Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

Finding number 5 and 6 are interwoven. Five the pilot terms require them to im demfithe city from injury and damage claims. Scoot and skip terms put responsibility for injury, damage and equipment inspection on the user. Finding 6. Current terms and conditions and the skip agreement expose a delegation of responsibility for scooter inspection and maintenance to their independent contractors, called skip rangers, who receive no specific training from skip. Scoot, however, hires and trains employees to provide inspection and maintenance services. Our recommendation for these two findings is the s. F. M. T. A. , City Attorney and Service Providers review all related agreements to assure responsibility for Risk Management is allocated to the parties best able to manage the risk. This review and modification of terms should be initiated prior to the end of the existing pilot, which is october 19, 2019. These revisions should be incorporated and implemented in all agreements for Replacement Program to follow at the conclusion of the pilot. Finding number 7 requires a response from the board of supervisors and before our finding and recommendation i would like to add a few comments. The Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee has a potentially Important Role to play regarding Pedestrian Safety. Established by the San Francisco charter, administrative code chapter 5, article 4, peace act was formed and given an ambitious agenda touching on policy and Planning Issues related to Pedestrian Safety. Our San Francisco grand jury members attended three monthly meetings, reviewed past Meeting Minutes from 2017 and 2018 posted on their website and annual reports and our findings found the following, as of june 27, 2019, three of the 17 seats are vacant. In 2018 only four meetings had a verified quorum, five did not, one canceled and two had no minutes to verify if a meeting had taken place. In 2017, only eight meetings were scheduled and seven of the eight had no minutes to verify if there was a quorum in an attendance or if they met. They are required to report to the board of supervisors on an annual basis. The reports are to include pedestrian injury and fatality statistics to recommendations for changes. The most recent annual report was submitted in 2011. We want to revise that to 2014. Information came out after our term ended june 30th of this year so that is the correction. The last report was issued in 2014. Our information was provided through emails with several members through our review of the website and what was posted at the time of the investigation. Those were the two main areas. I will go back here. Our finding number 7. A key obligation of the Pedestrian Safety committee is to prepare and submit annual reports to the board of supervisors. These are to include pedestrian injury and fatality statistics and root call analysis to recommend changes in policy, funding and enforcement. The report has not been prepared or submitted annually since 2014. Our findings are documented on pages 26 and 27 of the report. Our recommendation number 6. The board of supervisors should allow the public im sorry. The Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee to terminate effective october 1, 2019 as designated in the San Francisco municipal code. This completes our presentation. We would also like to mention how much the interviews we had with pernell from the assisting us in writing this report. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now, i wanted to invite up the presentation for the departments responses. The m. T. A. Pedestrian manager and cochair of Division Zero task force. Thank you. I am from m. T. A. Joined by my colleagues from the department of Public Health. We all enjoyed working with the civil grand jury and appreciate the attention they have given to vision zero, which is very important to the board of supervisors. I am going to go to response to the civil grand jury findings and recommendations specifically brought up today. Wwe will look into additional signings and markings for scooters. We currently have a limited palette at our disposal. Bike lanes are goffed by traffic governed by traffic control. It is currently limited to a bicycle stencil and the word bike lane. Absent a change to that we will not be able to put scooter markings within the bike lanes, however, we are able to look into any additional signs as recommended by the civil grand jury specifically on sidewalks. The department of Public Health continues to support all of the s. F. M. T. A. Work relating to infrastructure and education through the annual injury and commission analysis. The most recent version was published a couple weeks ago including the first annual findings on escooters that presented themselves to the San Francisco general hospital. Our Police Department continues to do work on focus on the five, and it has recently enhanced their Traffic Company through vision zero enforcement team. I cannot speak to the findings related to the City Attorney office because i am a transportation planner and not a lawyer. I defer to the City Attorney for recommendations and findings related to i to those questions. Do you have any questions . Thank you. Why dont we go to Public Comment. Are there any members of the public to speak on this item . If so, please step up. I am emily. I am a local resident for the last 33 years. As a Public Employee you talk about Government Accountability and Pedestrian Safety. 20162017 i was appointed by former supervisor david campos for the committee. From the committee we know that the website was outdated, people were not fully participating in the process, which means that we need people who really meant what they want to do to be in that committee. The civil grand jury members are volunteering 500 hours per year. Nonpaid. You, the board of supervisors in here are paid. Please, take some time to read the recommendation, work with Department Heads to do the work. Started from the effectiveness from the information, website, safety working with the police and the San Francisco m. T. A. We talk about recommendation, and we also know that there is no accountability. Whether people do it or not the civic grand jury members the former or current one will not be able to come in after you or the board of supervisors and Department Heads to implement what we recommend. So we are asking you since you are paid and elected and you wanted to do the best to prevent death and safety for people in San Francisco, i urge you to follow the recommendation and findings. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. Thank you very much for having me, supervisors. I am the vice chair of the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee. I think that this body is wonderful. I am happy you wrote a report. I am happy you got it out. We just passed the 2018 report last week on the committee, and i hope that you will accept most of the recommendations, just that last one is not really a very good one. I cant speak to reports prior to 2018, but i can say that in 2018 it was a rebuilding year for the committee, adding and replacing memberships with passionate pedestrians embedded in their communities. This year we are trying to streamline the process of apappointments through connections with the board of supervisors. There have been 22 fatalities from collisions this year. Let that sink in. 14 were pedestrians according to the last traffic report. This is higher than any number in recent memory. I want to point out we are volunteer. It is completely volunteer. We have one person who is from the m. T. A. I hope that this information if you want to speak to Committee Members contact myself or the manager and you have my contact information. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else to speak on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Once again, thank you to the civil grand jury members to focus on such an important issue. As stated a number of times, Pedestrian Safety and stronger regulation of sort of new Mobility Options that are emerging here in our city are issues that are of high priority to the board, the m. T. A. , the mayor and our entire city government. This is such an important issue and also a very timely that the report came out highlighting this issue, given the surge in tragic fatalities on our streets this year, and that we are all grappling with and the fact that we are m. T. A. Is preparing to greatly expand the Pilot Program for escooters and it is going to expand to other neighborhoods that it hadnt been present in, including the sun set district. I am in full agreement with your findings and recommendations and the urgency for us to address these issues. Supervisor brown. Commissioner brown thank you. I want to thank you on this because it is something we need to focus on. District 5 alone i have had five pedestrian deaths. I dont remember it ever that high. With all of the cars on the road that we have, the ride shares, you know, it just seems that people are agitated when they drive, and we have seen a lot of that when people make left hand turns. They are trying to get through fourlane highways, they are trying to get through the two lanes of traffic coming at them, and a lot of times they are not focusing on the pedestrians walking on the other side of the street. We need to address a lot of these things. One thing i want to clarify, though, president yee had introduced an ordinance to extend the Pedestrian Safety committee for a year and a lot of us signed to that. Sf walk is committed t to workig with us over the course of the next year to determine the best path forward because i feel it is so important to have that kind of input moving forward, especially with vision zero, what we are doing. We need community input. When we go out to these communities and i see this in my district and we look at taking Parking Spaces away for daylighting. A lot of times we have push back. We need to educate the community why we are doing this. When you talk about taking a parking space away at an intersection and explain because actually spending 200,000 for a bulb out is so important, i think they start to understand. I feel like with that Community Engagement and having the public Pedestrian Safety committee there to help us with that kind of language and outreach and engagement and how we should be doing it is really important. I want to thank everyone for participating. This is alive and death situation. Chair mar thank you, supervisor brown. In terms of action on this, we have a resolution with the board responses. There was just one finding and one recommendation in the civil grand jury report that the board is required to respond to. I shared draft language for the resolution for the response with supervisor brown, i want to read it for the record. First regarding finding number 7, that the board of supervisors reports to the pr presiding jude that they disagree with finding 7. Annual reports were prepared by the Pedestrian Safety and Advisory Committee for 2012, 13, 2014 and 2018 as the vice chair reported. Regarding recommendation number two, the language is in the draft. That the board of supervisors reports recommendation r2 will not be implemented because the recommendation is unreasonable in light of the Pedestrian Safety Committee Progress over the last year in addressing quorum issues, state of emergency for Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee and they are the seoul advice the sole Advisory Committee on in. They will extend for an additional year during which time the committee is advised to review and remember changes to improve the efficiency going forward. I would like to move that we adopt the amendment. We recommend the resolution to the full board and file this hearing. Can we tap that without objection . Thank you. Thanks again everyone for all of your work on this report and this issue. Mr. Clerk, please call item number 8 to 22 foreclosed session. Clerk agenda items 8 through 22 are authorizing settlements of lawsuits against the city of San Francisco, lawsuits and claims, excuse me. Chair mar for the closed session are there any members of the public who wish to testify on items 8 to 22 . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Do we have a motion to convene in closed session . Thank you. We are now in closed session. Good morning and welcome to the street scape project and muni project. I certainly as the public works director for the city and county here and i want to thank you for all coming out to celebrate this very exciting project that will improve the lives of the many people who use this inner sunset corridor. The project which spans all the way from aguelo to 19th avenue will improve the quality of life and Transit Services of this diverse neighborhood, which serves families, students, merchants and tourists alike president the street scape improvement is a collaborative project with the ms works and the utilitys commission. For the past two years, theyve been working together to make crucial improvements to the inner sunset street scape and nearby Transit Services that not only make the area more vibrant and more accessible, safe and reliable. When you look around the surrounding streets, you see the vibrant landscapes that add to the neighborhoods charm, improve seating, as you can see, visitor striving, new street trees. All of this creates a healthy environment and a great carbon footprint. What many do not see are the upgraded traffic signals, the repaved roads and all of the help to improve thed safety and transit service. Theres many components to this project that has not been seen. We have improvements to the underground sewer line and improvements to our water lines, our firefightings were upgraded or replaced, all to increase capacity and to minimize any destructions that will provide more Reliable Service to the community. Also, as a part of this project, theres more than 3,000 feet of pipe that was installed for the department of technology for future fiber optic cables and this is a great partnership. As we do many projects on patrero were installing pipe and well have the pipes electric in and, of course, less destruction to the neighbor while the projects happen. With all of that said, it brings me great joy to see the work that all of these agencies are doing together and how we come together to improve the quality of life of this diverse neighborhood in San Francisco. San francisco. I want to thank john thomas and our project manager, johnny farm, harlin kelly and his team from the puc and mr. Maguire and, of course, our contractor, who was out here everyday making sure that we got this job done. And now, the person who helps to make all of these projects happen, the person who makes our neighborhoods better for everyone, the person looking out for the future of San Francisco, without future delay, let me introduce our mayor, london breed. [cheers and applause] its so good to be back. I remember when we first set on the path to do this project for this neighborhood, andrea, i just noticed you were over there and its great to see you and martha and so many folks from the community. You all did the work because you wanted Something Better for this community. We have kids everywhere and these kids from stepping stone preschool are joining us today. And youll get your snacks in just a minute, so dont worry. [cheers and applause] we have kids, we have families, seniors, people who, basically, love this community and so many amazing restaurants, so many amazing places to shop. This is like really a jewel in San Francisco and, in fact, when improve was supervisor, i came to this community a lot to hideout and relax. And it was great. What was so important was to make it a lot offer annua and dl with safety and Public Infrastructure improvements. One of the things that i spent time with some of the neighbors doing is standing on the corner of ninth and irving and many of you know the familiar sound of some of the onl old muni trains which still come through this way, how loud and heavy they are. Remember i said the new trains will be much quieter. Did you just hear how much quieter the new trains are . A loa lot of the promises to ths community are finally happening and it was because of your patience. We know that it was very challenging to come in and the construction and the loss of parking and tearing up the streets and digging in and you all, through this