Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

Age and disability resource connection. The federal government created the administration for Community Living. I dont know. Maybe it was five or six years ago. What that did is it brought together the aging world with some of the disability federal offices and put them all into one place called administration for Community Living. Then they really encouraged area agencies on aging to put together age and disability resource connections at the local level. So San Francisco is one of the few cities that has that is theres something that were certified by the state or something thats not the word, but something to that effect where weve said this is our plan for putting together some age and disability work. Here it is. Weve been certified by the state to do that. What that means is our office has a partnership with independent Living Resource Center to really Work Together to make sure people with disabilities and older people know about resources and that those are resources and information referral are available to them. Our way of doing that in San Francisco is to have age and disability im sorry age and Disability Resource Centers across the city, and we have 13 of them. One of them is through tour works its focused on younger people with disabilities. So thats what weve done there. Then i guess lastly, we fund advocacy. It allows you to fund advocacy even with Older Americans act dollars because the federal government knew and continues to know theres not nearly enough money in some of these services. We fund senior and disability action to really do a lot of advocacy at the city and state level to ensure that people with disabilities and older adults have resources. Im going to end with that. There are other programs that we have that serve both populations, but i really wanted to focus in on some of the changes. I hope thats helpful, and im happy to take any questions. Thank you for that informative presentation and being so sensitive around the time. We will jump in councilmember questions. Well go in order of request. So first order is alex madrid. Thank you for coming. I have a lot of questions, but with the time limited, just hopefully a question, one that i noted 92,000 people with disabilities . Uhhuh. In San Francisco . Right. So thats that comes from the 2016 American Community survey fiveyear estimates. Yes, that would be 94,000 people out of the 800 whatever thousand people in San Francisco. All right. So the second thing is that, can you talk a little bit about the inhome support services . I have concerns about funding regarding inhome support services and possibly some people could say it would be reduced because of the federal and state funding issues. Right. Thats a good question. So right now, it looks pretty good. I think when jerry brown was governor, he decided that counties should pay more into Inhome Supportive Services and that the state should pay less. So that caused a lot of concern in San Francisco where we have so many people who are reliant upon inhome support everybody services to live safely at home. But when governor newsome came in, hes professed hes interested in maintaining that service. I dont really under governor newsome, i dont see that changing, but, you know, we have to continually remain vigilant and think about ways to ensure that that system can grow to meet the needs of a Larger Population even than its serving now. So its really important to keep that advocacy up at the state and federal levels. Can you please clarify . Right now, its based on the city and county inclusive, the funding . Right now, theres not i guess what im trying to say, right now, theres not a challenge with funding, and theres no conversation about ours being cut. Thats not a thing right now. But its always important to remain vigilant around that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member madrid. Councilmember orkid sassouni. I have a few things within the deaf community. The number of deaf seniors is really reduced. There are not many deaf seniors in the city anymore. However, there are deaf people who have College Degrees unemployed. They dont have jobs. Is there a way if they can find jobs . Its very difficult to find jobs in the city. It takes a long time to really make that happen. So many deaf people who live within San Francisco, even though they have a college degree, cant afford to live here or stay here. You know, interpreting services is fine, but theyre looking for someone who has asl skills for social events. Also, for young people who are deaf. So how do you address that . Because im not seeing a lot of support in that area. I feel that many deaf people may come here. They may move here and think its a beautiful city, but theres no social opportunities, and they leave. Or, you know, there might be an asl student group, College Students or people who are learning sign, but theyre not really a good match for those deaf individuals who have already grad graduated from cole and have a degree and are looking for a job and social life. Im wondering how youre addressing that in the community. It sounds like two questions. One is about social interaction and one is about jobs. So jobs, thats a really tough one. We actually have an organization that we work with that really is leading conversations in the city around workforce opportunities for people with different disabilities as well as for older adults. But i think its a you know, i think this is an area that we are fairly new in in our department. So there was a hearing last year, and nicole and i were both involved in it where supervisor yee i dont think he was president then, but he brought people together to say, what are we doing about people with disabilities and older people in the workforce . What are the opportunities . Where can we make headway . We had a lot of recommendations, and then, you know, some i think he was able to get some money into the community through Community Living campaign, which is one of the programs that is trying to find employment for people with various disabilities and older adults. But thats still really small. Its still really were still at the beginning of these conversations. I think, you know, one of the things that we need to continue to do is push on that front as well. The tech council, which is staffed by the department of aging Adult Services but has a lot of different participants from the corporate sector, from the city, and from Community Providers has taken workforce issues on as it its big focus r the next four years. What theyre really hoping is theyre going to get some corporate interest, that theyre going to get one or two Big Companies that will say yes, we realize that we need to do this better. We want to partner with you. We havent quite found that yet. Weve had some partnership from microsoft, but its been, you know, still small. Were going and visiting programs like the arc because they have done a good job of partnering with local both local businesses but some of the really good Big Tech Companies in San Francisco and we want to learn how theyve done that to see if we can do that with other populations from the ones they serve. So its a challenge. Im not going to say that weve gotten there, but its certainly something were talking about a lot and are thinking about. In terms of social, i think, you know, really what i would love to do is maybe have a more in depth conversation about what those kinds of things would look like because funding things that really connect people and really get people out of isolation are really very much in our mission as a department. So i would love to do that. I can reach out reach through nicole and maybe we can have a further conversation about how we design Something Like that together. Thank you very much. Thank you, councilmember. Last but not least, Councilmember Helen smolinski. Thank you for being here and for your words. Point of clarification. Your department serves adults 18 and older. Right. Bottom line. Okay. Disabled, elderly or not across the spectrum, 18 and up. Disabled or older but not i wouldnt get im not older and i dont identify as having a disability, i would not be able to get services through my department. Okay. So disabled or over 60. Over 60. All right. Thank you for speaking and giving us a little bit of the history. I found it galling that after the departments were merged in 2000 that funding didnt follow the disabled community. Right. Me, too. I also find it galling that the name change you know, it is such a big deal or so seemingly difficult to fix because i think that seems crucial. Im glad were proceeding accordingly it sounds like. Again, its been 19 years. Yes. And this is news to me that this department helps the disabled community. So im glad youre here. Im glad youve been at the top position for threeplus years. So i want to encourage the changes youre making and say thank you and encourage them even more because similarly to my colleagues up here, you know, i understand the need and the desire for a cultural center. My question would be, has that is that more attractive to fund than some other areas like Employment Services, housing services, advocacy, Legal Services . Ive been hearing a lot about the cultural center, but i know for a lot of our population, you know, help me find a job first. Help me stay in the city first. Right. I think you know, i think its all of those things. I mean, the things that we do fund now are all of those things for older adults. So now we have Legal Services for people with disabilities, and we have legal experts. We have, you know, food programs. We have employment programs. Theyre just not very well funded yesterday, not well enough funded yet, but we have those. I think at the same time, you know, what weve heard from the communities when we did the Community Needs assessment is that people need a place to go to be together. But thats also a place to center some of the activities, a place to have Employment Services. It gives us a place to put those. When weve tried to do stuff in other ways, it hasnt been quite as successful. Having one place where we start to just brand it as this is someplace where people with disabilities can go for all of those things, to me, makes a lot of sense. No. Thats not more attractive than the other things at all. But it is a place for people to receive those. Its also a place where people can come together and start to say what else do we need and how do we advocate for that. Things that maybe i wouldnt have heard of because of there are people in desperate corners saying things like we need this but i dont know about it, our community of listeners doesnt know about it when were out there asking people, its just much more likely to have it centered where, you know, we can start really imagining what new things we can do and how we can be more helpful to the community. So no. All of those things are super important and getting a job and being able to stay in San Francisco, thats what we hear from everyone. I mean, technically, were not the we do have some dollars for helping older adults and people with disabilities find jobs, but were not really that department. What we really need to do is link more successfully with our other departments and work through the tech council to make that happened because i think thats going to be more successful. We just dont have that many dollars for that particular thing, but we want to be part of that conversation and part of the solution. I dont know if that completely answers your question. It does, but the so then the primary mission to your of your department is, you just said housing and employment really isnt housing or employment. I dont mean to im not trying to pin you down. Yes. Its more like for my own understanding. I think for this councils understanding because as a mother of a disabled child, my experience is often going to one department that sounds like its where i need to go. Right. And then everybody is always very nice, but then its oh, its not quite. I need to go to this department. Well, we do a piece of that, but you need to go there. Maybe thats the nature of the beast. Maybe thats City Government. But right here right now, if im making referrals to folks out in the community and i say go to the department of aging and adult serves because they can help you with what . Right. So primarily its changing. So thats its not an easy answer because primarily, it has been nutrition, transportation, case management, Community Services which has basically meant senior centers. Its exercise classes. Its those kinds of things. But more recently because weve seen more and more of a need for things like housing and employment, you know, and those requests have bubbled up more and more, we have gotten a little bit into that role. So we do have a small housing Subsidy Program, but were not the primary Housing Provider for San Francisco. Thats really Mayors Office of housing and Community Development and the homeless department, which serves homeless people, obviously, and does supportive housing. We have a small Subsidy Program to help people prevent homelessness. We have gotten into Employment Services a little bit because people came up and said people with disabilities and seniors have nowhere to go. Where do we go . If we go to the regular workforce programs, we dont feel like people really understand that we need to work and we want to work and we want to be engaged in community. So weve kind of ventured into that a little bit. I see a role with those things. Hopefully this will answer i yor question about City Government i see our role as being able to give people the right information about exactly and help be part of the solution of, you know, kind of explaining the spectrum of Services Within the city. If people come and say i dont have this, we should be able to tell them where it is. In the city, were not there yet. Truthfully, were not. Were still trying to convince people that older people should work and people with disabilities should work and have a right to work. I mean, thats its still really hard. I think thank you very much. Im going to step in just because i know were running over time and theres Public Comment. So i want to get to that and say thank you. Then i think it sounds to me like it would be a good idea to bring the commission and this Council Together again to really talk about some of these things in a public way. That would be great. If the council would like to do that, i would be happy to help arrange that. Great. Okay. Thank you very much. I would ask that council i know we have two other Council Members who would like to speak, but because of time constraints, if that would be okay, we can talk offline. I would like to go to Public Comment, if we have any. I believe we do. So thank you Council Members for your indulgence. Were going to move on to Public Comment. Theres one speaker card for this agenda item. Its from joe ramirez from prc. Hi. Im joe ramirez. Im the managing director for Employment Services at prc. Were an agency that does work forces recovery and Mental Health services. We see about 5,000 people a year in my workforce program. Many were with the Workforce Division of San Francisco county. We see about 600 people. Were a partner with the California Department of rehabilitation. So it sounds like they need to be brought to the table. Thank you. Its a very complicated system. We dont actually know what each other are doing, but what i didnt see in the data is the immune system functioning issues. We are one of the largest cities with hiv and aids, over 17,000, with 9,000 people with aids. Thats not represented in the data. There was a working group with sharines agency for 50 plus because the majority of people are aging. For diverse sake, i want to make sure that doesnt get lost in the conversation. What happens when we talk about lgbtqi, if i dont see myself there, i become invisible. Another reminder of the stigma for living with hiv and integrating people with other populations. I think the other points i have to make is a reminder of Mental Health and homelessness of the population. Its on an uptick. Make sure these doorways are open without stigma with trauma informed understanding of the Life Experience of the individuals that we see on the streets and cant get in the door of these things because a lot of Homeless Individuals are seniors that we think broad and wide to create more inclusivity so that people can live with dignity and respect. Thanks. Thank you. Is there anyone on the bridge line that has Public Comment . No . Okay. I believe we have another Public Comment. Yeah. Theres one more, denise from sac. I was told i didnt need to fill out a comment card for each item. Should i do that moving forward . Thank you. Yeah. I want to thank sharine for her presentation. She really does care about people with disabilities and i learned a lot from it. Theres so much things i want to comment on. I dont have time. One of things, does the Community Living fund fall under aging and Adult Services . Can anybody answer that question . No. It doesnt. I dont know. Because i had a comment on that. Right. Excuse me. Yeah. The Community Living fund fall under yes. Excuse me. I dont mean to interrupt. If you can provide your comments and during breaks you can ask any questions because right now we just want to hear your Public Comment. My comment is very specifically to that. Right. And what shes talking about which is living in the community as a disabled person and if their department is managing Community Living fund, thats very important. Thats what my comment. Yeah. Okay. Please continue. Okay. So im somebody who uses the services. I do believe the name is incredibly confusing. To took a disability attorney to even inform me that they existed and that they could help me because of the name and just the confusion. Ive used Community Living fund, which was started by the way because disabled people in laguna honda were being accused sexually and physically by providers at laguna honda. There was a lawsuit that created the Community Living fund to help people live in the community and not be segregated. Disabled people in San Francisco, like myself, are segregated. The Community Living fund failed to help me in so many ways. It really was a horrible experience especially with my social worker, Michael Boyer and page usted, his supervisor. They told me i couldnt change social workers. In the time i was there, i was not able to get access to home delivered food. Their phones did not work for months. My social worker would not follow up on things for weeks at a time. So it became so bad they wouldnt help me get any sort of batteries for my wheelchair or Mobility Equipment i needed for my power wheelchair. I was not able to get a ramp to access my home. I was not able to get inhome support services or a phone for accessibility needs. This program is really flawed. I would like oversight for it. Fortunately, mod stepped in and helped me get the food i needed. They helped me with transportation and other issues and so im grateful to mod for that, but Community Living fund has a long way to go. Its a good program. I dont want to see it go away, but i would like to see it improved especially getting peoples power wheelchairs working so we can live in the community. Thats the point that were not segregated. Thank you. Thank you. I understand we have one more Public Comment. Yes, mr. Tiffany yu, diversibility. Hi. Im tiffany yu from diverse ability. Good to see you again. I just wanted to say two quick things. Number one is im really excited about the name change because i do agree that it can be misleading. Im wondering if in the meantime, we can add to the website where it mentions people with disabilities anywhere on the website, put in parenthesis, 18 plus so that its extremely clear that this is the community that it serves. So in addition to that, i also ive mentioned this at a Council Meeting before. The needs of young people with disabilities are different than those who are does abled with older adults. As we think about programming and how we want to rebrand, im hoping that you will take this younger disabled community in account. The second thing, as someone who served on the Leadership Committee for the disability cultural and community center, i know there were questions about what need it fulfilled. I think for me, when i think about overall wellbeing, it consists of our Mental Health, our physical health, and our social health and the Disability Cultural Center to me really fits that social Health Category of making sure we have the sense of belonging and community and relationship that we can show up into potentially our workspaces or other spaces as well. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to give staff an opportunity, if you have any comments. [ stand by ] thank you, control room. Id like to welcome information item number 7. Our presenter, director meagan weir and sava cronenberg. And theyre going to do presentation on vision zero Action Strategy. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having us. Im with the municipal transportation agency. Im the Pedestrian Safety program manager. Im joined today by my colleague, meagan weir, who is the director of a role that i cannot ill let her introduce herself when she stands up a few slides from now. We, together, cochair vision zero. The task force, which is a community and city group who work toward ending fatalities of pedestrians in San Francisco. This lays out the strategic actions and the steps that the city will take toward advancing the zero vision goal, but also other policy areas and goals that are really important to this group. And its really important for us to talk to this community, specifically because seniors, very specifically, and people with disabilities additionally, are severely impacted by traffic violence in San Francisco. And were the group who is working to improve those outcomes. So vision zero was passed in San Francisco in 2014. Which is five years ago. We were the second city in the United States to pass a vision zero policy to end traffic fatalities. Now were joined by dozens of cities nationally. And im really heartened to see a National Regional statewide conversation starting about Traffic Safety. I think many dont know how adversely it impacts our society and our neighborhoods, but you know, when youre kind of in the thick of it, you hear how many people know someone hit by a car and how that has impacted their lives. San francisco, weve been tracking how many fatalities we have annually for a century. And this represents this grab shows 15 years. And you see the highest number of fatalities at 41 in the year 2007. We adopted vision zero in 2014, a year that we had 31 fatalities. 2017 was our least fatal year in the history of our record keeping. With still far too many deaths at 20. And we had 23 deaths last year in 2018. Im saddened to report that currently to date we have 11 recorded fatalities and three probable that will be by the end of the month, so were certainly trending in the wrong direction, but were hopeful that the strategy, its not a panacea, but it is a blueprint for the place we want to get. Vision zero is guided internationally and nationally by Core Principles of number one, saving lives, that we want to get our fatalities to zero. That we as government can prevent deaths. That we need to think about how we do prevention in an equitable way so were making sure the outcomes are best for everyone, not just some. The speed is the predominating factor in whether someone litsches or dies when hit by a car. And the ways to improve the outcomes for people is reengineering our streets, and by doing communication, education, enforcement and improving our vehicles, whether theyre a car or a scooter, to ensure when a collision occurs that they are not that it is not fatal. Throughout vision zero as a core function of our program, we have a really robust Engagement Community process and im pleased to have nicole participating. We have a lot of active seniors and people with disabilities in our processes. As part of our strategy update that we did last year, we engaged hundreds of san franciscans across the city in the neighborhoods through coffee talks and tea talks at rec centres, pools, ymcas, just talking about our policy goal and asking for new ideas about how we can achieve vision zero with their help. And weve had some really Strong Community processes within the city and engaging most vocal advocates to make sure that our actions reflect the needs of the communities that we serve. So, we passed the vision zero policy, and they adopted the resolution we get to zero by 2024. So the obvious question is what will it take to get to zero . Our answer is in this graphic that ill talk about. So one is strategic actions. So were going to talk about those toward the end of the presentation, which is the steps that the city and City Government will take to get to zero through engineering, education, and enforcement activities. Next is our transformative policies. To the right of that, our complementary goals. And lastly, everything we do, whether its a strategic action or goal, is rooted in equity. Im going to talk about that in a second. Number one, the complementary goals. So this is the idea, one that were trying to advance, ending fatalities is intersectional to other city goals, that it doesnt stand alone and we need other goals of the city to advance for us to achieve zero. That includes housing and especially affordable housing. The further out people have to live in the region to get to their job here in San Francisco, the more likely they are theyre in a car, the more likely theyre to be involved in a collision. And that is related to the number of vehicle miles traveled, which is a wonky transportation term, but how many people are driving in a car on a daily basis. Having housing near your job or near any of the other activities that you need to get to, whether its a supermarket, a senior center, a pool, heavily implemented how safe our streets will be. Also, because i work for the sfmta, when people make a transportation choice, they need to make a Sustainable Transportation choice. We need to see muni being reliable, efficient, effective and a great choice for every san franciscan to make. And the nice balance of that one is related to mode shifts. Some trips can be taken by muni, some trips by walking or biking. We want to encourage those trips and make them desirable and not a lastditch choice because your car happens to be in the garage that day. And all of these also relate to our climate goals in the city. Every single one of these steps is toward a Sustainable Future and so is vision zero and so is our Climate Action goal. What weve been thinking about along with the community, how can we advance these intersectional goals to get to our safety goal and how can the safety goal advance these goals . And that theyre one and the same. We cant people not on muni. We cant see trends towards biking be reduced in order to get and get to vision zero. Its not going to happen. They have to move together at the same time, so were encouraged by the work that our colleagues across the city do to advance these goals. The second sort of pillar of our work is the transformative policy agenda. Thinks the question we guest this is the question we get most frequently. There are shackles that i can do. These four policies are regulated at the state level. They come from sacramento. Unless we can advance some of those policies which are all proven tools to reduce traffic fatalities, there is a limited number of things i can do in my seat in government in San Francisco to do my work. These four goals are automated enforcement. This is advanced heavily through prior legislation in sacramento, but we were unsuccessful. Pricing, the number of vehicle miles traveled. Urban speed limit setting. There is a wonky engineering tool that defines how we set our speed limits across the state of california. And it doesnt leave any room for engineering judgment. And so we cannot reduce speed limits unless the cars that are traveling on the street are moving slower. Which is crazy. So we would like to change the state law. I will tell you that the federal government just changed how this rule, called the 85th percentile rule, so california will be lagging behind the federal government at this juncture. And lastly, the local regulation of Transportation Network companies. Those are regulated at the state level, meaning that the city of San Francisco cant require vehicles, driver testing, Driver Training, anything related to uber and lyft. And as a result, we have no power over how they choose to operate in the city. So the ask is for some version of local regulation here in San Francisco, not in sacramento. All of these are rooted in equity. What it means, none of these should disproportionately if we change these laws impact the most atrisk communities. I think seniors and people with disabilities are those atrisk community. I heard time and time again specifically around pricing, that there is a perception its regressive. And it certainly can be regressive in its implemented in a way that it is implemented in the london. Thats where we need San Francisco solutions for San Francisco problems. I really believe if we use an equity lens to develop a pricing policy, we can find a way for it not to be regressive and disproportionately impact communities. But currently, we cant even use that tool because were forbidden by the state. Im going to pass this to macon, who is going to talk about how were thinking about equity in general. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone, thank you for the opportunity to be here. Im with the San Francisco department of public health. And as said, with respect to vision zero, we know if we dont lead with equity, if we dont prioritize vision zero actions for our most vulnerable communities, well never achieve vision zero. And people with disabilities, seniors, communities of color, are particularly vulnerable to traffic deaths and severe injuries. And thus, are a focus of the vision zero work. That means deepening our Community Engagement, prioritizing and monitoring improvements throughout the city to address the population. And ensuring that any policies dont have unintended consequences. On our vulnerable communities. And also, i work in the health department. We partner with zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital to develop more comprehensive surveillance system. That includes capturing people with disabilities in our data to better understand and address patterns. So now were going to do of course. Now im just going to do a deeper dive into the actions that are in the Action Strategies and really highlighting a subset of actions that really focus on issues raised through our Community Engagement that were of particular interest to people with disabilities. Under our safe streets, or engineering category, that includes completing nearterm improvements. We have a new Traffic Calming Program that is focusing on areas where weve seen injuries, people with disabilities. Also, implementing countdown signals and audible signals on the high injury network. Improving accessibility and bikeway designs. Encouraging a curb management pilot project, with respect to uber and lyft, and center that occur, so accidents that occur. And doing work with the guidance on outreach and engagement. Safe people, that encompasses things like education and enforcement. Well be talking about our action to convene city and Community Stakeholders to better identify needs of people with disabilities and secure funding. Dph currently has safe street for Seniors Program that engages seniors and people with disabilities through multilingual presentations and community grants, and that is included grants to senior and disability action as well as lighthouse for the blind. Were also creating a Driver Training program for Transportation Network companies. Again a real focus on uber and lyft and how their drivers can be safe drivers in our city. And then also focussing on emerging mobility. So as devices like e scooters and ebikes enter our citys network, ensuring that users and people on the streets alike understand what the rules are with respect to the safe use of these new devices. Under safe vehicles, were also doing work with across the city on autonomous vehicles, so understanding the opportunities and challenges of this new technology with respect to safety. Looking working with our other city agencies on how we can better incorporate safety features in the new vehicle purchases. So what are the opportunities with new technology with respect to safety. And then also, again, with respect to again the focus on uber and lyft looking at, what do we know about safety on our streets and what are recommendations that can advance safety for those companies . We have a data system that links police and Hospital Data that well be using to refresh our network in 2021. My team is working with the hospital to issue annual briefs to better understand the needs of vulnerable populations and how we can address them through vision zero. Releasing annual reports on severe injuries and again the focus on emerging mobility. Our whole Action Strategy is Available Online and ill forward that if youre interested, you can look at it in detail after this presentation. And in 2019, were really focusing on advancing actions, interactions, strategy. As i mentioned, dph will be working with the Mayors Office of disability to convene city and Community Stakeholders on the actions and what are opportunities for a deeper coordination. And broadening the group of agencies. Right now, we definitely have mod, dph, mta and the department of public works, but what are other agencies less involved that we could engage to better coordinate and leverage and then reaching out to the Community Stakeholders to ensure that as the actions that we described here are implemented, that we are really doing with respect to the needs of people with disabilities in mind. So that concludes our formal presentation, but i wanted to give the floor to nicole to speak regarding her work. And thank you, again, for your leadership on the task force. Nicole my pleasure. Its very important. Project and goal. I was going to add that one of the things that were finding is that there is a lot of work being done that is impacting the Disability Community around better practices with our public rightofway, and things that weve been hearing about through the department of aging and Adult Services. There are things that we can coordinate better, i think, and then also apply those efficients to what efforts to what were doing through vision zero to get a better picture of what we need to be doing for overall improvement. That is speaking to coordinating and one of the things that the Mayors Office on disability will be doing in the coming years, is dedicate particular staff time to be really helping to more directly monitor and achieve some of these accomplishments that are pertaining directly to vision zero. And looking forward to that. And i really would like now for us to use the remainder of this section time for questions, feedback, areas where you would like more information. Because really the emphasis that we have on disability, although we have very concrete things we want to be working on, is also open for Community Engagement and feedback. So we want to hear those things as well. Thank you. Id like to open up to Council Member, questions . Reminder respectfully of time constraints. Were going to go in order. So Council Member orkid . Council member sassouni yes, i have a few things. Im a survivor of a pedestrian accident, which you didnt mention about children as well. Im wondering about that, because i noticed that children have been victims of these accidents as well. And then drivers behaviors. I see people taking very quick right turns. That is not safe. Especially, you know, when people are in the crosswalk or a person with a vision impairment. And people making these quick right turns are not paying attention to the pedestrians, and as a person who is deaf, im not hearing the vehicles that are approaching. Im following the light and the rightofway. How do we educate drivers . How do we change their behaviors as pedestrians . Who are trying to cross the street. And i understand people are in a hurry, but it only takes one to be fatal. People who run red lights. Another person who was a deaf woman who was a deaf senior citizen, she died as a result of someone running a red light. So the point is, the drivers. I think pedestrians are more aware and were being careful, but i think there needs to be a pushback in effort on changing the drivers behaviors and habit. I want to emphasize that. I think its an important area that you need to be focused on. We heard three excellent comments. Your comments were absolutely echoed in all of the outreach that we have. And i really appreciate that you say that its really, the onus is on drivers and that is something that vision zero agrees with, because the drivers are operating the heavy vehicle, the one most likely to do damage and kill someone. So just to talk about turning vehicles. Those are two of our most dominant collision factors. That is borne out in our data. And our Action Strategy is a datadriven document. So we have specific actions that are 100 related to that data. So number one, we are launching this year a safer intersections project that is 100 related to reducing the speed of turning vehicles. And you said rightturning vehicles. In this case, were focussing on leftturning vehicles which is more likely to result in a fatal injury, but overall were going to use different platforms, including a media campaign, to speak with all road users about turning vehicles. And were going to use engineering treatments to see if with we can influence how fast cars are going when they do turn. A second question was about children specifically. Im going to let meagan answer that one. Were grateful that children are not as disproportionately impacted in traffic injuries and facilities relative to the population in San Francisco, but children are also a focus of vision zero. We coordinate closely with our safe routes to school, a program as part of vision zero. Children and also their parents are an important focus of our work. With respect to driver behavior, the other important thing to something we constantly emphasize through vision zero is the importance of speed. So speed impacts your ability to respond, your ability to brake. How your visibility of people, your field of vision. And so for all of those reasons, our state transformative policies look at Speed Enforcement and slowing urban speed limits. Fundamentally, speed is one of the strongest predictors if someone is able to survive a crash. As a driver, the safest thing to do is go at or go below the speed limit. That will save lives. Council member sassouni in terms of enforcement, ive noticed i havent seen a lot of enforcement. Im not seeing police on the street pulling people over for speeding in the city and running red lights. We do partner with the police department. And we have seen the volume of tickets they have issued reduced. There is a lot of reasons for that, but the mayor recently called on the police to increase the number of tickets they do issue around the top five citations that are related to resultant severe injuries and fatalities. Even though we do have to wait for the state to change laws, we are working very hard at educating everybody about Traffic Safety roles. If you go to youtube, if youre sitting in the city and county, there is a good chance you get a leadin that talks about driving in says sf. Todays sf. Many of us took our test 20 years ago and there is a lot of new changes on the road. Were going to be talking about the new Traffic Control device,s, the new markings on the street. 4 seconds. Go to youtube, everyone who is watching and youll see our media campaign. That is out there for the next few months. Thats the kind of reach were trying to get to, even as we work at the state to change policy. Council member sassouni thank you. Cochair senhaux Council Member alex madrid. Council member madrid thank you for coming. A couple of questions. One is that i know that you guys bring you told us what to plan for the next five, six days, but are there any new data, or new updates that you have done to minimize and change it . I didnt quite hear that. Ed second one is that the second one is that you mentioned that you work for the government, right, the mt right, mta. Council member madrid San Francisco muni department, right . So my question is, i know that state law are changing the policy to help you guys work with city policymakers to maximize to change some laws that youre trying to implement instead of waiting for this date. So thats my questions. I think we wanted to clarify the first question. It was Council Member madrid so my first question was i know that you been around for five years. I didnt quite understand or hear anything that you guys have done within five years to minimize some of our fatalities. Disability and accidents. So, one of the things that San Francisco was the first in the country to do was to link police and Hospital Data to inform the vision zero high injury network. And thats the map, 13 of city streets, where 75 of severe or fatal injuries are targeted. That was completed two years ago now. And that map is what im with the health department. We work with them to develop the map and then shares it to inform capital planning. So now i think over half of the miles on the network have received targeted improvements to promote safety. That map is also informing the sfpd efforts on the most dangerous driving behaviors. Last year, i shared the map we created with that data, that identifies seniors and people with disabilities where injuries are concentrated. And also key attracters, so we were able to locate libraries, para transit, and other factors, and we shared that map and that trafficcalming program is part of our new Action Strategy. We also have been tracking, in addition to fatalities, that trend chart, also severe injuries. So again, that is more from a monitoring perspective, but so we can see, you know, are we having an impact . We have analyzed that data through 2017. And for our most critical injuries, were seeing a decrease in pedestrian injuries. Were hopeful that will continue. Were also seeing increase in driverrelated injuries. So again, this is data that we use, as, you know, to see in general where were going and where we need to go more deeply with respect to that work. So those are some examples of the data piece. Cochair senhaux one more council question. Council member williams thank you so much. I may not be popular when i ask this question, but im talking about sheer number of cars on the streets, particularly in San Francisco, with 40,000 to 60,000 uber and lyft cars, you say you have no control. San francisco cant limit the number of lyft and no. Council member williams you cannot . No. Council member williams with increased number of cars on the street, there is a lot of frustration on the street. We talk about our drivers in cars, our Public Transportation has gone down 30 because people are using lyft and uber. Our streets are packed with uber and lyft. Im not popular when i say it, but i see this as a huge issue of having our traffic congested. I wonder why we cant control the number of cars coming into the city. So if youre not popular, im not either, because im saying the same thing. Youre preaching to the choir. So the state regulates uber and lyft. Thats because theyre considered livery. I am not the expert on why the state is, but as a city and county, we cannot do anything about the number of providers the number of drivers, the number of cars, but our transformative policy agenda absolutely does. We ask for two things 100 related to the issues that you just raised. Number one would be local regulation of tnc, which may come out in the form of capping the number of vehicles on the road which is what new york city just did. They have a cap. But we cannot do that unless we change state law. The other would be, its called congestion pricing and new york also just passed it. It comes in really lots of forms, but the goal is to say, if youre traveling more miles and youre traveling them at the most congested hours and traveling them in the most convested congested places, you should pay a fee. We havent developed a clear policy around what that is, and were hoping to inform that