you have a number on the
order of magnitude of $50 million.
>> 5-0? >> 5-0 0. >> is that inclusive? >> it is not. >> so we had that
add that to the 20 and
we've got 70 and we have 15 to apply to the 70. >> so now we have 55? >> right. Order of magnitude.
>> that's the math.
The estimate you have on delay,
it's good to see that it has a contingency of three months?
Do you know the estimate behind that contingency?
>> it's actually on us because
if the contractor delays, he's le
irk
libel for liquidates damages.
So that three months is built in
as a contingency.
>> are the lds trigger triggered by the
end of the three months.
>> June 29th.
>> your contingency is after that?
>> so if we get passed that
delay point, there will be an
argument about whose fault it was, this all likelihood. >> yes. >> two more questions, chair. You mensed
mentioned the other property in the region but I don't think
it hurts to say it bart and bart
has opened and extension to the
warm spring's station in alameda
county and santa clara is trying
to open one and bart built the
warm springs extension and santa clara built the santa clara extension but both had trouble with testing. You indicated you didn't think we would have that kind of trouble and I just would like to know the source of your confidence.
>> let me jump in on this, but I
don't want to hold nadime fully accountable.
So our approach is to make sure
we're ready with an internal
task force of folks who have
deep understanding of all of the
disciplines needed for testing, and all of the rail operations that are entitled. So we're forming that team now
and clearing people's workloads
and pre-meeting internally and
trying to get folks abscess and access to the tunnel. One of the things is we negotiated access to the parts
of the station as part of the modification. So we're basically doing everything we can to prepare for
that team to be ready to hit the testing hard on day one. That's what we can control right now. >> let me ask one, I think, obvious question.
Have you talked to bart or vta about their experience and maybe
learned a couple of lessons about let's not do it that way. >> this is the right time to start those conversations. >> ok, great. >> last question, and this is on your laundry list of potential
suspects to get the money from.
How large is the fund balance
that you're referencing in the
third bullet? >> we'll learn more that we'll be talking about in the fall.
>> what is the courier budget.
>> I'll acts our cfo to tell us
the size of our fund balance. >> he's going to say it's zero, you watch. [Laughter]
>> no, I'm not, actually.
I'm the cfo for the sfmta.
The boar has a research policy that we've maintained which is 10% of our
our operating budget and
we committed to maintaining 1.2 billion, the operating budget, so we've had 120 million
as a minimum target.
Actually, in the last couple of years, because we get a
percentage of the city's general revenues and comes in higher than expected at the end of the
last few fiscal years, that has grown.
So I think we were reporting
before it around 160 million and it May be a little higher than that.
But we actually are still -- we
have not yet closed the books on
fiscal year '18-'19 and it's in that magnitude. And we're making sure we're
doing a lot of things with the new financial system to nail down the components because part
is defining -- I'm talking about available fund balance.
We have a lot more fund balance committed to different reimbursements that we've
committed to.
>> you would be ok with that decision? >> it is taking funds from realoe
reallocating operators. I feel like I'll provide you
with options that will be a decision on which of the options to take. I'm not sure which
recommendation I'll be taking. Because any fund balance in
excess of out reserve policy,
there's a reserve and everything
requires trade-offs.
So I see that as a
a board decision in the end. >> can I ask before you leave
the podium, could you give us a
quick refresher on the fund
balance and how long we've had that policy because I don't think we've tapped into that in a number of years and most members were not on this board when we did that?
>> well, I wasn't with the mta when the policy was established so this is what I've learned from joining in last year. We're planning to come before
the board soon, probably in november, with a full discussion, not only the
year-end close, but our reserve policy because we May be
recommending an increase in that reserve policy. >> we can wait for that. I wanted to take a moment to
remind everybody that this was a hard come-by decision to have that rainy day fund and how important it is. >> I should say, the fund balance was used during the last
serious recession in order to maintain operations and came
close to zero at that time.
And so, then, with good work
from previous boards, my
predecessor and lots of staff, that policy was established and
we have managed to build back-up reserves. Those reserves are for the use of when there's an urgent need and this is a need that the board wants to use it on, that's
one of the possibilities. >> director bunkerman,
brinkman, I congrat late you
congratulate you. There's always an emergency out there, but it is important to
know where we are and if we're
in excess, then we've at least got to talk about, not that we have to do it. I'll conclude with just the following comments. I do believe the recommendation
before us today is a responsible course of action. No one likes overruns. No one likes delays.
But what they like even less are overruns when you don't tell
them they're there and delays when you don't disclose them.
I view the action today as the
act of coming clean on what the finish line for this project is going to look like and how much it will cost and what the delays
are going to be.
So as this discussion disclosed within we have several stems
steps to
take but we finally, for the
project, after some hemming and hawing this area, we have a date
and a cost estimate that passes the smell test and that's the first step towards restoring
credibility for the project.
So I would be willing to sort the iteming when it cups when it comes to
making motions. >> Dr. Brinkman. >> thank you for the presentation. I know it took a lot of work for you to dig into this and give us answers to these questions. I appreciate it.
And on the same light as
director hemming er's quest for transparency, we should remind the public when these bid
processes come up, we are
required to accept the lowest bid, aren't we.
>> yes. >> even if there is experience
wit contractor and things to consider, we don't have the opportunity to consider those.
So I just wanted to remind the public of that and thank you for your hard work on this and I
agree with director hemminger that this is something we need
to move forward on.
Please stand by: .
The delay, but making design decisions like that, I don't
think that that number was, that that was expected when the
decision was made. so I think the other dimension we should remember here, this
project has been extremely
impactful on the transat community and one of the things they have been doing, when not negotiating this and getting a handle on the costs of it and
construction, to get the construction off the streets of
chinatown and there is an important dimension here, too,
that is, and perhaps this
connects to director brinkman's
low bid as well, less impactful on communities is really
important because it will -- it
will -- it will take a lot of
risk at the project and that's something that's a little hard
to predict at the time we make, whether it's a design decision
or decision about whose bids we
accept, that's an important
dimension.
It's one to remember.
>> and we should at some point in the future do a really
thorough post-mortem on this project and understand the continuous
continuous improvements, what mistakes could we not make next time, but a couple lessons learned you want to share with
us right now in terms of tough, tough, hard-fought lessons learned in terms of cost
overruns and delays. >> I think the thing I would say
in terms of good project management, you always have to
have your focus on cost and schedule, cost and schedule,
cost and schedule. And what happens, a lot of times, well-intentioned program
managers have a lot of other pressures and a lot of other
needs, and I have faced that myself. I have faced situations where you are in the middle of construction and there is a
pressure to add a station. So can you imagine if somebody said add another station to this, this line was not long enough for that. But, those kind of things even happen.
But the thing I would say is at
the end of the project there is a requirement from the F.D.A. There is a lessons learned exercise and we will have to go
through that, and we can look at what happened in this project
and have some key lessons learned that we can share with
the board. >> thank you. And thanks for your transparency
and it's down the charts of the individual stations as well as the system timeline, really, really helpful. Thanks for all your work on this. >> thanks very much. >> great.
Any other final questions among directors before we turn it over
to the public to provide input?
All right.
Rowen, followed by cat, and herbert, the only people to turn
in speaker cards on this topic.
>> good afternoon, directors.
Roman katao. Comments were hilarious, it's what should have happened, won't get into it now.
Northeast should have had a station. But I would like to first commend you all for bringing
this amount of oversight and scrutiny that is long overdue to this project.
one way that you know that this
was overdue is that the
unrevised completion date was in the past. The project is not complete and
it was supposed to have been completed, very good sign that
these things were not being
revised in a timely and direct manner.
I would also like to thank director brinkman for saying what I was thinking, very
serious problems with state requirements around contractor
selection and I hope that this city will help push for legislation to address some of those problems because that ultimately is how these things
are going to be fixed in the long-term. Thank you. >> thank you. Next speaker, please.
>> cat carter.
And then last herbert wiener.
>> hello again, directors, cat
carter, acting executive
director for san francisco
transit riders. We are let down by the delays
and the cost overrun, our office
is across the street from the station, and I want to go inside. San francisco cannot continue to be this bad in major projects. We are so far building all the infrastructure we need so
desperately and the public is losing faith that san francisco
can ever build a subway. It is really great to see that with changes at the leadership at the top that we are getting
more honesty and transparency,
and I commend you for that, but baffling to me how it got this bad.
we ask for a full assessment, a
public dialogue how contracting public management, oversight happened. Know what happened and why and how we can make sure it never happens again.
Sfmta has a lot of work to do to build back up public confidence so we can support future projects and the funding for them. Thank you very much.
>> thank you, next speaker, please.
Herbert wiener, jason, tony, and
then chris.
>> herbert wiener, weiner,
instead of wiener.
Oh, see, you got it wrong.
>> that's sfgovtv.
>> any way, I appreciate it, commissioner heminger's attempts
to get some clarification.
Now, this whole business about
accepting the lowest bid contractor, that is a trap because I believe there are all
sorts of contingency with the lowest contractor. You know, there's going to be
cost overruns, all sorts of
expenses involved, and if I'm
correct, 122 contract
modifications, that's a lot.
And the greatest peril is to the M.T.A. Budget, because if you are going to have to pay extra
amounts, are you -- is it going
to detract from transportation?
What is going to be the cost of
thshgs you know, this is really
disastrous, one boondoggle.
Now, people May state that you
shouldn't name it after rose
pack and the rest of it, I'm
comfortable with it because it's
the essence of rose pack, with contract overruns and shenanigans. so, I -- I really think that
this has really been a real
disaster and boondoggle and the best thing you can say about this project is it never should have happened. Thank you.
>> next speaker, please.
>> jason shomar, tony lao and chris mann. >> not sure if I'm supposed to
speak on item 11 or 12, but here today representing chinatown
trip, a volunteer organization
focussed on improving transportation in chinatown and doing so since 1976.
I'm here today to speak about the two-year delay for the central subway project and how
this body needs to implement
strategies to mitigate that impact. The past few years of construction has been brutal for
the people of chinatown, and particularly those who depend on
chinatown for in-language
services and culturally relevant products.
To compensate for the additional
two years, the residents, merchants and visitors have to endure. One of the strategies we want to
see implemented is the creation of a shuttle bus program connecting neighborhoods with high asian populations such as
the richmond, sunset, bay view and visitation valley to chinatown, especially on the
weekends and not just during the
morning and evening rush hours. Let's make it easier for people to get to their medical appointments to visit their grandparents and to go back home
with groceries, thank you. >> thank you. next speakers, please.
Tony lao, chris mann and rosa chan.
>> hi, good afternoon, tony lao,
board member from the china chamber of commerce and run a
small business. I understand the safety concern
we have, regarding to being the
substation, and focus how the
subway has been affecting
chinatown's businesses and residential.
So, definitely for sure both residential and small businesses
will slowly move out from chinatown because of this long construction duration, the noise level and air quality level
around, and especially with the traffic.
And then also this construction has been keeping a lot of
residential and tourist visit
from, to chinatown, and what I
mean by local resident is
meaning people living in san francisco, for example, myself,
just because of the traffic and
also the noise level.
By doing that, so, the chinatown
businesses definitely has
decrease in revenue and definitely they have job, the
employment opportunity for the
local chinatown residents as well.
So that's the reason why there
will be more, I guess, residential and all businesses to move from chinatown and there
will be more vacancy in chinatown, I mean -- property value, everything will definitely go down.
So, I definitely would like to see no more delay on this project and move on from it.
Thank you.
>> chris mann and rosa chen, the last people who have turned in
speaker cards. >> hi, good afternoon, directors.
My name is chris mann, I'm a
senior planner with chinatown community development center.
Echoing some other comments already.
It is encouraging to see a
definitive deadline for project completion, but this still does represent a much longer delay
than anticipated, so we just hope that the agency can look at
more mitigation options and resources to help the chinese community to see the project through and thrive while we wait for project completion. Thank you for your time. >> thank you.
>> rosa chen.
>> hello, director, rosa chen, I
just wanted to talk about on top of what everyone else has said about, you know, how we choose our contractor with the lowest bid and how we need to fix that, on top of that, I think it's very important that we also talk about when we start a project we should really think about how it's going to affect the communities and how we have to add these mitigation funds into the project already so that it's
already there instead of us scrambling to look for money constantly to figure out how can we help the merchants survive in
the community, how do we help, not only chinatown but the
effect of the union square businesses, affected every neighborhood along the line. And that, it's very important
for us to really realize that,
you know, chinatown is being
very affected, with another two-year delay, going to be more
vacancies, more businesses are having to pay higher rent and it's getting harder and harder
for them, so we need to come out
and think of concrete ways to
really make sure that it helps
these businesses, maybe through advertisement, not just on sfmta
but like local newspaper, on television, so that we can get
more people to come back into the community and I think that's very important and will help many communities as well that's being affected by central subway. So, thank you. >> thank you.
Jake shumano, the last person to
turn in a speaker card. >> good afternoon, directors.
We own and operate the shell station at the corner of bryant and 4th street. I would like to say just through speaking to business owners down there as well, that there have
been a lot of impacts to small business in that location aside from the chinatown community
that's been so impacted by that subway construction up there.
Ours is on grade, spoken to the
owners of hotel utah, coin-op, as well as the grand club.
All of them have expressed concerns about the duration of construction there as well.
And then just speaking, oh, one more thing. The tunnel pops up under the
freeway there, there is a rerouting of traffic, in order
for cars headed southbound on
4th street to access the station
they need to be in the left-hand lane. Being out there at the station
and operating it as asset manager, I've seen people in the right-hand lanes making a left hand turn to bryant street in front of our station. I think there needs to be better way finding signs out there. When the trains start running I think there will be more impacts and creates a huge amount of collision hazard. Aside from that, as a citizen,
to just be in the audience and hear that a portion of the subway could open three months earlier and serve a huge amount of people commuting to and from
caltrans, etc., to the chase center, but we are not going to
do it because the chinatown station May not be opening is grossly inadequate, especially with the carry costs for the project and I would encourage we open as soon as possible.
Thank you.
>> any other additional speakers who would like to speak for
public comments?
Seeing none, closed. Directors. >> thank you, thank you so much, thank you to the public for
coming down and sharing all the comments. That has really interested me. If we can't open the subway earlier but all the surface construction is going to be done, and I know we have an
operator shortage, and it's difficult, I wonder if we could
run a bus service along the line to kind of get people used to
the idea they'll have a one seat
ride, not all the way through
chinatown, that's horribly
crowded but to scoop up the caltrain riders who would be taking the bus, and the mass
would not work out but the point of the previous speaker of getting people ready to go back
into chinatown and especially on
transit, it might be worth
considering, how do we get people ready for the one seat
ride from caltrain to chinatown. And I don't know the answer to
this question, but the idea of
how do we make sure that we keep businesses healthy and whole
during these long construction projects.
Do value capture models take
that into consideration when we
are looking about what, at what
this underground is going to
bring to its route, do we have a
way to almost shift that, ok,
it's going to help them in the future, how do we, how do we capture some of that and apply it during the construction phase, and I don't know enough about the value capture models to know if it's even something that's included in there. But definitely worth looking into.
Because the point was made instead of scrambling to figure
out how we help the businesses when they are already impacted, it would be great on the front
to help them.
>> thank you, director brinkman, talking on the next item.
>> happy to make a motion to approve that and thank everybody
for their work on it.
>> great, a second? Anything else?
If not, in favor of the contract
modifications, motion passes.
Item 12, presentation
construction regarding the san francisco construction mitigation program, proposed
options for implementing the city-wide direct business
support component of the program and use of the $5 million small
business impact mitigation fund. >> appropriate item after what you just heard.
Update on the construction
mitigation program, knowing what's going on with the
construction in the city and the development, the city is working to support small businesses through the long infrastructure projects.
It's not a secret, unprecedented
amount of both private and public development going on here in san francisco and as director
brinkman brought up, a value and ultimate value to the infrastructure improvements that all departments are making throughout san francisco and we
are trying to make this street safer, trying to improve transit
for our riders across the system but there is an impact throughout the city.
So, here is an example of just a couple of the major bond programs that have happened, so
a major street bond in the city, transportation and road improvement bond, major sewer and water work throughout the city and most recently, the bond
for work along the embarcadero and the waterfront. Again, a significant public investment and lots of overlapping construction going on throughout the city. That doesn't even include all the private development that's
going on concurrently.
So in 2017, the mayor directed the departments to come together to develop a construction mitigation plan and deal with the issues that small businesses
have during the course of these projects. With the intent that during construction we do our best to mitigate the impacts that you
just heard about to small
businesses on major corridors.
No one is going to deny there is impact to these projects, when
they occur, reduced sidewalk access, disruption to parking and fewer customers in front of their businesses.
We run sales tax models with the controller office, shows during a period of time loss of sales
tax along these corridors, but as you know and many different transportation studies have shown on the back end there is recovery, but a period of time in which that occurs.
So, we are going to try to do our best to mitigate that particular situation. The hard part about designing this program is that project funds typically are not eligible for a lot of the things we would talk about.
What we did, a best management practice study of major F.T.A.
Projects in los angeles and in minnesota.
Also looked at different
academic studies with regard to major street projects and the program we implement across almost all the departments
across the city and county of san francisco. So the public utilities commission, we here at the M.T.A. And the department of public works. On all projects when we are working on a commercial corridor, there will always be a
point of contact for businesses. What we learned was to have
during a major construction
project businesses trying to contact the resident engineer or the project manager, when they are trying to manage the complexities of the project was difficult. And response times were slow. So, we will always have a specific contact for a business during the course of construction of a project. At that medium impact period where we see something that's more than 12 months of disruption, when we can consider some of the things you talked about that just came up.
Marketing campaigns, we will now
deploy ambassadors so people will be on the streets during that period so a business owner
instead of trying to talk to a
contractor or a foreman on the
site actually has somebody day-to-day they can talk to
where they see up and down the corridor to discuss issues and a specific business liaison at that point.
Our partners at the department,
or the office of economic and workforce development will go
out and educate businesses with regard to the programs and the support the city can provide during this period and then
largely the subject of today when we do have major projects
such as van ness and the central subway, we will talk about other
things, contractor incentives to include in contracts so we have
written specifications for that,
creating community advisory committees with which we have done for the van ness project and the last thing, directed
business support which I will
talk about in a few seconds.
So since the implementation of the program, we have an M.O.U. So we are committed to move this forward and looked at different
tools and methods with regard to advertising and different things
that do or do not work. There is now a standard written specification the department of public works worked with us on. One of the biggest complaints prior to implementing the program was contractors keeping construction sites clean. That was the biggest, biggest concern, and so we made sure in our construction contracts that there is a specific condition
that they do that, and that inspectors and resident engineers regularly check and
make sure there is compliance,
ambassadors will inform project
managers or resident engineers
if we are not complying. We have hired a full-time person who will manage the program in
the M.T.A. Day-to-day, working specifically with project managers on developing specific
plans prior to construction, so we are ready to go on day one as soon as construction starts. And we are also working with oewd, the point of today's discussion on finalizing some of the technical aspects of the program.
So, here is some specific examples of projects, central subway project you just discussed, twin peaks tunnel, probably the first project where
we fully implemented the suite of different things that we
would do in this particular project and the van ness improvement project, so the buy
local campaign, corridor marketing, we absolutely work
on, businesses also often
contact our public information officers or talk to ambassadors about cleanliness, making parking available, another major issue.
So when a contractor reserves a parking space, sometimes they
don't need those all day, so if we can make those available sooner during construction we
will work to be able to do that, and again, up front planning with merchants, definitely did that on twin peaks in advance,
talking to them about what the anticipated impacts would be,
and coming up with specific mitttation measures to work for that corridor. I want to stress not everything works in every particular corridor, different businesses or merchant groups need support
so we work with them to come up with the specific package with he would use based on the standard template I just showed you. So, here are the things that we absolutely learned after
implementing a couple of these projects.
So, actually start earlier, even earlier than we had thought about starting before.
Typically we were talking about
90% design, or kind of post
contract award, the contractor
is on board and part is working through with the specific contractor for whom we have awarded bid to, working with
them on the mitigation measures. Cleanliness, where will you do work, where staging will occur, so knowing that. We have decided to try to move
that even earlier, during the 65% design period where we think we have a little bit more surety
about where impacts will be. And our public information officers and our outreach staff will start the discussions with merchant groups around that period of time, so we don't want the dark where we go into
construction, no one has heard from us and you get a 30-day
notice and the disruption is created. We want to start the touch point
with merchants in advance, so actually working to do that.
Now, education of businesses, we also found working with the office of economic and workforce development.
A lot of businesses don't know about all the different programs the city offers. They are absolutely available during construction and even before construction. So a piece of feedback we have
received from the board of supervisors as the transportation authority is start talking to them when you
know the project will happen and we will follow through and start doing that.
So kind of lastly, the one
outstanding point that we still
have is as part of the discussion when there was an appropriation, which you approved and went to the board
of supervisors earlier this
year, a $5 million set aside for
a construction mitigation fund.
But we have directed business support, I showed you at the highest level project. We have done that one time and that was for the central subway project. When we first started this program.
But it was sort of unnamed as to how we would use it, who would
use it, what the criteria would be. So we spent a period of time working, doing two public hearings at the transportation
authority with all the members
of the board of supervisors, talking to our small business working group. Went to the local merchants association and talked about this coming up, how is this going to work and make it most useful.
The two criteria that we have
come up with, one, apply to only
the largest projects, directed business support, so it should be at the level that we have discussed, those ones that are going to be 24 months that we
know there is major disruption
and that largely these funds be
used for sfmta-led projects, the larger infrastructure projects
here in san francisco. So, the feedback we have received after two full hearings
with the board of supervisors, originally the proposal was use the funds in the way I have discussed the program. So, marketing opportunities, use it for marketing. So not impacting a project but
just to the point where you are doing more construction mitigation than you are developing or delivering transportation improvements.
So in some cases smaller level projects where the M.T.A. Interest is paint or improvements on the street but a lot of other impacting components of the project.
And so we don't want to end up to a point we can't deliver transportation improvements
because we are fully paying for mitigation measures. Recommendation was use $5 million to augment the good things and the tools we know are working, because we don't want to impact project delivery.
Also use the funds for things that are typically not eligible
for project funds, so again, one of the complexities in designing this program is for the purposes
of the M.T.A., over our projects
are federally funded, funded through local sales taxes or through either general
obligation or revenue bonds.
So the use for direct cash
payment or supportive rent is typically not eligible, almost never eligible for that type of fund. In the case of the department of
public works, they use a lot of general obligation bonds and use a lot of state funds that also
have the restrictions. P.U.C. Also has the difficulty
with regard to rate payer funds and bonds they generate.
So, we have built and we have created a set aside in all project budgets for these things that are eligible, where we can
do marketing, where we can do
support, we can have a business liaison, we can have ambassadors. Direct business support, though,
is something we cannot do. So, this $5 million absolutely
can be used for that purpose. So, that was the direction we got, and that's what the board told us.
So don't use it for the existing
elements with project funds, use
it strictly for direct business support. Feedback from the board of supervisors. The other thing you May or May not have read in the press, we had recommended because of the
sustainability of this funding there be both directed grants
and a revolving loan fund.
It would be 0% interest, but we had considered in recommending
that approach was one that this needs to be financially sustainable, meaning that as
people pay back the funds, you know, pay it forward,
essentially supporting future projects that come in the city, and second, there are the situations I discussed where it
is not an M.T.A.-led project,
where we are a scope of work or element but still a city infrastructure project impact so
again, on behalf of the city we would also want to provide support in those particular situations. So, that was one of the recommendations that we move
forward and we had a proportion.
Then at that last transportation authority commission meeting,
the board members also brought up that they would like to see, for central subway, anybody can
go on the public website today, type in construction mitigation
central subway, it will take you
to the office of economic and work force development site and there are specific criteria. We are recommending that be maintained, it is what we have
done in the past. The board members did ask that
we consider amounts higher than
the $10,000 in that particular
situation so we took that into account. That leads us, so that's the
criteria which again is public.
that leads us to today, the
final element where we want to formalize the specific program
with the office of economic and
workforce development, through a memorandum of understanding
between the departments, is continuing or having the option of a revolving loan fund,
proportion when we went to the transportation authority was
$3 million, $2 million being responsive, we are looking at more $4 million and $1 million,
again, to at least establish it,
have it in place and hopefully
have something sustainable or the other option, use the entire 5 million strictly for grants and payments.
So, those are the final two options. I've been before the transportation authority twice so prior to making a final decision on this we wanted to get feedback from the M.T.A. Board. So, happy to take any questions
and hear your thoughts.
>> ok.
Can you just -- because seems
the crux of the issue, tease out again what types of things the funds, grant funds would be used
for as opposed to loan funds?
>> sure. So, for the central subway project, the specific grant funds were used for rent, for
the period, for utilities, or
for capital improvements. The staff from oewd can help me
if I'm missing anything, we asked them to go through the
process where we did a business evaluation to determine
eligibility and need overall.
That is the general criteria,
allow the grant funds used for. >> the loan. Actually, I could use some help on the loan. >> good afternoon.
Office of economic workforce development.
For -- jorge rivas.
For the central subway, the loans were available but not
part of the mitigation program.
Loans can be used for any operations, any of the costs
generally by a business, and sometimes rent as well, labor, improvements, marketing, buying new equipment for the shop,
whatever it May be.
>> I'm sorry, before you leave
the podium, jorge, for the loan
program it's administered by the city and the county.
How would loan eligibility be decided upon? Seems like that's something
that's not in our scope of work currently, so -- we would need somebody with some loan expertise. >> of course.
So, currently we are building
off based on the, building off
on the loan fund, by main street launch, our partner here in the city and oakland, and we work
closely with them setting up terms and how to best support the small business, and currently looking at a model
that says it's no risk, no, 0 interest loan, which works closely with the business owner
so they don't have to
necessarily show paperwork up
front, but over time and measure the impact of the construction project on the small business.
>> are the loans being offered,
successful in terms of -- >> currently in our current
model, 98% repayment percentage, so, very high. It's pretty successful. >> okay.
Thank you. >> other directors?
I will say that this was a big issue, especially in the restaurant association for a lot of small businesses, the
disruption is enormous, no one wants to eat at a restaurant
where work is going on out in
front of it, it's too noisy and too loud, and it's not always
clear the businesses are open. A restaurant had an outdoor space and planning a wedding on a saturday and found out we
would have construction on the
saturday and having to work with
the oewe to make sure they can gain the revenue. So being more strategic how we do that, I think the outreach
and feedback is getting to people sooner in the very beginning because people can make other choices. I think we have to realize we
should notify the landlords, because the landlords before they sign leases with people, it would be unfortunate to sign a
lease on a space and find out a few months later that you are
going to have the major mitigation, major construction
project that's going to impact you.
Something that's related, an off-shoot of this, one of the
areas around the loan support, a
lot of businesses do seismic retrofit, and I don't know if there's any way that some of that work can overlap with, or a
way to think about that, maybe
this is more of an oewd thing, if a landlord needs to do the
seismic retrofit work, maybe it happens, maybe they know up front so they can stage it during some of the worst time of the construction, something to
think about, it's a little more complicated. >> if somebody is planning a giant project anyway, good time to do it.
>> yeah, I know one of the
challenges in general with the seismic work, there was not a requirement landlords put anything in the leases to tenants about that.
So, us being better than that
standard would be great. Mr. Rose, I'm leaning towards the grant loan mix as being sort of a preferred option.
Is there anything about that, that we should know that wouldn't be -- seems giving people more options is going to be better. Anything about that that is a drawback to it?
>> I think the only -- the
reason that we recommended it up front was because again we want
to consider this to be at least
to have a sustainable source and something long-term city-wide we can consider how to keep it going. In the case of grants, once the money is gone, it's gone. And as you recall, this came
from a one-time source. So, we want to at least build the foundation for something
that can be ongoing. Oewd believes they can manage that and implement it. I think in hearing from the
board of supervisors and briefing them and speaking with them, the businesses are feeling the pain so they want to see the money get out as quickly as possible. So I think we increase the
proportion that will go directly to grants in response to that concern. >> any other questions before I
open it up to the public for public comment?
>> chair, I guess I'm just having a hard time drawing a bead on this. Who would want a loan if they can get a grant?
I mean, who asked for the loans? The guys who are, I mean, I don't understand.
>> just -- I think the criteria
right now for the grants, only
available after the 24-month project is delayed.
The recommendation is for loans to be available at the inception
of the project, which is a difference. >> that makes the loan more attractive.
>> attractive to help them sustain during the period of time when construction is occurring. >> the cost of capital these
days is virtually nothing anyway. Is it really attractive to folks?
>> for payroll, believe it or
not, a lot of businesses take loans to make payroll in months they believe it's slow.
>> a source of funding to keep folks above water during a period of time. >> with that, I think we are
going to open it up to -- to the public for public comment on
this item. >>
>> jason is the only person who has turned in a speaker card on
this topic.
>> hi, again, speaking on behalf of chinatown trip.
Echo the importance of having construction mitigation to offset the central subway impacts, especially to chinatown. Chinatown has a threat of displacement for decades, and
that is even a stronger threat today. The businesses have been struggling due to the construction for the exact
reasons said earlier by director borden.
We need to make sure the businesses serving the low income chinese community today are able to stay in place long
enough so they can see the benefits of the subway when it's finally built.
We would like to see some of these funds used to boost
business in chinatown, particularly around with the
shuttle bus, with shuttle busses and a public outreach campaign that tells people chinatown is still open during construction. Thank you.
>> thank you.
Any other public comments? >> quick one, correct the record on my previous comment on the item. Turns out the board of
supervisors did pass a best
value contract award ordinance in May 2016. Obviously way too late for the central subway bid, but at least
looks like progress has been made in that area, and that was what it was calling for. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> directors.
>> so, just to back up one more
time with the last commenter
said, the type of work that he was talking about reminding people that businesses are open for business, that's sort of a separate bucket of money than what we are talking about. >> correct.
So, what we -- that is now an official part of the program, and if that is a mitigation measure we are going to use we will add it to the budget of a project. >> so the things -- those types of things we will do, we are
going to do them as part of the cost of the project, and this construction mitigation we are talking about is for separate
activity, you know, as we talked about whatever people use. Ok. Good, that's all I wanted -- >> one thing I want to add on the loans, maybe I did not make as clear. So, on the loan program, we are also talking about using those funds, since they would be self-sustaining and not dependent on the M.T.A. Budget
for projects in which the M.T.A. Has scope, but it is not directly our project. So, sometimes there are other projects in the city that are
highly impactful where we might
have a vision element or other element, or situations where we are the public face of the
project the M.T.A. Board is legislating the project but the large part of the scope of work is not ours. So, some businesses would be
able to access this fund as part of that. >> thank you.
i'm still leaning towards option
one, the grant -- seems like giving more flexibility in that.
>> I would echo that, and like the idea of having a sustainable
model for that, and being able to see more people use that money. >> great.
Just would imagine for our loan
products, do we have, it's not
like the same stringent requirements at the bank, because a lot of businesses would have a hard time getting money from a bank sometimes.
>> the city's loan project is more flexible and build in the terms on what they would like to see. Normally tend to be low interest, 3 to 5%.
And we take a holistic approach to their business plan and what they would like to use the resources for, knowing most of the resources might have gone to
the conventional bank and not qualified, so making sure we are working closely with them and
considering all factors. >> directors. Anyone make a recommendation on which direction we go? >> I don't think it's an action. >> we are not actioning on this, just giving input. >> appreciate your input. >> wonderful. So, thank you. >> thank you. Thank you. >> thank you, that concludes the item.
Moving on to the next item, item
13, adopting the 2019 sfmta 20-year capital needs update,
which includes a list of anticipated capital needs
through 2040.
>> thank you, good afternoon,
directors, sarah jones, planning director for sfmta.
As mentioned, about the update
to the 201720-year capital plan. The name has changed, the capital plan itself is more of a
needs assessment in a way than a plan.
It's mapping out from a capital perspective what it's taking to
turn our policies, our ideas,
our goals, into reality on the ground.
This is not to minimize what it does, this is crucial information, supporting important efforts such as the five-year capital improvement program.
The city's ten-year capital
plan, and also things like what you are going to hear about
next, input into a
transformative effort, the
faster bay area ballot measure.
So, and in terms of calling this
an update, we did a lengthy
effort for the 2017 20-year capital plan.
That information is mostly still
relevant and pertinent, so it
was not really necessary to take the time to start from scratch again. However, there was a need to
update it, both to keep it timely and to meet some federal requirements. So, what we are looking forward
to in the future is a process
revamp for the next round in
2021, to really make it more
useful, more strategic, and more relevant.
And also at that time we are
going to have our very long-term concepts out there through
connect S.F., and we want this document ultimately to serve a
bridge to bring the timeline from 50 years back to the present.
So now I'm going to turn it over to anne fritzler from the performance team, lucky enough to have her serving as the
project manager on this effort.
>> good afternoon, directors, anne fritzler.
Here to discuss the capital
needs update, 2019.
It is the -- identifies the
unfunded capital needs for the
agency and the first step in our capital planning process overall. It is not committing funding to
any specific need at this time,
but it does allow us to identify
projects, programs and needs and investments we will need to be
doing over the next 20 years.
Inclusion in this update does
not mean it's going to be definitely included into further down the line in our planning process, but it does help us
identify replacement, renewal, improvement, expansion and
accusation needs the agency has.
This is our high level look at our capital planning process.
Right now in the upper right-hand corner looking at our
20-year capital needs and hoping the board will approve them.
This is identification of our
capital needs and then as we further refine scopes, then it becomes the capital project and
goes through and is included in our five-year capital improvement program.
It is a multi-step process that
helps us identify things in the long-term and then bring them into our near term financial
planning documents.
So investments by our program
for this update, we worked with
capital program managers, and
experts throughout the agency to
identify and update the needs
identified in 2017, and ensure
that they were transparent and accurate.
Each of our capital needs in
this document has a description,
a justification, cost estimate,
and a high level timeline of
when it's expected to be needed.
We did, for our capital needs,
we are working with constant 2019
2019 dollars and inflationary
growth expected from 2017 to 2019. Our capital programs, we have
ten capital programs, including
communications, facility, fleet,
parking, security, streets,
taxi, traffic signals and signs,
transit fixed needs and transit
optimization and expansion. And embedded are needs related
to accessibility and transit safety.
It was identified embedding them
in the programs really helped
develop better and more complete
projects later down the line. We wanted to include them at
this point.
And so here is our summary of
our 2019 capital needs.
You can see that overall we are
at nearly $31 billion over 20 years.
The key updates in this, in the 2019 summary include significantly expanded investments in the street program to achieve safety goals,
investment in fleet and facility
to all electric battery fleet, as well as revision, cost
estimates for traffic signals
and signs, total cost working in
the complex-built environment in san francisco. And expansion of needs and the guide way program to maintain the system in a state of good
repair and increased investment
in transit optimization and transit program builds on the current effort right now.
Does not include, as sarah mentioned, does not include the long range thoughts what expansion programs might be if they are not yet identified and
will incorporate those in a
future cycle as needed.
So -- looking ahead, we are here
today to ask for your approval
of these updated needs, and also let you know that as we move
into fall the development of the five-year C.I.P., the capital improvement program and the two-year budget will begin
outreach likely in late fall and winter, and you'll at that
point, that's when we identify specific funding and programs
and match those to projects that
will move forward the next five years.
If you have any questions.
>> yes, just one quick question. I know every time when we talk about capital needs and thank you for pointing out the difference between the needs
versus when it moves into a project, we do always get the
questions that what percentage
is dedicated to such a resource
and such a resource, mostly when it comes about bicycling and pedestrian improvements, so I want to clarify and reiterate for everybody that our goals that we state out in our agency apply to all of these projects, correct?
So, when we talk about streets, we are talking about all the goals we have around our streets. >> yep.
>> so, that's why we don't see line items that are specifically
pulled out for, say, cycling improvements, or pedestrian improvements, or vision 0 improvements. >> right.
If you look at past long range capital documents, we used to have broken out specific programs for different modes. We have brought these programs together to really have an
integrated list of investments
and make sure they are all working together and fund and move forward the best way possible. >> that's a change we have done in a time I've been on the board so important to point that out to everybody. I don't have any other questions.
>> other board members?
>> just one.
The list you have, I guess it's
on slide eight of all the needs,
is this generated through some kind of performance-based analysis? Especially a third of the money is going to transit expansion
and I looked in the list and
it's projects going every which way.
Why do the projects come from?
>> the projects themselves come from past planning efforts,
staff best practices, and understanding of what this agency needs in order to achieve its goal. >> you don't put them on the same putting and subject to a cost benefit analysis? >> this document does not have
the cost benefit analysis component and does not prioritize projects. That would happen at the inclusion of those items into
our C.I.P., five-year C.I.P. When we are programming money towards these needs. >> ok. I mean, I guess I would probably call this a wants list, not a
needs list, if it's really not subject to any kind of performance discipline.
>> it's an index of our needs.
>> everybody around the office, peter --
>> a lot of time and effort went into what we need to do to
achieve our goals and objectives as an agency. So, these did not just come out
of nowhere, but you are right,
there's no money and there's no priority at this time. >> a reason it's not run out of
the planning team -- a screen of professional planners brings to this that brings the level of reality check to it, so I do get
the point it does not have the
ranking and you know, this does not start down the walk towards cost, that I think we would all like to see, we'll see that in the C.I.P. But it's not just a laundry list. >> well, look, I'm going more than one question here, but I mean, my experience has been, we
have a hard time talking beyond cost constraints, right?
Typically we apply all of these disciplines like performance analysis to the cost constrained part of a part.
And when we want to put a new sales tax measure together or something else, we tend to go
from wants right to the expenditure plan and we never get to needs and performance and all the rest of that.
So, I would be interested just personally in when this list
gets subjected to those kinds of disciplines.
>> that's definitely part of our scope of work for going forward
as sarah mentioned before, we are looking at a far more robust
process in the next cycle. >> great.
And the C.I.P., there will be a whole bunch of criteria used.
>> yes. >> yeah.
>> I'll let -- >> one important element of the needs/wants list is all of our
state of good repair and asset management needs, which does go
through a rigorous process, replacing the assets, useful life, all built into the number and that's at least half of it.
So that goes through a rigorous process.
It's a reflection of our other major projects and initiatives. When we have a new funding source such as a general obligation bond or sales tax proposal we will pull from this
list and go through the process of refining it in the
constraints of that source or fund. So the item you will hear next,
we use a lot of the things on this list to generate things that would be appropriate for that source.
We do then go through the process, sometimes we'll select
through the C.I.P. A major initiative like a new subway but fund just the planning element of that to test the feasibility,
to understand the environmental, to understand the timeline of those things.
So this list helps us advocate for what is known as the absolute need for the transportation system at any
particular time.
>> related question to that? Looking at some of the specifics
here, I see 720 million for
protected bike lane network, 1.5 million for pedestrian
safety related to vision 0, and
time on there of 0 to 20 years, and we have four years, to eliminate traffic fatalities. So, I would love to see pulled
out understanding this is an
unconstrained plan, it would be
interesting and important to understand, is all of that
funding for vision 0 or a piece
of that expedite the next four
years to hit vision 0 goals and therefore start fundraising in a
very dramatic way to hit those goals? I want to make sure we are taking the goal seriously and not talking about 20 years of
investments, but four years. >> absolutely.
The proposed investment over 20
years, knowing we have to continually invest in the streets network. As far as what needs to happen in order to meet our vision 0 goal in four years, that would be the discussion that happens in advance of the C.I.P. To understand what we need to be
doing in the next 4 or 5 years
to actually get there. >> any other questions?
Directors.
With that, open up to public comment. One speaker, Madam Chair.
roman. I'm sorry, you are right. Ok.
Madam Chair, no public comments. >> it's an important item and no one cares?
[Laughter]
>> I care about it.
>> or, as we like to say, anne, they have great confidence that they know we are on it and that we are doing our jobs and that you are doing a fantastic job getting it all lined up. >> I'll believe that.
And with that, a motion to approve. >> second.
>> all in favor? Ok. Great. Thank you. >> 14, presentation and discussion regarding the development of a regional transportation funding measure
called faster bay area.
>> hello, good afternoon,
directors, monique webster,
sfmta, and following that on the
agency's capital needs, seems appropriate to talk about
potential efforts underway to
fund better transit in the bay area.
Joining us is nick daspovits and another from the faster coalition, and walk through the proposal and process, and a group of transit agencies have
been engaged in working with them, so immediately following their presentation I'll follow with a couple of slides that
will talk about that, and after that, we'll welcome your comments and questions.
>> great, thank you.
>> thanks very much.
>> thank you very much, when i told my three and a
half-year-old twin boys I was
coming to sfmta, they really like john, their bus driver that picks them up every day, and when I knew I was coming before
the M.T.A. Board I said a prayer that I hope director heminger treats me better than I treated
him. [Laughter]
When he was in this position,
and I was in that one. Anyway, maybe my prayers are not going to be answered.
So, I wanted to come talk to you about something which I think is really exciting.
Like many of the other agenda items you have heard today.
And it's faster bay area, and
faster bay area is, I would say,
both kind of a concept that we need to transform our regional transit systems if we are going to be able to deliver the
mobility and the equity and the affordability and sustainability across the region and the way we are operationalizing it in terms
of a broad coalition that has come together to try and make that happen.
The coalition is a coalition of
business groups like bay area
council, silicon valley leadership group, labor, environmental community and other stakeholder groups, which
is continually growing.
And I'll tell you a bit today
about where we are and would
really appreciate the kind of input that you are going to give us because this is really about doing something which is going to be transformative, and going
to be transformative all
elements, all parts of the bay area.
so -- ok if I don't -- just
click, ok.
Ok great.
So, faster bay area is a vision for a seamless transportation
system based on freedom,
affordability, speed and safety,
transparency, equity, and reliability.
And also has a logo. The bay area today as you know is one of the most dynamic economies in the world. However, the region's infrastructure is really based
on a pre1960s model, unable to keep pace with population and economic growth. Commute times are increasing,
mobility is decreasing, transit
ridership is down, and 46% of
all respondents in a recent poll stated they are considering
leaving the region all together.
The last time we made a major move at the regional level of
the scale that is needed to address our problems was when
bart was built over 50 years ago, and it's high time that we rise to the challenge and the scale of the problems that we
have with the similarly scaled solution. We have, based on the outreach work that we have done and we
can talk a little about the outreach work later, we are
starting to settle on a number
of principles necessary to transform our regional transportation network. Funding projects that fill in
missing links to create a truly regional transportation system, but also provide, that also
provides frequent and reliable service. Providing freedom of access
mobility in a true alternative to driving alone. This new system has to be faster
than driving alone, and more reliable, which basically means it has to be out of traffic and has to be frequent. We can't be subject to the tyranny of schedules where if you happen to Miss A train or a
bus it means you are late to
pick up your kid or pick up your
mother from a doctor's appointment. Solve for some of the existing barriers are barriers to taking transit. Affordability with means-based
and student discounts, reliability, and ability to
access the system for everybody.
Universal access as well as access for cyclists and
pedestrians and safety, access
for low income communities that
are so often excluded from
transit planning.
You have to support economic
development and transit allows
for new areas for affordable housing and business development
throughout the nine counties,
and also connects our densest communities.
Seamless integrating fares,
sharing stations among operators, with time and
schedules, so it does not feel you have to navigate 29
different systems.
Equity in our new vision for the
future of regional
transportation, prioritizing
access, and adopting universal design standards and accessibility standards throughout the system.
It needs to be a vision which is regional, which has been
lacking, but also community-focussed, with deep community engagement with funding allocation decision.
Resource -- if we do all this,
not just with funds to build
projects but also to operate them and increase their own capacity to deliver transportation of this scale.
And needs to be sustainable. Transportation is the fastest growing source of emissions in the state of california.
We need to have a transit system
which is clean, which has in the sustainability sense and also in
the trash sense, and these
investments should be
significantly be reducing B.M.T. We would not want to embark on something like this without
opinion research and so here are some of the kind of highlights from that. Voters recognize the
transportation challenges facing the region and there is
significant interest in a
solution of this scale. Seeking a modern transit system
that connects the whole bay area
and a conceptual readiness above the two-thirds threshold level
that would be required.
Tested a number of different
mechanisms, a major regional
measure is politically viable in the right environment.
But, it is organized and funded
opposition could very well end
in defeat.
So to be a little bit more specific.
Based on our research, $0.01
sales tax generates substantial
funding, politically viable and
funding source generated broad support for transportation investments in the bay area at the county level. $0.01 sales tax across nine
counties of the bay area would generate $100 billion over 40
years in expenditure dollars. So, what are some of the
benefits of this. We could use the proceeds over $100 billion and in a way that
is not restricted like a bond
measure would be, and pretty straightforward tax. Voters can understand.
The revenue of $100 billion is
sufficient to fund a long-term strategic plan, the capital improvements and operating budgets that would transform the
regional transportation systems.
But, it is not enough to fund
everybody's project. Turns out that $100 billion does not actually buy you as much transportation investment as you would think it would in the bay area. That May be a problem that you
have encountered elsewhere.
And so it's not a question of
just building projects it's a question as I was talking about
before with equity and seamlessness and integrating
transit networks, it's about
building a set of projects and also making the policy changes
and changing how we plan and operate our entire regional network.
So that we can actually deliver
the mobility that we need.
Bay area employers contribute 35% of sales taxes at the
regional scale, $550 million annually, if it was a $0.01 sales tax.
And sales taxes are not paid on
three big expenses for most
families, especially low income families, housing, healthcare
and the sales tax, it is regressive, and May be perceived to compete with local sales tax measures that May be under consideration by various counties and cities.
And the regressiveness is
something we take incredibly seriously, ground it in some numbers and tell you about some
of the steps that we are
thinking and that we have heard
we should be taking to address those concerns.
So, the cost of the $0.01 sales
tax to the bottom, to the low income households, those on the
bottom of the income scale would
be less than $10 a month.
Which is not insignificant.
And so the, one of the solutions that we are thinking about is
putting in place a low income sales tax credit, which will be the first time this has been done in california, it's been done in a number of other states and different ways, in hawaii
and elsewhere, low income
families would get a tax, a
refundable tax credit equivalent
to the estimated amount they
would spend in additional sales taxes to keep low income families whole. Personally I think it's
incredibly exciting because on average, if you take all sales
and excise taxes paid by low
income families in california, cigarette taxes, gas tax, and
sales tax, 8% of the annual income in excise taxes.
So apply a mechanism here through this measure which would provide a road map to significantly reduce that burden
on low income households, I think that would be a tremendous
equity move.
Also as I alluded to earlier
very much considering or
committed to I should say
rolling out a sort of a deep
affordable fares program.
Muni has taken the lead on this in the region, affordable fare
program but many other operators, especially long
distance like bart and caltrain
don't have a source of funding independent from their own budgets and as a result,
incredibly high fares, reduce the ability of low income people to take those systems.
But if we could put in place through this measure a
significant means-based discounts for low income families taking regional transit
and local transit, that would be, that would make a huge difference.
That could have benefits of up
to 40 or $50 a month per person
who takes transit during the
commute. We are also very much focussed
on thinking through with the
sort of large employers in the
region, the possibility of a
region-wide T.D.M. Program. And again, san francisco has
done remarkable work in this space, which basically requires employers to invest in the commutes of their workers. And could be structure this in a way where employers are prioritizing, investing in the commutes of their low income
workers, or moderate wage workers and that looks like everything from bike share
memberships to transit passes,
to incentives to van pool or carpool, and obviously in different contexts it would look different.
A vineyard in napa will deploy
different types of solutions and
sales forces but sort of
deploying a region-wide program, I think is also something that could really help drive people
on transit, provide the right incentives to make the right decisions for their commute and also is a way for larger employers to contribute even
more to kind of solving our regional transportation problems.
Also trying to get the
regressivity aside from the
affordable fares, and committed based on the outreach that we
have been doing for this to be a transit measure.
And as you all know, low income
communities disproportionate users of transit.
That, having a transit measure is not unusual in san francisco but it would be revolutionary at the regional scale, especially considering the types of sales
tax measures that you see on the ballot in other counties.
We are very committed to prioritizing access to communities of concern.
In how we develop this measure,
as well as protections with vulnerable residents and very
committed to having a very inclusive decision-making
process in how the funding is
distributed, which includes sort of vulnerable communities and
communities who were
disenfranchised in the process.
And then kelly fallon with the rest of the slides.
>> kelly fallon, policy manager at the bay area council and quickly go through the process and where we are to date. So, you'll see here right now we are in the process of developing the framework for the expenditure plan and we are
doing that by taking all the
feedback from what we have been
doing as nick mentioned with
labor and equity groups, business leaders, taking the
feedback and developing a draft framework for the types of projects funded through the measure. Our thought is that at the end of October we currently have scheduled a presentation with the M.T.C. Commission and will
be getting feedback along the way.
Hopefully then at the end of
this year a final framework to present input into legislative
language to go through the legislature, going through the
process between January to June, and it would require two-thirds votes of the legislature because there is an urgency clause that is required.
So if we make it through that hurdle, hopefully then be able to go to M.T.C. And have the
authority to place it on the ballot in late spring or summer. So this is the quick summary of the feedback that we have gotten from the outreach that we have done to date. So, everyone wants us to focus on transit. They want major investments that
will transform the system and not just a bunch of priority projects from all over the place. They really want something that
is transformative. They want to integrate the rail
as seamless, they want regional
express bus lanes, fast express lanes, heard a lot from the outreach people want express
busses but also need dedicated
lanes so they can get out of traffic. Like we mentioned already, hearing a lot of support for
discounted fares for low income
riders, including students, and seniors.
Really want great walk and bicycle access, so the
consideration so good access to transit.
And having, making sure we have
a flexible system to think about
using new technologies also help with the last mile connections. And of course, you know, they want us to improve existing transit systems, make them faster, reliable, and more
frequent. Last slide here is just a quick overview where we are now, as we
he thinks m -- we mentioned
already, $0.01 sales tax for
2020, and address it through low
income rebate, fares, or means-based fares program and now working with all the transit agencies and county transportation agencies to identify some shovel ready projects that we could specifically, you know, identify through the expenditure plan,
but we are focussed more on a bucket, essentially a mix of projects and buckets where we don't want to be too
prescriptive with the
expenditure plan, we want buckets with good well laid out
criteria for future planning and also some near term projects that could be funded through the measure.
So, that's the wrap-up.
We are doing, this is part of our outreach. Also working a lot of the county transportation agencies who do
public outreach in each of the
nine counties in this fall time,
and one already scheduled in
alameda on October 3rd and a survey next week that will be
even another way to engage the public to get ideas on the types of transit projects and programs they want to see in their communities.
So now back over to monique.
Thank you.
>> all right. Some months ago the faster coalition approached the general managers with the opportunity
and formed a group of about ten
agencies that, and so we formed
a group of about ten agencies
and began a dialogue around
this.
So the transit agency group
developed a draft vision statement as well as a set of
five guiding principles with the connectivity, reliability and
equity as key elements. And hearing from the proponents,
desire for transformational projects, established these buckets as a guide thinking about the potential funding source. Largest bucket is for transformational projects, that would include operating funds for new projects.
We also included a modernization bucket at about 15% to make sure we are accounting for keeping
the current system in a state of good repair.
And two smaller categories to enhance the services that we
currently have and also to
advance equity and safety.
So here is what the ten transit agencies have been thinking about as a framework. The first key theme is trying to get transit away from getting
stuck in traffic by making investments in the regional rail
system and express network for
bus and for transit in urban areas, like ours that carry a lot of people. And the second theme that we
are -- the second theme is trying to better connect
corridors and region wide. Next is integration, which is
another area that we have been
focussed on with three subareas,
gap closures to better facilitate connections, hubs and stations, connections between
the systems are made, for example, the downtown extension,
and the last one is fare
integration, an effort getting underway between M.T.C. And the
region transit operators.
The last thing is continued operations and continuing
funding to keep our systems in a state of good repair moving
forward. So, while this is still very
much in the formative stage,
what I'll end on is some of the projects we are thinking about
as part of the improved network.
Under the transformational category, upgrading the train control system and continued
implementation of the muni program to improve travel times and reliability.
Next generation of high capacity rail investments in the city and those will be informed by the work currently underway under
the connect S.F. Program.
Under the modernization category, upgraded maintenance and storage facilities, as well as converting all transit
vehicles to 0 emissions.
And in the enhanced category regional express bus network as mentioned before, including
express lanes on highways 101 #
and 280 in san francisco,
operating in state of good repair funding and support for regional fare integration. And final category, a few things
to highlight, making investments to improved accessibility as the
population ages is important,
and addressing the climate adaptation challenges they are facing. So with that, that's the end of the presentation and we welcome
your comments and questions. >> thank you. Directors, you want to ask some
questions now, open up to the public first? Ok, great.
Open up for public comment.
Roman, bob mason. >> good afternoon, board of directors.
I'm here to speak on behalf of adina le vin for voices for
public transportation, a at a meeting today.
She writes it's a community of,
a group of community, neighbor
and environmental advocation, visions and principles. Our approach is lead with the
vision in principle, and focus on the outcomes we want and develop a measure we can win at the ballot. We have several concerns about the approach of faster and the presentation today, at least as it was submitted in the slide
deck, some details said today
were missing from that.
The, she emphasizes the groups
behind this proposal are not
public agencies, they are the
bay area council, and spur, so
business groups, not public agencies. The -- we have concerns about the $0.01 sales tax, good to
hear some of that being addressed, but it would be
really great to explore other taxation measures as well,
especially if the polling shows differences and seems good to explore other ones, too, and we have not heard what they are. They just said they explored a bunch of things and presented this one.
And finally, the process in which the faster coalition is
going directly to public agencies, and not doing as much
public involvement risks, having
the measure not pass before it
even gets to the ballot, and
that's all I have from adina.
>> bob allen, edward mason,
peter strauss.
>> hi, good afternoon, bob
allen, urban habitat.
I'm sure board member heminger
is disappointed he's missing out
on this, M.T.C., only part of the fun.
The comments from adina were part of the voices of public transportation, meeting a year and a half, hopefully you received copies of the vision
and principles, endorsed this summer by the san francisco central labor council and before
the board and a couple of the
other regional labor councils, and we are happy to hear some of the things are, the ideas in the vision and principles are things you would find in what the folks from faster presented today. We have been in conversations with them.
We do agree that any kind of regional transportation measure
will take everyone getting on board, which is why I say I'm a
little bit concerned about the process, more than a little bit
corner concerned about the process and we have been having this conversation with
stakeholders, so several things,
one, I think often with some of
the processes we are concerned
about regressivity and potential revenue sources.
No conversation on why, and the polling data, there's some interesting things included, some things I think were not included.
No real conversation about other potential revenue sources.
We have gotten resources to work with the silicon valley community foundation and some consultants to look at other potential revenue sources and we think that should be part of the
conversation, that it should not just be a conversation immediately to the sales tax, we have heard several transit agencies, the board members expressing concern about us local officials losing the ability to raise sales tax revenue with a new threshold with this proposed measure and if we want to pass something, we
all want to do, we need to look at the revenue mechanism and jumping past that. And news to a lot of the riders of your system that there's a process going on that they don't
know about, and are not part of, and I don't know if members of the board have been part of the
process that faster has laid out a well.
So hopefully you will address that today. >> edward mason, peter, and
michael.
>> thank you very much, edward mason.
Faster bay area remove the 200 plus private one-seat commuter busses operating on 24th street
as authorized by the board?
A caltrain expansion presentation at the county transportation authority indicated major peninsula
employers desire to eliminate commuter busses, but this
collides with the S.F. Champ
model done for the hub study indicating that 45% would drive
if they had to travel to a hub.
About 730 busses operate and
transport about 8,000 employees
in san francisco, demonstrating
an exclusive ridership, poaching
employees from competitors.
Supporters, silicon valley leadership group supported the santa clara county light rail
system which has the worst performing system almost in the nation.
And then replacing the 50-car
fleet midlife with 100-car fleet
that is now 40 cars are in, for
morning pullout are sitting in the yard.
They now support the private commuter busses utilizing the right rail parking in santa clara county. Greyhound was the regional
express bus system 50 years ago, which I used.
The question is, where is M.T.C. During the intervening years?
And another sales tax when the
employers rely on the infrastructure, I think that
they ought to pay 5/7 of the cost to operate, since they didn't have the infrastructure they would not be able to carry on their business.
So, that's a direct connection with that.
So, they always come back to the private person to say well, g the roads are bad, don't you
want to improve it? Yeah, but if you didn't have the infrastructure in place, these companies would not be able to function.
Thank you.
>> peter strass, michael.
>> good afternoon, board of the san francisco transit riders.
Several of us have been working
on this for several years now as
well as some of the faster folks. And we come together as the voices for public transportation, which is a
coalition of transportation,
housing, labor, healthcare, and social justice folks.
About 20 folks have signed on to
that voices, the vision and principle statement that we sent to you. I would like to note that faster at this point is an
organization, voices is an organization, we don't know yet
what this measure that comes, we hope will be on the ballot in 2020 will be. We hope it will not be, if not the faster measures as presented right now, but we do realize that everyone needs to come
together on a single measure if this is going to get anywhere.
Pick up on the word transformational, used in the faster presentation. We agree it needs to be transformational but not just in terms of some of the things that we build. We feel very much needs to be
transformational in terms of the revenue sources.
we want to measure that will win.
We don't believe a 1% sales tax ultimately will win if it can
even get through the legislature.
A lot of lot of criticism, including by legislators, and the approach should be seattle,
three revenue sources, not a
single one, on to their measure.
We also feel very strongly that the operation support is
critical and need to be
transformational in terms of the
very sources we provide for this.
Seattle and L.A. Put between 20
and 25% of the total resources in operations, not just the new toys that get built, but also the existing services like those that have been critically cut. So we think it's important that
the percentages be higher than
what is currently in the faster proposal. Thank you.
>> thank you.
Michael warden, followed by nia
selby, the last two people.
>> no worries.
>> I appreciate your senior moment. Thank you.
My name is thea selby, chair of the san francisco transit riders and I believe you are the President Now? >> vice chair. >> borden for being at our
transit week last week, I think
was a huge success and got a lot of supervisors to take public transit and the mayor as well, she was on there all week, I understand.
So, a lot of what I'm part of voices for public
transportation, I was one of the people who helped to start this
movement looking at seattle and los angeles. I have a strong connection to
move L.A. In los angeles, we spoke to Mr. Heminger some time
ago when he was with the M.T.C.,
and want to point out one thing.
A lot has been said already. We were down in san jose and there are two, speaking of
voices, two different kinds of voices.
There's a voice of the transit
agency and I want sfmta to not be like this.
A voice of the public transit agency in san jose and they very much are interested in making sure that bart gets built.
And then the voice of the rider,
and we spoke with the riders, called the silicon valley
transit users down there, and they are very interested in more service on their busses. And I want to point that out, that there are sort of two different kinds of voices here
and we want to make sure that
the rider, we are very rider-centric, that's what we
are, we are transit riders and make sure the different voices
they use, and the seniors,
faith-based and the environmental, that they all get
heard, and so we believe that
our values-based way of working on this, and hopefully you have all read the principles and the
vision and the principles will
lead to the best outcomes which
will then make this a winnable measure, all of our hopes at the end. Thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> Madam Chair, the last person to turn in a speaker card on this topic.
>> great. Ok.
Public comments are closed.
Directors, any input with faster? Director heminger. >> thank you.
So, I had two subjects I wanted to raise. The first one I don't think will
be a surprise to nick, and that's housing.
And since you are an M.T.C. Commissioner I think you are
certainly aware that the legislature, the governor signs
the bill, just gave M.T.C. An
authority to put housing
measures on a regional ballot at some point in the future and I
do wonder how that initiative
and this initiative will play off each other and whether or
not they could possibly come together. I think as subject matter, they
belong together.
As a political matter, that May
be somewhat of a challenge
because we are asking people to
bite off two big subjects at
once instead of one.
But whatever goes first puts the
oat in a secondary position if they don't go together, and I
worry about that. Housing seems to be left at the
altar every time.
That's one subject.
The second one like peter, I
wanted to talk about transformation.
And the project I've heard most associated is the initiative of
the transbay 2, between the west
and the east bay, and that would transform things in lots of different ways. But how many people with actually ride it will depend a
lot upon the, in my opinion, the demand side of the equation.
What I've heard talked about
here is a lot of new supply, and
we need new supply, but unless
demand is working in tandem with
that new supply, we could have
some empty supply running around.
And just as an example, the idea
that many agencies in our region
and elsewhere have been working
on, is introducing price into
the highway network as a way of
encouraging travel through other modes. The fact that you've got an employer-led coalition, if all the employers charge their employees to park, we would have
a pretty big demand difference, too.
So, I wonder how your group is going to be looking at the
demand side of the equation, if at all.
Because that does not tend to get you a whole lot of votes at
the ballot box, but going to
make the investments a lot more meaningful.
If we could pull off the demand and the supply transformation at
the same time.
>> unsurprisingly great questions.
So, thank you director for kind
of starting the process that led
to -- and whatever you call that, which is now the authority
that has the right to put a potentially $40 billion housing,
affordable housing measure on
the ballot in 2020 at the regional scale, incredibly exciting.
And we have been coordinating
and talking regularly with the proponents of that measure and
the affordable housing and
equity community. And the business community is driving that measure as well, a big coalition. And a lot of learnings we have
from that, and also have sort of
spoken about how these housing
and transportation are two sides of the same coin, and you can
kind of sum it up, if you were to do it together with like live
here and get to work what we are
trying to do. And so I think there is sort of a, you know, we are on slightly
different time scales, they
passed out of the legislature,
we have a bill in the legislature, a spot bill, start
moving in January with senator
bell from san jose, the chair of the senate transportation committee is authoring, and so I think we are going to sustain sort of close discussions with
them and with the author of ab-1487 to see whether down the
road it makes sense to kind of put these two things together. And certainly I think even if
they don't go together, formally
on the ballot, makes more sense, I think a lot, you have heard a
lot of to just sort of have the
policies kind of work together, so they are both getting the same sort of, they are both trying to envision a future for the bay area.
>> just to follow up on that, nick. Can you imagine a scenario where
you are trying to get a bill
passed in a very compressed period of time, and buying a two-thirds vote because of it.
Would there be a way for the housing measure to go first in 2020 and then the transportation measure to follow after?
>> we are really focussed on the November 2020 ballot, seems the
political alignment.
Is ripe for that, but also don't
feel that if we don't do it in
to 20 it's not worth doing.
We are sure in 2022 we will have the same problems we have today
if we have not made the
substantial changes and transformations. I can't stand up here and say we
don't have a back-up plan, but
we think a real momentum behind
what we are doing and momentum
to get on the 2020 ballot.
And then to address your second
point on the demand side.
You know, we spoke about this
before and I think this is --
it's very true and so you know, the work that's been done at M.T.C. And elsewhere on starting to build out the express lane network is something that we have heard from a lot of people, should be completed as part of this measure.
And having a sort of a regional,
gapless regional express lane
network, which operates
seamlessly so we don't have nine
different counties and a bunch
of J.P.A.S operating their
express lane networks with their own rules and everything, having
a gapless express lane network,
forms the basis for a sort of a
sort of a truly seamlessly-run
express bus network around the
region, which integrates with an
upgraded rail network, also operates seamlessly could be the sort of one of the foundations and express lanes could be one
of the drivers, one of the
demand sort of producers.
We are also thinking that on one of the ideas that we are exploring with our business
partners and others are looking
at kind of the regional scale T.D.M. Program. That's something that the last
time this was tried was in the
early 1990s, coming out of some
federal clean air act and then implemented by the bay area quality management district and others. But at the time it was not really possible to do it, but the time was not right, basically, and not possible to do it in a way which was
flexible and easy to administer.
And so there was a revolving in
the legislature and 1996 the legislature stopped the programs like the one we are considering. But we think the combination of
major investments in transit, which kind of provide an alternative to a lot of
employees for driving alone,
will be sort of what's necessary to get employers to the table
and to provide their own
incentives for people to get out
of their cars driving alone. And I think some of that will lead to more people taking
transit, especially if it's, you know, if it can get them to work
and a lot will end up in carpooling and van pooling as well.
At the regional scale, many people who carpool to work to take transit, put that in context. But I think we have more work to do there.
But this would be a transformational start to put
something like this T.D.M. Program in place if it makes its way. >> other directors? >> thank you.
Thank you, all of you for the presentation. It's fascinating. My first thought is I wish we had done this five years ago, ten years ago, I wish we were
already well on our way to these
solutions that are outlined here. At first I wanted to say I'm a
little bit agnostic on how we get to that funding.
I do understand the regressive nature of the sales tax. I think the low income sales tax
credit could help address that, it's a serious issue.
Do you know off the top of your head briefly, los angeles was
sales tax-based, correct? >> yes, $0.01 sales tax. >> and seattle? >> combination of different measure, including if I'm not
mistaken, and off the top of my
head, probably also a senior
moment, a sales, a vehicle
license fee, and peter -- parcel
tax and sales tax.
>> combination in the measure.
>> and -- go ahead.
>> I'm saying, I feel like I don't have the knowledge to say
where the funding source should come from. Others probably have better knowledge to say we need this so badly that I'm at the point
where I will, I will support it,
I will support it almost wherever the funding comes from.
I would love it to be as aggressive as possible but I
think the idea we can make this
transformative will speak for the region, people are tired sitting in traffic, putting on my caltrain board member hat, we are topped out on passengers because we are overcrowded.
We can't take more cars off the freeway, we cannot fit them on the trains right now. So we need these type of projects to switch people to cars on to this, so I understand there are serious reservations,
but boy, we have to try it. We have to, we have to do something, otherwise we are going to be drowning in the same traffic and the same pollution that we have right now. So, thank you for support on this. For your work on this. You can count on my personal support and hopefully we'll be able to get the region on board and get something passed because we need to.
>> thank you, director. >> director eaken.
>> thank you for being here, for the presentation.
I was actually a little surprised when I read the briefing materials last night
this was going to happen so quickly, ambitious and clearly a smart moment to go. I am a little bit concerned that some of the folks who have spoken up today should be your natural allies, they should be right there with you holding
hands in the coalition and they
are not there yet, and a chance when you want to go fast and be
inclusive always, double down on
the efforts to be inclusive of equity, environmental, health, social justice organizations. To be honest you need them to get through the legislature and this measure to pass.
I know you have initiated, reached out to my organization
but I just, it seems to me very clear there's more work to be
done to build a broader winning coalition.
>> I think that's absolutely true and we appreciate all the
work that the voices have done
and I think we are sort of
working our way together, and I
don't want to speak for them,
hopefully they feel we are working our way together, and I think that we, you know, have enormous amount of respect for
the coalition they put together and the work they have done.
And I think this is part of the process.
And this looks a little more
like it kind of a, the type of outreach process that a state legislative bill goes through, rather than sort of a county sales tax, and I think that's one of the challenges because at the start it is a legislative bill that has to go through the state legislature and then it's
going to be sort of, if this
passed, a whole other level of
outreach and kind of community engagement that would happen before there was an expenditure plan and on and on, so I think we are trying to, the best intentions inherent to this and trying to work our way through
them and really appreciate kind of, you know, everybody's
availability to work with us and
try and get through. >> director.
>> add on to that. I think it's important at this early stage understanding that you need to get to the legislature to engage with the disability community in particular, you said a lot of
really good things, the presentation addressed the universal design principles and all that stuff and I'm sure some
of the coalitions that exist of community organizations include people with disabilities but
specifically in the certain san
francisco disability is a key organization and regionally and nationally, defense fund, transportation expertise and policy expertise that would be
really, you know, very relevant
to the discussion here. I think it's crucial that they
are at the table early because
people with disabilities and seniors are so transit-dependent compared to the rest of the population. They are often, obviously they overlap with low income populations as well, and what we
are seeing in our transportation network, especially with shared
mobility and technology, those
populations are being left behind. Bike share program does not address people with a disabilities. So it needs to be picked up in this transformative thinking. So, engage with those folks often. >> very, a point very well taken, and I've had the pleasure of working with some of those
folks with my other hats on as a director and others, point very well taken. Absolutely. >> I've just close up the
comments by saying please do work more with public transportation.
I think we need to have allies and come together and make sure there are building plans for future. And I think we can't under score the issues of around housing and
the transit connections and the tradeoffs to make investment in major rail infrastructure specifically, they have to build the necessary housing so that we
can, so that works, right, we don't want the investments for
rail that goes out to the middle of nowhere where nobody lives
because people say they want rail.
So, you know, those fights, my point is I think that that is the key thing.
You saw, you might have seen the
capital plan, 30 billion plus dollars that we could easily
take from this pot if we are
able to, so we are making the commitments here in san
francisco and I want to make sure we don't also get other jurisdictions don't always make the necessary commitments that
they need and making sure that everyone is equally accountable. >> I think that is something we
are conscious of as well, how
can we use this measure to kind
of sort of help support
communities creating equitable,
and it's a big incentive pot to help with that, and something we
are conscious of, and complimentary policies are
worked on at M.T.C. And
elsewhere, revamping the
region's development policy, a
process ongoing, and at M.T.C.,
and appreciate your engagement
in, especially director heminger. But yeah, I think it's absolutely spot on. >> final comments?
>> I wanted to sort of thank
M.T.A. Staff for their
engagement in the coalition, as
broed a coalition as possible, enormous amount as a transformational potential for lots of different agencies. So, thank you very much for your
deepen gaugement, directors. >> thank you. With that, the next item.
>> 15, approving various parking
and traffic modifications from
mission street, trum bull to
geneva, and geneva avenue to mission street and mission
street excelsior safety project.
>> victoria weiss, I am very excited, actually to bring you
two projects today, today's hearing on our high injury network.
The first one, mission street excelsior safety project, going
to deliver some critical safety improvements, not just on
mission street but geneva avenue
as well.
Talking about new traffic
signals, targeted bus relocation
and comprehensive merchant approach to curb management.
Some of the key aspects of the project but spend a couple minutes about the community jut reach we have done.
It's been long, frankly, but a very extensive one, so what we
are bringing you today is reflective of what the community wanted and of their concerns,
and we included all kinds of outreach, everything from door
to door to actually doing
transit rider surveys and so on.
Transit reliability
improvements, not a future red lane on the street. And direction from you and the
mayor, london breed, executing a
quick build providing you all approve it today. We do anticipate doing it over the winter and 2020. with that, ask my colleague matt
to come up and share more detail
with you, all aspects of the project. >> supervisor safai, he came up from his meeting downstairs to give briefly some remarks. >> thank you, thank you commissioners, thank you for
indulging me.
I'm trying not to be
disresuspectful to public comment downstairs but wanted the opportunity to commend your
staff, done a phenomenal job with the community outreach.
They have done an extensive
amount of conversations, flyer, put information out in multiple languages, they have talked to merchants, we have had a number of different town halls and
community meetings, worked with my office extensively.
We have had a lot of back and forth. Had some follow-up with different merchants and different organizations that would be impacted by this. Overall, I think this is a
phenomenal plan.
We are super excited to see this.
I came here to say, if there's any way to accelerate the timeline we were really looking forward to that.
I know it takes a lot of time to put the document, you know, once the document is finalized to put it into construction documents
and put it out to bid and then
receive bids and go through all that process. But every day that goes by there
is -- there's new issues, we get emails all the time with pedestrian safety issues, with vehicular traffic issues, with,
i mean, there's areas of this
district where people just unilaterally cross the street where there is going to be a
crosswalk as part of the plan
but do it anyway because distance between the crosswalks and certain intersections are so far apart.
But I think there is a lot of
sensitivity paid to existing
businesses, the type of uses, the type of design that can
happen on top of that, we took the time to work with the
planning department along with department of public works and fast forwarding a conversation about a better streets plan.
That is already in the makings.
We are trying to have this be
the launching point for future investment but about a $15 million investment is a significant, I mean, I think
that's around the price tag, is
a significant investment.
I think there was one last little tweak, I think staff is going to make that recommendation today.
But other than that, I wanted to thank you for making this a
priority in a part of town that has not received this level of
investment and attention in a very long time.
And commissioner brinkman, we
are 100% committed to making
sure that muni is prioritized and committed to that. I think what we decided
collectively was that we would
put this phase of the project
forward first, would deal with a
lot of the pedestrian and other
issues and some of the improvements and take the next step to have the conversation about muni.
so -- just wanted to thank you all for the opportunity to speak and thank staff and commend them
on the phenomenal job they did on this project. And if you have anything you want to ask me quickly before I go back downstairs. >> nothing to ask, but thank you for your cooperation on this, I
know you have done a lot of hard
work in the community to support
this part of the project, and I
know you will continue to do hard work. >> thank you.
I'll end with this, we use the large plan and safety and
improvement project to build off of that. Used the neighborhood trainings
improvement money. We did over $600,000 from my
pool and additional money from your pool to do traffic calming around the district. So much so, people are e-mailing
me on a daily basis asking for their street to have street cushions, raised sidewalk, so we are doing wonderful work with your team. We are going to continue that
work now on alameni, it's a dangerous corridor people are using as alternative to the freeway and alternative to mission street and the accidents are piling up.
We just authorized $100,000, we
might not need to use that full
amount if we shrink the time, the community planning time. My only point is we have used
that for conversation about R.P.P., for traffic calming, for a larger district-wide conversation. So, appreciate the attention and
thank you very much for your
support and guidance. >> good afternoon, follow with that.
>> name and title.
>> matt lasski, livable streets,
to talk about the mission street
safety, excelsior safety project. Excited to be here to present this project.
I have a power point here, please.
Thank you.
As part of this project, implementing quick build projects and longer term streetscape project, which is great. On sections of mission street
and geneva avenue, in the
excelsior neighborhood. Sfmta staff and sustainable
streets and transit worked
really hard on this project.
Since at least since 2017 and we
worked a lot as well with the
community as you've heard, I'll
touch on that as well.
So the project area is, it's an l-shape, and approximately a
mile long, focussed on mission
street between geneva and trumbull, four travel lanes and on street parking.
The 1414r, 14x, 49 and 52 all
operate along this business corridor.
On geneva avenue, concentrating
on the area between mission and
prague, also four lanes, with on street parking.
And the 8bx, 53 and 54 lines
operate here, equity routes.
Additionally, all the areas
around the project area, neighboring communities are
communities are concern.
So the stakeholders involved,
you know, really are wide ranging.
it's been a long planning process, like I said. There's been many opportunities
for community input, and we hope
to implement quick build project
starting this winter and then coordinate with public works on detailed designs and
construction drawings for
implementation of streetscape
elements starting in 2021.
And they actually have a paving project that we are working with them to leverage.
There is definitely a need here in the area.
Help us achieve our goal of
vision 0. Both these corridors are on the
high injury network, 323 injury
crashes between 2011 and 2017.
Five fatales of pedestrians as well.
And of the 325 injury crashes, approximately 100 were
bicyclists and pedestrians.
So, definitely a need here.
I think it speaks for itself.
Mission and geneva also had
during this time period, 43 collisions, seventh as the
highest pedestrian, highest injury intersection for
pedestrians in the city.
So, since 2017, we have
conducted a range of input on
the proposed improvements and generally there is a strong
desire from the community for
safety improvements, primarily focussing on pedestrian safety.
We had diverse inclusive process, we heard from stakeholders and community
members and various opinions on the project.
But some of our highlights
included talking to commercial
businesses as the supervisor stated.
we spoke, we spoke to about 175 businesses once, getting their input on loading and commercial and parking needs, and shared
with them our recommendations.
And then we also conducted 400
multi-lingual muni surveys on
board and at stops along the way.
And again, the most prominent
thing we heard was pedestrian safety, specifically pedestrian
crossings on mission street and
the dangers of those.
As part of this process we held stakeholder workshops.
Met with 11 stakeholder groups
in the area, met with them three
times and facilitated workshops. Again, diverse group.
Various interests and so
together we developed a collective challenge statement,
which is here, I'll just read it
out loud.
How do we increase safety for pedestrian and other fragile
modes of transportation while
improving the quality of muni service for local trips,
commuters and special needs.
So, we relayed the project proposals to this group, got
feedback and again, if there was competing interests we always
went back to this, this
collective challenge statement,
discussed how aspect of the
project May or May not meet the statement, and compromise and got to the project before you
today. As a result of the community
input with feedback and guidance
provided by staff, capital improvements are included in the
resolution, and they include
pedestrian transit and parking loading changes.
For pedestrians -- I mean -- not
just specific to pedestrians, but to help pedestrians cross
the street, proposing four new
signals on mission street and 2 on geneva avenue.
These are locations with
existing marked uncontrolled crossings, and so people are crossing there, and they are getting hurt, so we are looking
to implement these. Additionally, proposing over 20
pedestrian bulbs to decrease the
crossing distance.
In terms of muni, improvements
to muni, we have four transit
bulbs proposed, one transit
island, and three transit stops that are moved from near side to
far side, as well as two locations where we are
consolidating stops to one stop. And again, these improvements
would not preclude other transit improvements, like red lanes in the future.
For parking and loading needs, prioritize needs of merchants
and local commercial businesses. We are recommending an increase in yellow, blue, green and as
well as metered parking spaces
to help with turnover and access
to parking along the corridor. Bike lanes will be continuous on
four blocks of geneva, existing
bike route, with broken,
noncontinuous bike lanes.
From london to prague,
continuous lanes, and the
transit bulbs and bulb-outs, working with public works
through their paving program and
coordinate that aspect. So lastly, with your recommendation today and the
proposal approval, we will implement quick build aspects of
this project and that can occur
as early as this winter. looking at painted safety zones
at about 20 intersections,
implementing the color curb changes, doing some signal
timing changes to benefit
pedestrians as well as help muni
move through the corridor.
And that's it.
So, I think after two years,
again, to bring this in front of
you, and look forward to any questions you or the public May have. Thank you. >> I think we have an amendment
to the resolution.
>> thank you, Madam Chair.
Supervisor safai mentioned one change to the board staff is recommending, and at this point
to not move the bus stop at mission, keep it where it is,
that would require the board to
remove language in item f and cc to remove reference to moving
this stop. >> ok.
And give the background on that
location, a healthcare center is?
>> yeah, there is a childcare
center, a muslim community
center and concern by moving it
far side, it could be more dangerous situation for people young and old crossing the street. >> thank you.
>> you are welcome. >> and no impact to the project, still do everything else. >> yes.
>> that does not preclude that
in the future when red transit lanes roll out, that direction, that can be reconsidered again.
An definitely. I think in the future, a possibility for other, yeah, other transit stop, looking at
other transit stop changes as well. >> great.
>> any other questions of staff before we open it to public comment? Ok. Public comment?
Charles defare, cat carter, and
jodie mediros.
>> bicycle coalition. This item states that the mission street excelsior safety project is a project that will contribute to traffic safety and achieving vision 0.
We agree that people who live,
walk, bike and visit this neighborhood deserve better, especially given busy outer
mission corridor and the nearby
parks, Mclaren, crocker amazon, so we do support this before you
today but it does not go far enough.
And to me that means we are not making the street as safe as
possible with all the tools that
we as a city and you as a board
have at your disposal. Frustrating given years of outreach that went into the project.
I understand the board can only
approve or reject street changes. But it's clear political
influence, and concern around
the loss of parking spots did in fact water down the project.
Nip shall proposal, a two-way connected bicycle between amazon
and seneca, and more robust bike
lanes on geneva, in our eyes a
good candidate for fully protected bike lanes. We are going to encourage more people to bike and make our streets more welcoming for
walking and taking transit, we
need to be more aggressive with
design, especially in our outer neighborhoods.
Right after item you are set to approve yet another protected bike lane and yet the proposal
for geneva, an existing bike
route and jury corridor, only
looks to fill a couple blocks of
gap in the unprotected bike lane. It's a lost opportunity.
Hope the board continues to take
vision 0 seriously and do it more and do it faster.
Thank you.
>> cat carter, and -- >> cat carter, san francisco transit riders.
We are happy to see a lot of the
bus stop changes, the bulbs out
and allowed some parking removal. And overall, support the project but similarly we don't think it goes nearly far enough. When we talk about safe streets,
we need to be clear of the
crucial role that muni and transit priority play in making streets safer.
Where there is clear transit
priority, streets are safer and
incidents and conflicts decrease.
And service improves and ridership increases, fewer cars equal safer streets. A big overlap, obviously between high injury corridors and the
streets identified for transit improvements. Excelsior safety project should include transit only lanes and
was considered years ago.
We think transit only lanes will be safer streets, decrease
travel time, make muni more attractive option. Staff report even shows that safety improvements actually
slow muni in the project, all
the more reason to put in transit only lanes.
It did take too long for outreach, during which time
people died in traffic incidents. We know there is never enough outreach. We can't wait for the right amount to be done. A climate crisis and a street safety crisis. Further, there was a shelter at
geneva and mission removed with basically no outreach, rather
than improving lighting and streetscraping for more welcoming for riders this was taken away.
We love pilot projects like west portal and think they should become outreach. So we would love to see as soon
as the curbs are done, put some
transit only lanes in as a
six-month pilot and evaluate in realtime.
Riders are not waiting for years for the bus to improve and the
streets to be safer.
An
>> good afternoon, jodie madiras, walk san francisco.
We have seen two fatalities and
48 severe pedestrian injuries
the last five years since vision 0 started.
In 2018, asked you to start it again after years of stalling. We are asking to approve the desperately needed changes along
the corridor and pleased an see the changes. In favor of the muni
improvements and the pedestrian bulbouts, standard along the project, and the intersection of mission and geneva, where we
have seen the greatest number of
crashes happen and at least
dedicated left turn signal.
Since the spring, outreach and
gotten six new signal light crossings, three new crosswalks and thank the M.T.A. Staff for getting there.
However, advocating for better
treatments near locations where
children and seniors are, the
library, and no changes there at
all, particularly mid block
crossings and t-intersections.
And I want to say thank you to director brinkman for asking for really great projects. This is a not so great project where a neighborhood that really deserves a great project.
But we are not really there yet, and we are hoping some changes can be done. Walk san francisco believes
streets and neighborhoods for seniors, families and children travel frequently thinking about
schools, libraries, parks,
recreation and senior centers should be priority locations for
pedestrian safety, like a plus
priority locations for safety, and hope this is something we
can include in the project in the future and be mindful for all the pedestrian safety projects going forward. Thank you.
>> Madam Chair, antoine james. Last speaker.
>> antoine james.
What I wanted to say was, is I wanted to talk about the bus stop in front of the childcare center and you've already
addressed it, appreciate that very much.
Even though a lot of these
changes, the M.T.A. Wants to
make a neighborhood are needed. thank you.
>> thank you. >> good morning, sorry I did in
the put in a speaker card, I was not originally planning to speak
on the item. I have been up here before
talking about how projects have
gotten watered down and another program was introduced and a
problem in district 6 and 5, a
number of projects in 6, user quick build, and a project in 5 I think will come before the
board in the next month or so,
that is looking really good and strengthened recently.
But it's evident from the story we have heard today that it's
not yet working in other areas,
more car centric, and phrasing
in the staff report where I will
give kudos to the, to you all and the political environment
has clearly changed to the M.T.A. Staff they have to
upfront why they did not put in
a bus lane, I did not expect two years ago but it's not there, and phrasing in the staff report basically like well, if we put in a bus lane then we have to
take away space for cars or take
away a lane, and it's time to become more convinced that we need to do that, take away more parking, take away more lanes
for cars, make more space for
bicycles and more space for muni.
And apparently even a lane
reduction from four lanes to 3
on mission street was felt to be infeasible because it would slow
down muni too much. Four-lane streets are not
streets by any stretch of the imagination on other continents. It's a disease of the mind we have in north america that we think that something with four lanes for motorized vehicles is a neighborhood street. It's not. It's a road. And it's time we start to recognize that. Thank you.
>> thank you. Additional public comments on this item?
Seeing non, public comment is closed. Directors?
>> Mr. Lasski, thank you so much
for the presentation and acknowledge, yes I'm the one who has probably been yelling the most loudly about this project. I'm absolutely going to support this, because this is the right thing to do.
We need to make the safety projects out there, and I know that the outreach has been long
and hard, and I feel like you've
had to go back to square one, at least once to start again and
getting to this point I just
want to remind everybody looking
at the -- we are removing 56
parking spaces and have not had
a single person here to complain about it. This is progress. This is big progress.
Just a couple years ago this would have taken hours of public comment with people upset about losing parking spaces.
So, we have shifted the narrative. People realize that we need to do these safety improvements
even if we do need to take away
some parking spots to make the streets safer. It's not enough but we are not going to stop here. I have every confidence the muni forward project will continue to
roll out in this neighborhood and we will get there. When people see the improvements on the street, it will help build trusts with the agency,
that we are out there to make the neighborhood safer.
I spend a fair bit of time
riding my bike on alameni, to get to a volunteer school gig, and I'm not sure it's safe to
bike out there and I think how
can we expect the neighbors out
here to bike if this is what cycling is like, with cars and
trucks zooming along, inches
from the handlebars. We need the neighborhoods to participate in that, and this is the first step to get the neighbors to participate in big transformative changes for their streets.
So, I'm going to support the amendment, and this, and thank you for the work you've done out there.
And this is not the last time we
will touch that street, that obvious and will continue. >> on that note, what is the plan for the rollout of the project and when? I mean, I would like to see this project -- I'm kind of on the
same page, this is awesome and I understand the constraints you are dealing with.
I would support a bolder project, I would support transit
only lanes, and all the, you
know, get the cars off all together, I understand we are not there yet.
I'm just wondering, are you going to come back at a certain
time after the project has been implemented? I understand a quick build and then construction. A timeline and maybe give your best estimate when would be a good time to talk to us about follow-up for some of the other
added safety improvements?
>> so, regarding muni, muni
planning, my understanding from
muni colleagues are several years.
Other higher priority projects,
higher demand and higher need
closer to downtown.
But I -- yeah, my best guess.
>> ok. >> so we are going to do three things I guess.
Quick build right away, then the capital project after that, I believe that's probably 2021,
and the meantime, muni, matt is right, trying to figure out how
to do additional transit improvements, whether transit only lanes or what have you, probably after that. That is the plan, as I currently understand it. Those are the phases.
So in the next 2 to 3 years, that's what we are going to see
delivered on mission and geneva. >> ok.
Certainly I'm always, like let's do it faster and I understand maybe we can't.
And then following up on that,
could you address the safety issues that walk S.F. Brought
up, some t-intersections they
brought up that they -- a head
shake, and then maybe
particularly the library -- ok. And intersection where they felt
they had raised issue of more
pedestrian safety issues, challenges around that. >> I'm totally available to
follow up with walk S.F.
We have a pedestrian-specific
signal between leo and rushville, I believe is where the library is.
But I don't have the fine details on that.
In terms of mission and geneva, there was an issue there with a shelter, and my understanding,
that was a personal safety issue, and that was the shelter
was switched out quickly after a community forum in which there
was a shooting in the area.
And so -- with this project actually we are looking to
extend, or widen that sidewalk
area so there will be more opportunities for passenger waiting areas. >> jump here.
The shelter is an issue that
came up over the course of the planning of the project.
That's right, a serious crime issue that popped up at that location and had to do with the
fact the existing shelter was very close to the building and the hope here is the larger bulb, creates more real estate,
can create a shelter with more visibility and a situation that
doesn't repeat itself once we get it built.
But that's -- 2021 time frame. >> one last question.
For the new signals going in,
will those all have audible -- >> yes. >> thank you. >> anything else?
>> quick follow-up question.
We heard some talk about a desire for bus only lanes, talk
for protected bike lanes. Just wondering if you consider
these two corridors, how do you decide when it merits a bus only lane, how do you decide whether it's part of a protected bike lane network that's a critical network, and we are not going to
put those interventions on every
single street but kind of like
hear your process, is this part of a key bike network that we should be while we are in the process leveraging the
efficiency and putting in protected bike lanes at the same time, or less important at this time?
>> with the red transit lanes,
so, based on our analysis,
the -- the signals implemented, and the, some of the bus stop
changes and boarding islands, or boarding, the bus bulbs, there
will be -- it will be less than
a minute increase in time to
the, to muni, both directions.
>> and it did not rise to the
surface and as much as we, staff believe the red transit lanes and/or protected bike lanes, like we have to work with the
community and we have to, you know, we bring recommendations
to them, and have to listen to them.
So I think as director brinkman
said, it's -- this is like
getting our shoe in the door and maybe there's potential for
improvements soon thereafter. >> okay.
I just want to point out, two different things. Lack of community support for
something as opposed to M.T.A. Staff expert advice based on data and analysis whether it's a
street that should have a protected bike lane and transit
lane based on our --
>> it's a good process question,
but it's kind of, kind of -- I
can -- easier to answer it now,
but the evolution going back to 2017 was working with the incoming supervisor and pledging
to him that we would do a
community-based planning process
on mission street and excelsior
that did -- that was -- that
leveraged technical at the M.T.A. Staff and the input of
the stakeholders and that is
what you are seeing here, and --
there were other considerations,
and stakeholders said every time, pedestrian safety,
pedestrian safety is the
priority, do that first, do that first. >> director heminger. >> I was not going to say anything, but this conversation
sort of taken a turn.
I do not want to contest what
director brinkman said about the bad old days and how far we have come. Reading this conversation together with the one we had at
the last meeting with vision 0, and about how poorly we are
doing, I wonder whether we out
to have more people in the room
mad at us than we do now, and
it's a crazy thing to say in a way, but this is not a
popularity contest, number one. Number two, and look, this is
trouble I've encountered in my career. Just because the road goes by your house does not mean you own the road.
And the people who use that road, or bike lane, or railroad, whatever it is, the people would
us an it live all over the city
because transportation is a network. And you shouldn't let somebody
who resides at part of the network to tell you how the whole network works, just
because they accidentally live
near it. And people move all the time, too, and their attitudes move
with them, and we are seeing a
demographic change in the city, younger folks, and younger than me, they think biking -- biking is the primary mode for them,
not what you do when you know
you are not in the car.
And I think we still have not oriented ourselves to that way
of thinking.
[Please stand by bravk]
>> I think we have to talk this
out, I worry our goals are
so lofty we May not be oriented toward success, not pushing hard
enough.
[Please stand by]
-- a lot of the mission
activists are angry and
wondering when the lanes are going to go away.
We have a cultural crisis, those people most often lower income individuals, as a matter of
fact, who feel they got to the
place in life that they can
afford a car and it's taken away from them. It's something psychological at
that we cannot overcome, but what we can do, though, is perform well.
Have the busses run on time, not
have them bunch up. Do the things, do the pedestrian improvements. By showing them the service works and works effectively, they'll want it.
People love the 14r, busses and
you won't be able to get on the 14r and 14 will pass and people
will not get on it, because it's much better. As people start to see that and we can perform better, I think you'll start to see that transition and this will get easier and easier, but we are
still in the space, particularly on some of these outer
neighborhoods, where you do have
language and other sort of barriers, far from where we are and where we are thinking, and
the best approach, especially is
to try to figure out how through a process we can get them further from where they are, but on our end, share the success,
have them go to other parts of
the city where it's working well and then coming to our meetings demanding they get that, too. So I think if we were able to introduce more express busses
and things like that in that corridor, where people could see
some of the differences, the 14x
does very well, and the 9r, those are making a difference
but again, I think that's just
the reality that I see living in
the neighborhood, my bank is
there, grocery shopping there, my brother and his brothers live there, they are all mexican, a different thought process than what we are dealing with when we
try to make technical changes to the network and we need to make
the changes and should make the changes but I also think we do
fail and that gives them the permission to question whether or not, you know, we have the right solution.
So, that's -- that's kind of
like, that's the -- that's the, you know, million dollar
question in the long run but a step forward even if it's not
big enough step forward.
So with that, you made a motion. A second? >> second. >> on the motion to amend the
resolution to keep the bus stop. >> second the motion to amend. All those in favor?
Now the original motion. Second. All in favor? That passes. Move on to the next item. Thank you for all your work, staff.
>> approving parking problem ekt
ted bike lanes along 5th street between market street and townsend street associated with
the 5th street improvement project.
>> and the 5th street
improvement project, we have
been moving down from 7th street, and 6th street as we
speak, and looking forward to hopefully your approval of the 5th street project today.
Have a protected bike lane, safety treatments at intersections, new transit
boarding islands and relocation and expansion of the very important loading zones for
businesses on the corridor. Aside from being a really important safety project, it is important for a couple other reasons. First of all, it's going to close some of the gaps that we
have in our bicycle network, so connect basically to mission
bay, to caltrain, some of the
ongoing projects we have going
on, recent projects on howard, folsom, and closing the gap on the network and most of you
know, the central soma plan is coming, we are going to see over 5 million square feet of new
development on 5th street alone.
And so it's imperative that we approve this project, build this
project to serve not just the existing community but also all
employees and businesses on this corridor, and of course,
needless to say, we will be implementing a quick build version of the project right away. With that, ask my colleague to
come up and give you the details
on the project and answer any
questions you May have.
>> hi, everyone, talia lange,
thanks for hanging in there and listening to me today.
I'm here today to talk about the proposed changes between fifth
and townsend streets in the core of central soma. The 5th street project is not a new effort.
First came about as part of a
2000 the bike plan, designated a
major bicycle route. It was halted down to the central subway construction and
the temporary placement of 4th street transit lines to
5th street.
The busses have been moved off 5th street, goals of the project include improve safety for all
roadway users, address the
future transportation demands of
the neighborhood, to bridge a north/south gap in the bicycle network.
5th street is one of the last
missing links and builds on the
systematic process, of folsom, howard and other corridors. Outreach has continued throughout the duration of the project since 2017. Moved into design late 2018 through this summer and hope to start construction of the quick build or near term project this fall.
The quick books go, in front of
you today, generally include paint, vertical posts, transit
boarding islands and curb ramps.
Work committeed by city crews.
As I just mentioned, timing is,
the timing is in part due to
transit changes, but other important reasons.
Safety is an issue on
5th street, and they are committed. 5th street is also seeing a vast amount of development to the corridor and must accommodate
and protect the existing users and also future users of the street. In looking at collision data, we can see that safety is a critical problem on 5th street, especially for the most
vulnerable users of the road.
From 2016 to 2017, intersection of fifth and market had the highest number of pedestrian collisions in the city and one
of the top ten highest number of bicycle collisions in the city.
From 2011 to 2016, a total of
351 reported collisions,
including 320 injury collisions.
This translates to on average, one person injured on 5th street. A vital step towards changing
the statistic. This slide show some of the key development sites in the proebt
area, or the boxes in blue. Total over 5 million square feet of new development. We must create a street with
balanced modes of transportation
to accommodate this growth.
The 8, 30 and 45 lines have moved to other streets,
including the 27 bryant and van ness. 27 bryant will continue the existing route.
47 van ness, will run
in coordination of the townsend project.
Clear reasons proposing changes
to 5th street, the outreach process started in October of 2017 and the last major outreach
event in April of 2019.
Total, six major events,
informal community events, door
to door, and over 40 meetings with stakeholders. Not done yet. We will keep communication open
through evaluation process, so we can understand concerns and
make tweaks in the field to the
quick build project.
The slide has a lot of text on it, but the goal is to look at
the feedback for the project and ultimately gain support for the
changes.
The initial outreach included a survey to understand public desire for changes.
Received over 300 survey
responses, we heard improving bicycle safety was critical to improving 5th street. And a strong desire for
pedestrian safety improvements. We asked people to be specific about ranking their entired changes, understanding the street has limited horizontal
real estate and cannot fit
everything.
Protected bike lanes, and pedestrian safety improvements,
and better lighting for pedestrians. During the first year outreach events, took information from
the survey and other feedback to create alternatives. third, a preferred alternative.
It has since been refined and
reflected in today's agenda. And two southbound lanes and two lanes in both directions near the freeway ramps. New turning lanes at high volume
turn locations, protected bike lanes for the length of the
corridor, sidewalk lighting and landscape built by the developers at the time of the construction of both projects. Pedestrian improvements at intersections, a raised
crosswalk, and transit boarding islands for the 27 bryant and 47 van ness.
This is the existing cross section and typical proposed cross section.
There are new bike facilities
protected by either buffers and loading on both sides of the
corridor.
In summary, this important
project brings major benefits to
the corridor, traffic calming,
transit boarding islands, sidewalk and urban rail improvements at the development sites. Tradeoffs, including some
parking lots, and some impact to traffic flow during peak hours.
We worked for over two years to
minimize the impacts, proposing turn lanes and signal changes
and other small changes to
accommodate the use along the streets.
A thoughtful design that prioritizes to address critical safety needs, also taking into
account unique character and
needs of 5th street and the community. Lastly, I would like to end by touching on the next steps for the corridor.
following today's meeting if approve, preconstruction outreach prior to starting
restriping in the fall and work
with the shops to be cognizant. Concrete work will then take
place in the winter of 2020. We are collecting preproject data now and post project data
collection in the fall of 2020,
and publish the findings soon after. And looking towards making the
quick build design more permanent.
We see that in the fall of 2021. Thanks very much for your I am too.
Happy to answer questions.
>> kevin stall, and a rider of the bus line. And a major advocate for
pedestrian safety and a lot of the changes here will help improve the corridor a lot.
One of the major thoroughfares south of market with a lot of
people walk, ride their bikes,
drive, and take muni down this street. And with the number of people who are going to be moving into the neighborhood with the new projects, the potential of
having a lot of families with
children and possibly seniors and maybe people who are
disabled who frequent this
corridor a lot, the changes will
most definitely help the people
feel safe, and unfortunately we
have 22 people in our city killed, pedestrian fatalities
and the number is growing.
So, any and all improvements to
make sure people feel safe is
much needed, and I fully support the project in its entirety. Thank you very much. >> thank you.
>> paul, cat, simone.
>> my name is courtney, here on
behalf of supervisor matt haney, district 6.
I think it's a rare evening when
the board of supervisors is done before you all.
I'm just here mainly to express our strong support for this project. I'm sure as many of you and the
folks in the room are really
tired of the streets being
treated as freeways and for soma
having some of the most dangerous streets in our city, and we are appreciative of the
work you are doing to advance
important projects and making sure, and very transformative
for the project, and eager to see in particular the gaps in our protected bike lane network
be closed in soma as well. Thank you for moving this forward. Look forward to seeing the quick
builds in the ground in the fall, and I also wanted to thank
the staff and all the advocates who have been integral to building out the proposal as well. You have our full support. Thank you so much. >> thank you. >>
>> charles, cat. >> thank you, commissioners.
Charles lafarge with the san francisco bicycle coalition.
Every time, just about every
single time I dare to ride
5th street I see something that
gives me a chill and it's inexperienced riders, often
tourists riding, sandwiches between trucks, busses and parked vehicles, often with
their children and with, you
know, scraps of paint encouraging them to be bold and
take the lane. They are on fifth because it's on the bicycle network, the apps. The city is encouraging people to take this really broken street from market to caltrain. It's really only a matter of time before somebody gets hit
and killed, we know that at this point, let's not wait until that happens to move here and thankfully we are moving pretty quickly. So, today we have the
opportunity to reverse this embarrassing, unacceptable part
of the bicycle network and
continuous protect the bike
lanes can create new space for people riding.
Not only the north/south
connector between 2nd and 7th. So, not only will the project
save lives but will open up the network, it's important we get
it right on 5th street. The unit from market to mission,
one of the busiest blocks of the corridor. You have the active valet,
hotels north of market, so protection for people riding on
this block is a, is a crucial
component to the overall project.
A break in con at this -- continuity, and priority over automobile access, yes, and
slight transit impacts as well.
I'm excited to see the lessons
learned from previous quick
build projects and get things in the ground this year, timeline, and thank you to staff. We look forward to this going in the ground. Thank you.
>> cat carter, simone, marcell. >> cat carter, san francisco transit riders. We are excited to see 5th street
improved with protected bike
lanes and the bus bulbouts and the safety features that will make it a more livable street,
and make it more welcoming for everybody. However, we are disapointed to
see busses forced to share a single lane with cars.
The northbound 27 bryant will be
sitting in 5th street congestion
downtown traffic congestion for three blocks and this will add
at least a few minutes travel time.
And make the 27 bryant even more
unreliable than it is now. As you probably know, the 27
bryant is part of the equity
strategy, low income, senior riders, and the north side of
market street and sfmta did so well on that one. Gains made on the 27 north of market will be wiped out by this project south of market.
We have suggested a possible
solution, namely a combined
bus-bike lane pilot project.
Again, we like pilots. It has been done in other major cities.
Busses only every 15 minutes and the shared bike lane would be three blocks long.
We really ask and urge sfmta to
consider this pilot. We cannot have another project that considers transit as an afterthought and impacts be ok.
So, I ask you to consider, if any other recent street improvement project has actually made muni worse by design, and I
urge you to alter that part of the project.
thank you.
>> simone, marcell.
>> I'm a concerned citizen of
san francisco and dedicated biker. I strongly support the 5th street improvement project.
It's a sorely, sorely needed
project that improves bike infrastructure.
Finally finally a protected bike
lane for "the entire corridor."
music to my ears when I hear that.
I biked 5th street a few days
ago, and dangerous for even an experienced biker.
And as director brinkman said we
needed them 5 or 10 years ago. If we put them 5 or 10 years ago we would not have the vision 0 problems we are having today. It's not enough. Protected bike lanes often still
have dangerous mixing zones and
other items I'm sure will be
continued in this project today.
The excelsior project today only
had four blocks of unbroken bike lanes, only four blocks.
And then 2 to 3 more years to get transit improvements.
The sixth and taylor project has been going on for years, and no bike lanes in the final design.
I went to one of the outreach
meetings and sfmta staffers had
no data to keep bike lanes out, even if it was in the original design.
And mentioned before, stockton street was entirely returned to
the cars after, you know, all of
that central subway construction. Based on evidence, I don't think
the sfmta takes vision 0 very seriously.
We need more car-free streets for the tenderloin, more
protected bike lanes, protected
intersections, transit only lanes.
Articles in newspapers often
only asked merchants and don't ask transit riders. With reliable transit and bike lanes, people will ride them.
As director borden said, people
don't bike because it is dangerous. All of these things need to happen on every project. >> thank you. >> by default.
>> thank you very much. >> time is up.
>> marcell, harold, michael. >> thank you.
My name is marcell, I'm a
resident of san francisco, and Ph.D. Student in city planning
at U.C. Berkeley, and a proud
member of the san francisco bike coalition. Tremendous momentum today in
terms of improving sustainable transportation options in large
part due to decisions made by
the board in regard to our streets. Today represents another opportunity to move the city forward encouraging and protecting bicycling. Research shows that unless bike lanes are separated and protected, only a small section
of our population will use them, namely young white men.
Protecting bike lanes is the
best way to diversify, women,
older adults, and children, and people of color.
In addition, study after study indicates that building
protected bike lanes improves sfoot traffic and success of
businesses along such corridors,
as opposed to maintaining private car storage.
In particular, 5th street
represents market street, union square, and beyond. Two traffic lanes in each direction and private car storage on each side. We can flip the scale of the street towards bicycling and transit. Thank you. >> thank you.
Harold findlay, michael borden, kevin carol.
>> harold findlay, I've ridden
my bike all over the city.
The main thing I notice, besides the city streets me as a second
class citizen, the main thing I
notice is that I'm so exposed to
danger, especially the
vehicle -- I'm just moments
away, just a momentary lapse, a
judgment by a driver, or
attention by a driver, or maybe
a momentary burst of aggression
by a driver and I'm down.
People are putting up the bike, I'm not here talking.
It just -- it's frightening, and
then when I get past that, I
just think how ridiculous it is. We are a fifth of the way
through the 21st century, we should be done with having
car-dominated streets but we are not. It's everywhere.
And also, you know, projects,
create places of danger, we need to protect people from the danger.
That's part of completing the projects. That should be natural.
You know, crucial to create the
danger, then protect people from it. Don't make them come to meetings
and protect you from protection,
be satisfied with bulb-outs and stuff like that, protect them.
You insist on having it.
I know you all know this, but our streets don't reflect that at all. And I guess I'll say one last thing.
Director heminger, I am mad at you, and you know, you are right, people just are not
coming up and telling you and I and director borden, I understand completely the analysis you gave but you have
an ethical problem allowing
people to die while you wait for community sensibility to reach
the right place.
>> michael borden.
>> good afternoon, michael
borden, I'm 68 years old, and I
get around the city when I can and I feel safe.
My first choice is by bike. Everyone else has already just said when I feel about the conditions of the 5th street, probably more eloquently than I can. So, just thinking of something new to say.
Bear with me a moment, you May
think I'm having another senior moment.
But just rereading the novel,
ian forester's novel, "howard's end," and a wonderful quote,
those of you who saw the wonderful movie, emma thompson
says to anthony hopkins, and
that is "connect, live in
fragments no longer."
now you can take this in a very
literal way, commissioner heminger's statement of our need
for bike transportation networks
that connect or what charles
pointed out, the need for
connections between the 5th and townsend and howard and market street bike lanes.
A literal way. But I would like to talk a different way.
I don't really think of myself
as a senior, I think of myself
as a 68-year-old man, lucky
enough to be still hobbling around. But I do feel seniors through
ageism are unaware, and
sometimes put in a box of, the
city talks about improvements
to, to transportation, for
seniors, I always see muni and
walking, which are poring important to
me and with some with a
disability like myself, and some seniors bike and I am included,
and how I connect to the city is keeping my involvement up with my friends, with my volunteer work and my social networks and getting there. >> thank you.
>> by bike is the way I do that. So, please help connections, please approve the bike lane, thank you. Bye.
>> thank you.
>> kevin carol, jodie, jake shumano.
>> kevin carol, President And C.E.O. Of the hotel council of san francisco.
I live in san francisco, a heavy
user of public transit and public transportation. For me, I'm here today to speak in support of the 5th street project. I have one question, one concern that we have been expressing throughout the process.
I want to thank the M.T.A., and
especially talia lange for the multiple meetings she mentioned and meeting with our group specifically, and I know others as well. But I also want to thank the walk S.F. And the bicycle coalition who have come out and
met with us and our teams as well. I think it's important that we understand what each of each
other are looking at with it. As far as the overall project, we obviously support vision 0, and protected bike lanes. I think as charles mentioned,
our visitors bike all over the
city, our employees bike as well. And then obviously we are
pedestrians and our guests are pedestrians as well.
The one concern we have brought
up along is the constriction of two lanes to one lane on
northbound 5th street and that case, I know some adjustments that are made, especially coming
off the freeway and crossing market and we do appreciate those adjustments.
We still have a concern on, and ask the very thorough evaluation plan that's developed looks at what the impacts are. I think it's important for all
of us to realize our supplies
arrive in, through traffic
lanes, and many of our visitors arrive through busses and other modes of transportation, it's not just all single drivers in cars that are using the lanes. And we do feel that there will be a constriction there as part of it.
So, we do ask that as you do the evaluation that's taken seriously with what the impacts are going to be, and thank you again for your time and
especially to the team at the M.T.A. For the work they have done. Thank you.
>> jodie madiros, jake shumano,
mike sizemore.
>> good afternoon, executive director, walk san francisco. This safety improvement project can't happen soon enough.
As the sfmta presented and
pointed out, this corridor has been a pedestrian safety nightmare. Lives have been at risk,
especially those of seniors and seniors with disabilities. This neighborhood has one of the
highest senior populations in
the city and streets must be
designed with this in mind. And as we know, pedestrian numbers on 5th street corridors
are going to increase as the new developments are put on. Walk san francisco has been working on this project for
many, many years with the neighbors and sfmta. We have gone and done street
side outreach and talked to literally hundreds of people on
or near 5th street at outreach
events and our surveys shows 94%
expressed the desire for safe intersections, the biggest number one ask.
The plans will go a long way
toward safer intersections, and huge improvements to intersections like brandon around the flower mart.
Incredibly pleased a no right turn policy will be on 5th street for the improvements
and we strongly support a no right on red to prevent all collisions in the city and see
it as a widespread policy.
Finally, we support the
separated bike lanes, to calm
the street and improve safety. And a group has been working
with the sfmta on how to design
protected bike lanes to ensure accessibility and hope the 5th street design including the quick build is going to
incorporate the work groups'
nine design principles for this implementation. Thank you very much. Look forward to hearing you on
this project.
>> jake shumano, brian --
>> vice chair and commission members, development manager
with real tech, inc.
On behalf of investors, and
proposed mixed use multi-family development at 300 5th street at
the corner of 5th and folsom streets. I would like to acknowledge and
thank you the sfmta and talia lange for mentioning the
development coming to the area.
I think it's an important aspect of the future of the street improvements and who will be using the streets. Specifically, our firm has been proposing a development in this
location since 2016.
Currently proposing plans for
130 apartments, small ground
floor commercial street with 0 off street parking.
Our project received preliminary
street design comments prepared as part of the project review. Comments included a statement
indicating that no on street loading would be available on
either of the project street frontages. It includes some correspondence
with talia and her team and I would like to make it known to
the public records -- sorry, but
basically she and her team have shown through this design that
you can accommodate an on street
loading zone on 5th street, the
tune of 112 feet long. Given our ability to add the
on-street loading in this location, the sponsor is very
supportive of the plans and feel
it will go a long way to bolster pedestrian and cyclists safety.
Our time is -- excuse me, our
team is grateful for the design
considerations and hard work of Miss Lange and her team. Thank you for your service. >> next speaker.
Mike sizemore, followed by brian
clofuss and jeremy.
>> mike sizemore, 5th street
resident and daily 5th street rider.
Again, I am one of those young white guys that can survive 5th street.
I just want to give you a glimpse of what riding on 5th street is. Typically every day I experience one of the following.
People accelerating close to me, trying to pass me, people have
thrown water bottles at me, frustrated I'm on the street.
I've had somebody pass very,
very close to me and clip me with their rearview mirror, and then turn around and blame it on
me, and get out of the car and try and fight me. I've had somebody merge into me and I tap on their car as they are merging into me, which
proceeds them to roll down the
window and "tell me they are going to [Bleep] End me."
you know, this is the reality on 5th street. I want my community to be accepting of people.
i hate that my neighborhood is
an on ramp for highway 80. Let's create this community. I don't want to grow up in this community, you know, I plan on having children, I plan on putting them on bikes, I plan on
having them walk around the city. This is not going to happen if they are being tailgated by
people with people laying on their horns, if the street continues to be this hell-scale
for anybody that is not in a car. Again, I'm also up here because I am a constant rider and nothing is more powerful than,
you know, if I do end up dying on the street, to have a recording of me making the
warning, so -- I do wear my helmet, I do practice safety
biking, safe biking on that street, but at the end of the
day if this could be used as an
action to get faster bike lanes or more safe streets in our neighborhood, I will be happy for that. So -- thank you, and please push this forward as quick as possible. >> we hope it's not a record for that sort of thing.
>> I hope so, too.
>> brian, jeremy.
>> hi, brian clofuss, here in
support of the 5th street improvement project.
I bike and walk every day and bike down 5th street once or twice per week.
This project is great, the
entire length will have
protected bike lanes, it will make me feel safer.
I think it should go further,
red light cameras and speed cameras mid block. Thanks.
>> jeremy, the last person.
>> hi, jeremy frisch, I have
come before you before to advocate for protected lanes
townsend, and folsom and howard, but today talking about 5th street where we have another opportunity to save human lives
by building protected lanes along the road.
This is not abstracts every day
bikers like me have to mix with
highway and bus traffic, and pray they are not injured or killed by drivers.
Leaving any gap in the protected
network for cyclists lead to unnecessary deaths, like tess
rothstein who died in an unprotected bike lane a block
from where it began on howard.
The mixing zones I saw in the designs there the open house
were a far cry from a fully protected bike lane.
So, maybe I'm hoping that's
changed or yeah, I still, they still put cyclists at risk at
key points along the route.
As the previous speaker said, we are not going to get more diverse folks riding instead of driving without a fully
protected bike network with none of these dangerous gaps. Members of the board, I urge you
to support the near and long-term projects on fifth and
direct sfmta to implement
short-term fixes in weeks, not
months or years with no dangerous gaps. As the presenter said, we are seeing one person per week get injured on this street. So, every week counts.
We know it can be done and
people's lives again on it. thanks.
>> thank you. >> thanks for giving me a chance to speak out and I just closed my --
>> your name, please.
>> bob walsh, I work for scoot,
one of the four micromobility companies operating in san francisco.
I'm also a city native and my
wife, as are my wife jana, three
children and two grandchildren. Protected bike lane shouldn't take more than ten years to build.
When we first started kicking this idea around, lyft and uber did not even exist. In fact, since this simple
project was first proposed, we built the city's tallest skyscraper and the world class arena.
And yet here we are, trying to get a bike lane built.
I'm kind of like a kid in the
candy store, I can't wait to get this thing built. At this point in time to commit today in this room that the long delayed 5th street protected bike lane will be complete
before the end of the year, you know, the quick build.
Can we prioritize the safety of our pedestrians and cyclists
over fancy new buildings, yeah.
Can we put our money where our
mouth is and truly advance the vision 0 goals, I believe we must.
We all know very well that
implementation of safe street
designs, despite approving lifesaving benefits and clear
community support continue to be politicized.
Swiftly moving forward with this project you will make the next project less fraught and send a clear message. Designs that save lives by protecting vulnerable road users
will be explained, but they will not be delayed.
More and more residents are demonstrating a willingness to
embrace alternatives to driving,
such as public transportation,
bicycles, e bikes, scooters,
make your efforts to make 5th street and all of san francisco streets safe for everyone. >> thank you.
>> next speaker.
>> I'm one of the people that
director heminger referred to
using a bike as a primary mode
of transportation, and I think
less about my age but more with
my nationality. I don't go down 5th street anymore, a friend of mine started doing it, and he then asked on twitter for tips how he
could avoid 5th street, because it was so bad, and he wrote after his first time riding from
the sunset to caltrain, he wrote "5th street is hell, you're
biking on a six lane highway, no
dedicated bike lanes, and cars
zooming inches from you."
google maps sending bicyclists
down 5th street, a disaster.
Disclaimer, I have been riding down fifth, but rarely felt as safe as riding down fifth this morning. I think this project would help a lot with that. It has a few mixing zones, it's not perfect, but it's really,
really good, and so I hate to disappoint Mr. Heminger and not
be -- I will do something I
don't do very often, which is disavow something the transit riders said. I'm a member of their organization, I support them but mixing bikes and busses is very,
very bad idea, and we should not ever do it. There's not enough space on the
street for a bus, take it from the cars. Don't take it from the bikes. Thank you. >> thank you. Next speaker. Any more speakers on the topic?
Seeing non, public comment is closed. Colleagues.
>> Ms. Lange, a few questions. A couple of the speakers brought
up what my -- first of all, great work on the project and good presentation. Obviously there's a lot of support for this one.
Can we talk about the mixing zones?
I see the project will be upgraded in 2021, which will
include signal lights upgrades sounds like.
Until then, mixing zones at the enter essentials? >> at some intersections we will. At some we will have four out of
eight intersections we'll have either protected turns through
sort of temporary portions of
your protected intersection, or separated bike signals at folsom and bryant. >> we'll have four intersections that --
>> basically be phased in as
quickly as we can in terms of the long-term project and then we have some development
projects also bringing online
some changes, including the flower mart. >> good, that's great. I understand the need for the
mixing zones, but I'm not a big fan of them.
A relief on 8th street when they
are upgraded with dedicated turn signals. Second question, it looks like
the west side won't be parking protected all the way. And do we have some idea of how we are going to keep cars out of that bike lane because as we know, unless there is a concrete curb or a line of parked cars, cars are going to try to go in there to get to the curb and park. >> great point.
In the quick build design, we
will have vertical posts and
buffers, and -- and upgraded in
a phased way as quickly as
possible, and the long-term, and become concrete buffers.
>> good, I can see that the next
question that we'll get from
director rubke will be access
across those bike lanes for
people with disabilities.
Preempt her and ask that question.
>> quick build project, does
incorporate curb ramps at all
the passenger loading areas that
are sort of floating between -- it's the passenger loading zone, and then it's bike lane, then the sidewalk.
You need a way to access the
sidewalk, so curb ramps and also be accessible.
>> I'm so supportive of this project, it's going to be great
and a fantastic connection.
It is a good way to get from the
train station pretty much in the part of the neighborhoods, going
to the maria, cal hallow, I do wish we had a slightly better connection taking us across
market street, but I guess as
market street gets improved, cyclists will be able to go left
on market, and out turk and -- >> to use that intersection of market to intersect.
>> it's going to be a big help
for people and as more and more people buy electric assist bicycles and bike shares have
more available, we'll have more
people doing that commute across the city.
Might be nice to add additional signage as we get the bike lane
going, to let people know how to get across market street and turk street and -- >> that's a great idea. Thank you.
>> thank you, great work on
this, and look forward to riding 5th street on my bike. >> approved. >> second.
>> question? >> ok. >> I wanted to ask about the new configuration two in one, right, for the motorists, and the one is northbound. >> yes. >> so, that primarily has an impact in the morning peak.
>> actually has a lot of impact
in the morning peak and there is some -- >> did you consider a reversible
lane as a way of managing that? >> we did in the consider
reversible lane but this works
with 5th street, exact in verse
of what the 6th street
configuration is, and also say
the northbound one lane is from harrison north, and flip flops from bryant south, because of
the highway on ramp and off ramp. >> maybe you could just ask the director of transportation.
Do we have a policy on
reversible lanes, is it sort of
a standard tool in the tool kit
that can he consider?
Cities are skiddish, the lawyers
are skiddish, but a state law when you make improvements to the state highway system you
must consider a reversible approach. >> yeah, of course most of the state highways we have are --
are wider --
>> I'm just saying, you know, caltrans is doing something and we're not, a reason to pay attention, I think.
>> simple answer, it's not a tool that we have -- that we
have applied to my knowledge in
the city. Definitely, it's something that
the cities that have heavy
vehicle, heavy directional flow
to their traffic patterns use on surface streets.
We have bi-directional, both
directions south of market and
the traffic flows will get more
and -- and the freeway access, it does not conform to the sort of natural north in the morning and south in the evening.
A lot of complicated factors. Something we can certainly look into. It's not currently in our toolbox.
>> yeah, I just think, we are missing opportunity if we just don't consider a strategy at all by default because I think there are going to be probably places where it's going to make some sense.
You obviously, as you said, have
a strong directional flow.
But my own experience has been
this is more skittishness than
unknown, it's not a good idea in every case. >> any other comments?
I think I would agree, like rock
creek park changed directions,
we should look at that, a great way to not have to expand roadway capacity but accommodate better for shifting traffic.
>> and as mentioned, evaluation
plan and look at how things are
working, and as director maguire stated, it's really about even in terms of the number of cars
at the moment.
>> a motion and a second, all in
favor, no opposition, that is --
item is now wrapped and we are going to go into closed session. >> Madam Chair. >> motion to go into closed session. >> you do not. >> great. >> it will take me a moment to put the room into closed session.
>> so good morning and welcome.
I'm jack gardner and President
Of the john stewart company.
On behalf of our related partners in california, san francisco housing corporation, and ridgepoint non-profit
housing corporation, it's my great pleasure to welcome you to
the grand re-opening of hunter's
point west and westbrook. Give it up. [Applause].
>> hunters point east-west in
westbrook are two of the city's
rental assistance demonstration projects.
The overall program consisted of transferring 29 of the housing authority profits to local non-profit and private housing organizations for recapitalization, renovation, and private management. More detailed information is
available if you're interested.
This mammoth city-wide program
which included almost 3500 units of affordable housing throughout san francisco required the collaboration of a host of
public agencies, developers, consultants, contractors,
funders, and, most importantly,
the residents of hunters point east-west and westbrook themselves.
The program demonstrates the city's commitment to leaving
none of its residents behind and we are very proud to have been part of it. None of this would have been
possible without the vision and
leadership of our local elected and appointed officials, many of
whom are here today and we'll do
some shout-outs a little bit later. Thank you for celebrating with us. Let's get started. It gives me special pleasure to introduce our first speaker. I'll tease you a little bit here, see if you can think about
who that would be.
She's a native san franciscan. A former redevelopment agency and fire department commissioner. Former executive director of the african-american art and culture
complex in the western addition. President Of the board of supervisors.
You might be getting it.
Presently our current and future mayor.
So a steadfast champion of affordable housing, community empowerment, and the creation of
a more just and equitable san francisco for all.
Great pleasure to bring to the
stage our very own mayor london breed. Mayor.
[Cheering and Applause].
>> Mayor Breed: thank you. Hello, everyone.
I am really excited to be here today because this is a long time coming.
When we first set out on a path
to just reenvision public housing throughout san francisco, it wasn't easy. I remember when I first became a member of the board of
supervisors and I went to our mayor ed lee and talked about
our priorities, I made it clear that public housing was my number one priority.
He supported those efforts.
In fact, I grew up in plaza east in the western edition, where I lived in public housing for over 20 years of my life.
Those conditions were very challenging. It wasn't just sadly the poverty
and the violence that existed in my neighborhood.
It was also the actual physical
conditions of where I lived.
The mold, the bathroom that basically had a number of challenges. We never even had a shower in the public housing unit that I lived in.
The roaches, the lack of support
that we got from our facilities
crew to actually make the kinds
of repairs where we could live
in a place that was safe and
live in a place that was the way that it should be for any
resident of this amazing city.
it was important to me that we made a change in san francisco because the same conditions that
I lived in are, sadly, some of the same conditions that still
exist in public housing today. So we set down this course to try and make changes.
No, we didn't have the resources completely to basically start
all over from scratch, but we did have an opportunity through
the R.A.D. Program, the rental
assistance demonstration program, to really make investments now so that we can
change the conditions of where people live now. That was so important.
There were people who were concerned, including the
residents who were skeptical about whether or not what
happened in the filmore would
happen in the bayview hunters point community.
I too was concerned about that.
In fact, the public housing development I lived in had 300
units and after it was rebuilt
through hope 6 which was a whole
other program before hope S.F.,
there were only 200 units built. So clearly, everyone was not coming back.
That's why when I first started as a commissioner on the san francisco redevelopment agency
and we set out on our path to try and rebuild double rock and other places, it was important
to me that we did it differently
than we did in the past, so that
residents played a critical role in not only deciding what fixtures and windows and how they wanted their community to
be, but they remained a part of their communities.
So that's exactly what we did.
it did require a lot of patience and moving around and a number of things. Yes, again, I know that people
were a little uncertain as to
whether or not we would get this project done because promises have been made over the years
and promises not kept.
But today a promise is kept.
439 units of affordable housing
for people, for families, for this amazing community.
Through the R.A.D. Program, we
have already been able to rehabilitate more than 3,000
public housing units in san francisco.
No longer are we going to treat
our residents, who happen to live in public housing, differently than we treat everyone else.
That's why this investment is so important.
Not only in rehabilitating something as simple as making
sure that the windows can open, that the heater is working, that
the showers are working, that
there isn't opportunity for mold or other things to impact the living conditions, but free WiFi.
Free WiFi for all of the
residents here so that folks
have access to do job searches,
housing searches, or anything else that anyone else could do in our great city.
So I am really happy and excited
to be here because this is a new day in san francisco.
Part of what my goal is to not
only change the physical conditions of our community, but to make sure that we take care of these communities and we take care of each other.
Because we are one community,
we're one san francisco. Sadly, we have lost so much over
the years due to violence, due
to hopelessness and frustration.
Part of my commitment to communities all over the san
francisco that feel neglected, that feel like they're forgotten and not necessarily a part of san francisco is that I'm coming to your neighborhood. I'm coming to make sure that we
make the right kinds of investments, that we provide job opportunities or opportunities for you to start your own
businesses, that we make sure
that we are taking care of kids in this community.
In fact, our investments in our public school system has been one that's unprecedented.
Over $80 million of investments,
including additional teachers' stipends so that we can focus on
teacher retention in schools that serve this community. Making sure when our kids are
dealing with trauma, that we
have mental health experts in our public schools. My commitment is to make sure that there are wellness centers in every public school in san francisco. It starts with our kids. It starts with taking care of each other.
It starts with developing a new
generation of hope for san francisco.
So this project is so much more
than just rehabilitating units.
It's really changing a community and making things better now and for the future.
It starts with us and we're in
this together.
We're going to get there one step at a time.
i want to thank the john stewart
company, mayor's office of
housing, bank of america, and who else was part of this project? Related. Thank you.
It means a lot to have incredible partners. We don't do this work alone. But most importantly, I want to
thank the people who live here, who trusted us to make this happen, who work with us every step of the way.
It means a lot to have the
support and trust of a community
in order to get things done.
That's exactly what we were able to accomplish through this amazing project together.
So congratulations. This is just the beginning of I
know more that's get to come. Thank you.
[Applause] .
>> that's what I'm talking
about.
Mayor, you're so good at that.
You're just flying without notes.
I'm hanging on to these things for dear life. We do the work, but that's the
leadership that gets it done. Thank you also for the $23 million in local financing and
rent subsidies that made this effort possible. [Applause].
>> and your unwavering support for affordable housing and
ending homeless in our city. >> [Indiscernible] --
>> I'm about to do it. Okay.
That's what I was going to say. Most recently the leadership, in the form of the proposed $600
million housing bond, which we
are going to pass in November, okay. [Applause].
>> thanks also and a shout out
to our current supervisor for his ongoing leadership around
the housing issues in district 10. Thank you. Supervisor walton.
Our next speaker is bill witty,
Chairman And C.E.O. Of related california. One of california's largest
developers of affordable and mixed-income housing. Since founding this company 30
years ago, bill has overseen the
development of 16,000
residences, including over 12,000 affordable housing units and he has more than 5,000 units in development.
He is a busy guy. Earliest this year also
completed the rehab of another
R.A.D. Cluster, 300 units. It's my pleasure to my friend and colleague bill witty up to
say a few things.
Bill. >> thank you, jack.
It's a pleasure to be involved
with a company, john stewart
company, who has not only been a stalwart provider of affordable housing for years, but close friends of mine. I'm particularly pleased that john stewart is here because I'm
no longer the oldest person in the room. Cheap shot. Sorry.
I have to tell you, I've been involved in affordable housing in the public and private sector for 40 years. I'm pretty familiar with what's going on around the country. There is no mayor in the
united states who has spent more
energy and effort to ensure that
public housing is given new life
and upgraded and become part of
the community than mayor breed. We should acknowledge that.
It doesn't get the attention that it should.
You heard why, but we don't read about that so much.
It's really a story that needs to be told.
I just want to say that this is great.
I appreciate the residents'
patience in letting this process unfold. But we expect to be judged not
just by how it is today, but how
with jack and david sobel, how
we are as long-term partners and owners.
So the story is, as the mayor said, just beginning. I can assure you that it will remain a good story.
This housing, just so everybody
is clear, is permanently affordable.
It's not just affordable for 10 or 20 years.
This will always be high-quality affordable. [Applause].
>> I want to thank some people who were operating in the weeds
to make this all happen, starting with under the mayor's
guidance the mayor's office of
housing, dan abrams and his staff. Who have been involved in
all of these around the city.
Mayor's office of housing technically didn't used to be around public housing. They've taken over the task and done a remarkable job under the guidance of the mayor.
The contractors who spent a lot of time and energy to make sure
that we got the rehabilitation
right.
Nibby brothers, cahil
construction who worked on
east-west deserve a lot of
credit.
Mimi sullivan who is the architect. While you couldn't change the buildings that much, a lot of time and effort was spent on designing the interior of these
buildings so, as the mayor said, these would be market-rate
quality units, not just for the short term but for the long term.
Then our own staff at related.
Our project manager andrew
sccofar in the back and our
northern california affordable group. As I said, this isn't the last you're going to see or hear from us. I expect to hear from you if you think that there's something
that warrants attention.
Finally another prop a plug. Don't just clap. You got to vote.
Show up and vote for prop a. Thank you.
[Applause] .
>> show up and vote, bill,
because I think your call to me involved a very large check as well. Donate as well.
He left that part out, but feel free.
Bill, I hate to break it to you. When john arrived, you were not
only the oldest guy, but not
quite the funniest guy either.
John, we're going to give credit where it's due. Bill, thank you, very well said.
Next up is another of our co-developers and the lead provider of supportive services
for our residents here at
hunters point east-west in westbrook.
David sobel is the C.E.O. Of the housing development corporation.
A 31-year-old community-based non-profit located here in bay view, hunters point.
Over the last six years david
has assembled support and staff. Under his leadership, the organization has grown from four
empowerment, counselling, supportive services, economic development opportunities to over 5,000 low and moderate
income residents every year. Also well-known, at least to me
as an accomplished jazz, blues,
and rock keyboardist, but you'll
have to go to their annual gala
to hear that, please help me
welcome david sobel. [Applause]. >> by the way, the board of directors did my performance review last night.
It would have been great if you were there.
Good morning, everyone.
We are indeed proud to have partnered with such an auspicious team that others are mentioning in name and I will save time and not repeat everything.
It has been extremely gratifying
to take part in and witness a
transformation of extremely
dilapidated housing, turning it
into safe, comfortable homes for families that remain affordable
in perpetuity.
But it is also about more than just the housing here.
The city has the great foresight
to ensure that there was
workforce development and onsite service connection to make sure residents have at their doorstep access to other resources. We are proud to have partnered
with hunters point family. Dev mission on the stem program that we have initiated across
the sites here, all of whom are doing fantastic work and enhancing what resources are
available to residents every day.
I want to call out our services
team, an amazing group of
people, some of whom are here today.
Even if they're not, they
deserve some recognition.
[Applause] .
>> this team is fantastic.
You show up every day doing
challenging work and being a big
support to residents.
We cannot talk about services
without acknowledging hodc who
every day, week, and month are
pushing, supporting, and guiding our programs, as they should.
Thank you for that. Finally, these past five years
are not about all of us speaking today.
It's about the residents who
endured decades of deplorable conditions.
Five years of hard work is great.
But the people who live here
suffered through much longer
hardships. That's what this project is
really about. Developing community, bringing
onsite services, engaging with residents, having a long-term vision with our city partners and everybody up here and all
the residents, that has been the most rewarding part.
We have really appreciated the positive impact of walking hand
in hand with residents every day. Learning from them.
They hold us accountable, and we've appreciated that as well. At the very beginning of this project, five years ago or so,
when we went to our initial meetings, the residents said
this is a ploy to kick us out. They said, you're going to raise our rents. We didn't. They said, you're not really going to renovate these buildings. We did.
You're not really going to have services onsite. We did. This was founded to help people stay in san francisco, remain in
their homes, communities,
schools, businesses, congregations, and that's what this project is about as well.
Thank you for all of your support all around.
The resident leadership especially, we've enjoyed working with you. I know we're going to hear from
one of the resident leaders. Thank you all.
It is our pleasure to be with
you here today.
[Applause] . >> well said.
It really does make one think
that how -- while certain leaders in washington seem to be doing their best to pull our country apart, here in san francisco we are doing our best to reknit these properties into the fabric of our communities and neighborhoods.
We are doing our best to now bring the san francisco housing authority itself more directly
into the family of city agencies
that work closely with mohcd and
the other agencies at the city to provide affordable housing.
And the kind of work we do here
as david so eloquently articulated, to just bring
people together, reintegrate things, and really fight back against the forces that are
trying to pull us all apart. Thank you, david. Well said. While it probably goes without
saying, that's when I say it anyway.
None of this can happen without money, lots of it.
For that, we in the city turn to
bank of america, merril lynch.
They have been key to our success. We're talking about over three-quarters of a billion dollars in debt and equity for the program.
Here at hunters point, they provided over $150 million in
construction financing and over
$120 million tax credit equity
as well as funding for residents during construction.
We went to bank of america for funding because that's where the money was.
They were ready to put it to good use.
To paraphrase elanie, where is
the money at, that's where I'm going. Okay.
i didn't get it quite right.
You can school me later. Don't beat box it? Okay.
I get a little carried away sometimes.
Anyway, back to the script.
It gives me great pride to
introduce a proud resident of
san francisco herself, liz
minik.
>> these are always hard acts to follow. Thank you so much for having us today. Bank of america was founded in this amazing city in 1904.
Two years after, we had one of
our largest earthquakes.
At the time bank of italy at the time spent most of their resources getting people back in their homes. Housing has always been integral to what we do.
That's when the call to action and rehabilitating the 3500 units around our city came, we were so delighted and honoured
to provide $2.2 billion.
So $2.2 billion in financing for
the san francisco R.A.D. Program. As has been said, this is all about the residences. This is ensuring that people can be in the homes that everyone deserves. Again, thank you so much for having us today.
I will continue with a thanks
for our great partners related,
john stewart, and san francisco housing development. Our wonderful team who has worked tireless over the last
six and seven years to get this done.
Mayor breed, we couldn't have
done this without our leadership. Thank you.
[Applause] .
>> $2 billion doesn't go as far
as it used to, but it adds pick up. The engagement and support of our residents was absolutely crucial to our success. I'd therefore like to acknowledge quickly and thank
all the officers for our three tenant associations at the three
different sites, many of whom
are with us today.
Susan mcallister, renitia raina,
elise minor, ivan sepulona.
Those are all from the east association.
From the west we have joe
nyamalaga, ronald anderson.
And from the other associations
we have many people as well. Thank you all. It takes a lot of work. You're volunteers.
You're out t
>> the board is out of closed session. Board of directors met to
discuss the appointment of
hiring the director of transportation, but did not take action.
>> motion to not disclose. >> that concludes the business before you this evening.
