Today, july 9, 2019. Mr. Clerk, would you please, and i apologize for this call, item number 10, out of order, which sa district 3 item because i have to go to the groundbreaking for the new Affordable Housing project with the mayor, and i thought i would take that out of order, and then i will turn it over to supervisor mandelman. Chairman i apologize for not giving you that heads up. I think mr. White from the m. T. A. Is here. He is here, yes. And i dont know if you want ms. Meckle to say anything she is not here, but chairman you can do it. The proposal in front of you today is the result of several years of discussion about how to advance safety in the project area, so this is a proposed amendment to the district 3 Neighborhood Transportation Improvement Program planning project. This would add implementation to the scope of work. And so it would enable m. T. A. To explore improvements at a couple of locations specifically. Just give me one moment. It would allow for m. T. A. To explore locations on kearny at jackson and kearny at washington to explore whether it is feasible to be putting in some near term pedestrian scrambles, and assuming it is determined to be feasible, this project would implement those scarmbles. There are some associated traffic and parking changes that would go along with that, that would also be potentially put into place, removal of dual turn lanes. So basically this is an amendment to the original scope of work. It would add implementation. It would allow for the exploration of those treatments prior to implementation. It is the result of a lot of conversations, and were pleased to see this safety work advance. Chairman so am i, and so are my constituents. I have no questions, ive been briefed. Mr. White, is there anything you would like to add . If not, we are good, dustin. Thank you. Is there any Public Comment on this item. Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. And i guess we need a motion on the amendment of the scope of work made by commissioner mandelman, is seconded by commissioner yee. And we have a different house, so roll call, please. [roll call] we have first approval. Chairman item number 9, please. Update on the muni service sorry, update on the Muni Service Equity strategy. Chairman i would like to thank mr. Kennedy for his patience today and at our last meeting. With that, im going to turn the gavel over to vice chair mandelman. I will say for the record, we did receive one comment by email from a member of the public, aaron goodman, which has been forwarded to every member of the commission. Good morning, commissioners. Sean kennedy with the s. F. M. T. A. , and the m. T. A. Is starting our twoyear budget cycle discussion. And a big piece of that is the equity strategy. The equity strategy really helps identify and prioritize Service Improvements. And, as you know, the Service Section of our budget is really the biggest chunk of it. So i wanted to take this time, this opportunity, to brief you on the equity strategy, where we stand right now, and do a limit little look forward, as well as some changes to the 2025 Treasure Island line. There is a vision, obviously, for transit in this city, and it is moving forward at a relatively rapid pace. Earlier this body was talking about some Improvement Projects that are moving forward, like advanced b. R. T. And the central subway. But there are day to day services and adjustments that need to be made. Obviously we dont have as much resources as we need, and so we need to prioritize how we spend those resources. And we also, of course, look at high ridership lines and future growth areas, but the equity strategy has really been the major tool that weve been using to identify and prioritize resources. The equity strategy is s. F. M. T. A. Board adopted in 2014, and it is also in our Strategic Plan. It is a very unique program. It helps us and guides us through both lean times as well as good times from a budget perspective. And it is based on a neighborhood approach. We try to prioritize projects and improvements based on what neighborhoods see and what their needs are. We also, of course, use data to help inform those needs and then monitor and evaluate how our improvements are working. There are eight neighborhoods as part of the muni equity strategy, and these neighborhoods were selected through a twostep process. First all, we looked at census data, and were looking for geographic regions that really identify three major areas. One, residents with low income. Two, there is a high proportion of people of color. And, three, there was a low auto ownership. So really trying to identify areas that had that transitdependent population. With that data, we worked with a muni Equity Working Group that helped us kind of better define and identify those neighborhoods, and talked about how we would prioritize projects with Community Input to develop the future plan and planning process. And i do want to point out one thing, one neighborhood that is not on here that does need a lot of the same criteria that the others meet, and that is Treasure Island. That was left off because it has its own planning process. A lot of agencies are working on that process, including us with this equity land for them. Well talk more about that in a minute. But the principles that the equity strategy lays out, as i said, are communitybased with Community Feedback directly where our resources or having major input into where our resources will go. We work with service providers, on the Ground Service providers like soup kitchens and churches, and we work with riders, everyday riders, intermittent riders, residents, and our own operators that both live and work in these neighborhoods. And through that are able to identify both important but also issues that are important to them that we wouldnt be able to get just by looking at data. We can apply our various tools and toolkit items, to address these issues. That could range from more concentrated Service Management to service changes, like adding buses,moving where buses go, to actual Capital Projects that help reduce delay and muni performance. The guidelines are many. Those eight neighborhoods have a lot of service on paper going through them. And so, as you can see, the lines that are considered equity lines go throughout the city, touching basically all four corners of the city, are on a fairly robust list. I want to point out, before going into more specifics, aside from Service Planning and Service Capital changes, we have other programs that have an equity strategy principle behind it, our affordability programs, Lifeline Program, as well as free muni for youth and other programs. Not only do we have these programs, but we promote these programs. It is actually in our Strategic Plan to increase the number of people that are involved in these programs and that are signed up to get these programs. We try to point that out at every chance we get. Please steer your constituents that way if you come across anybody who doesnt know about that program. Wed be more than happy to provide more information on that. Back to the specific equity strategy proposals, here is a recent list of accomplishments. I want to point out a few for a flavor of what type of stuff comes out of the equity strategy. One example is the 9r, in the intermission neighborhoods, where were discussing how the 9r is over crowded. And several months ago we implemented 60foot buses on that line to reduce crowding. Another example is the 48. The 48 is a service that used to stop at west portal during the midday. It would go all the way to the beach during the peak periods. But during the midday, it stopped at west portal. We heard from our stakeholders they would really like to see that service go to the beach all day. There were places they were trying to access, schools, shopping opportunities, for the entire length of the day. So we implemented that ss thats jussjust an example of e use this for. That is something we never would have gotten by looking at data to begin with. The equity strategy and the relationships were forming with these neighborhoods really help identify we even miss from our own analysis tools. And, of course, there is work currently under way. I want to point out the 55r, as an example, the Western Addition residents have long noted that the 5r and the 5 have issues. And we are advancing ou advancir muni program. It will help alleviate some of the reliability issues that the entire line is seeing. I want to highlight that because our goal for the 25th is not in the western neighborhood, but it will directly affect the residents and the people who are riding the service in the Western Addition. I want to talk on the 25. I noted previously that the 25 is not an equity strategy neighborhood, however, it does have many of the qualities that make up an equity strategy neighborhood. So weve been working closely with the residents in that area to identify what they think some of their priorities are, and what the needs are in the near term. One of those needs was they continually brought up that they would like to see p. M. Service match a. M. Service. The a. M. Service was coming every 15 minutes to 20 minutes. And in the p. M. , we were at half hour headways. So in june, we implemented 20 minutes to better match the a. M. Service. One of the issues we also heard from Treasure Island residents was that, you know, gapping and ontime performance issues were a concern due to congestion both on the bridge and the city streets. When the 25 goes into the trans bay Transit Center, it will be using a second deck of the Transit Center, and it will not have to go on city streets anymore. We really think it will improve the ontime performance and the reliability of that line. Were going to continue to monitor it. And weve got some Service Improvements and frequency improvements coming up and teed up. And three years outward, were anticipating needing 60foot buses on this line, as well as additional changes to the headways theadways, to make improvements for that as well. And how do we know these equity performance changes are working . We monitor these all of the time. The three major metrics we look at are o. T. P. Gaps, which means how long has it been between when buses show up, and then crowdin crowding. At a high level, looking at all of the equity lines, you can see that the equity lines are performing better. That doesnt mean obviously individually there arent a lot of improvements that need to be made. For example, the 8 bay shore still has gaps, especially during the peak system. And those are the type of things that we are planning to address this next budget cycle and trying to find ways to improve that performance for the 8 bay shore, as well as other lines that have similar issues. So that was pretty much the equity strategy in a nutshell. I guess concluding by reinforcing that we, you know, obviously have more needs than we have resources to fill. The equity strategy is our primary way of working with neighborhoods to identify priorities and figure out where to put those dollars, for every dollar we get, where is the best place to put it. And talking to neighborhoods on how to figure that out. We are continuing to go to these neighborhoods. In the last round, the 2018 improvements that came out of the equity strategy, we talked to over 500 neighborhood groups. We met with we got feedback from over 65,000 people. And we plan to continue that effort. But were going to do it on an ongoing basis. So it is not going to be a onetime push where we go to a bunch of meetings and try to get data. Instead, were going to meetings when we dont even have anything on the agenda, when were not supposed to necessarily be presenting something. Were just going to listen and to find out what is going on with the community and how we can better serve the community and what some of the major needs and concerns are. With that, i would love to take any questions or answer any feedback. Chairman we have some commissioners ready to ask questions. Commissioner fewer. Thank you very much, mr. Chair. My question is whether or not i dont see anything around the equity measures around language access. Are the meetings that you are doing conducted in multiple languages . And, also, are we looking at who the drivers are on those lines, if there are large populations that are chinese speakers, for example, or spanish speakers, are we making sure that the drivers are actually bilingual . Yes, maam. Wonderful question. Everything is done in the three main languages. And depending where we are, for example, out of richmond, we may bring some russian ability to translate to russian. So we do try to tailer it to the specific location, if we know ta tagalog or russian is spoken. But we always have spanish and chinese translated, and also there at the meetings. So what about the drivers on these lines . Are you making an effort to put bilingual drivers on these lines . Sorry. I understand the question. It is part of equity. Sure. That is an interesting question. We have not tried to separate out the workforce that way. But thats an interesting point. I just didnt know. I think maybe this is just a suggestion that maybe one of the questions that you ask the community is would you do you find that there is a need for someone who speaks chinese, for example, in chinatown, as a bus driver . Thank you. Good feedback. Chairman commissioner wal ton. Ton. Thank you chair. I want to make sure i understand how to determine what is tangible from the presentation. If we look at page 101, and slide 9, im looking at the accomplishments. When you look at increase frequency, how has that been done . Im trying to understand it with regards to this slide. Sure. On third street itself, we have implemented there have been a number of rounds on trying to improve signal timing on third street. There are 68 Traffic Signals between fourth and king and the terminal on the line. We also changed traffic timing on the embarcadero into the portal to improve t line service there. On the embarcadero, were seeing about a twominute travel time savings. It was taking eight minutes, and now it is taking more like six minutes on the inbound side. On the outbound side, similar. On the rest of the line, were not seeing near those results. Because when we made the changes, we had to put in pedestrian signals have to go to three and a half feet versus four, so it kind of ate away at the transit. We have increased frequency on the t, went from eight to seven minutes. And put on two cars on the t, and safety has always been a concern. Were banning lefts, and adding new signage for banning lefts. So there is a number of, you know, smallerterm things. These equity strategy improvements are meant to be kind of in the near term, you know, as quickfixtyptype projects as possible. The slide says accomplishments, and i want to make sure im reading and understanding this correctly. If i look at page 102, slide 10, oceanview, engelside, and bay view, with regards to the 29 and the 44, and all it says is increased service, frequency all day. How . What am i getting from this slide . I know we need to increase frequency all day so that basically means adding buses to the line to improve service on the 29 and 44. You knew, right now i think, for instance, the 229 has 23 buses on it, and were talking about putting 25, 26 buses on it to reduce crowding and improve performance. That said and these questions are great. There is so much data to go over, i didnt want to get too deep into this. I would love to set up a time with you in your office to come in and brief you on not only and this goes to every member i would love to talk to all 11 of you if youre interested, and go over who we talked to in your district, and what were doing to address those issues. I can work with people to set up a meeting, and anybody else interested. I definitely appreciate that, and we will make sure we do that. You mentioned adding buses to the lines. Where are we on that addition of buses . So we operate on a twoyear budget cycle. And so within that twoyear budget cycle, weve got another year left on the existing one. And thats why were starting the process of thinking about our next twoyear budget cycle. We have to match operator availability with the number of vehicles to make sure we can add that service and actually have it be filled, or actually having somebody driving the bus, versus just having it in the schedule. Within the next six months, were planning to have this before the end of this budget cycle before the end of next july, adding those buses in. We should see new buses, additional buses, by when . Im hoping within february, but if not february, definitely by june. Thank you. And then are there do we have maps that detail increased service in the southeast sector of San Francisco . So specifically kansas state point shipyard. Yes, we do, and we can bring that to our meeting with you. And im looking at the equity lines, and i believe one of them is the 29. Can i see some disaggregate data that is telling me how service is performing particularly in the southeast sector . Yes, sir. Ill bring the data. And just as a sidebar, which is not necessarily specific to the presentation, but specific to equity, because i was looking at a flier that s. F. M. T. A. Sent out, 720,000 available through that process in the bay view, which we know wont Fund Infrastructure projects. But what i noticed was there was an exclusion of Public Housing sites in terms of being a place where they could go and vote, with the exception of the boys and girls club on tiska. So as we talk about equity, but were not providing options for people to vote in their communities, and the irony of that is the bus service is so bad in these areas, we expect them to be able to get to other places so they can vote, but theyre trapped and isolated. So i want to make sure we prioritize providing opportunities for them to be able to participate as we talk about equity b