Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

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 im 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 dont understand. Just i think the criteria right now for the grants, only available after the 24month 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 its 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 its 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, thats 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, thats 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 selfsustaining 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. Im 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, its 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 citys 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 dont think its 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 20year 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 201720year capital plan. The name has changed, the capital plan itself is more of a Needs Assessment in a way than a plan. Its mapping out from a capital perspective what its 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 fiveyear Capital Improvement program. The citys tenyear 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 20year 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 longterm 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 im 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 its 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 righthand corner looking at our 20year 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 fiveyear Capital Improvement program. It is a multistep process that helps us identify things in the longterm 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 its expected to be needed. We did, for our Capital Needs, we are working with constant 20 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 complexbuilt 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 fiveyear c. I. P. , the Capital Improvement program and the twoyear budget will begin outreach likely in late fall and winter, and youll at that point, thats 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, thats why we dont 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. Thats a change we have done in a time ive been on the board so important to point that out to everybody. I dont have any other questions. Other Board Members . Just one. The list you have, i guess its on slide eight of all the needs, is this generated through some kind of performancebased analysis . Especially a third of the money is going to transit expansion and i looked in the list and its 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 dont 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. , fiveyear 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 its really not subject to any kind of performance discipline. Its 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, theres no money and theres no priority at this time. A reason its 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, well see that in the c. I. P. But its not just a laundry list. Well, look, im 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. Thats 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. Ill 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 thats at least half of it. So that goes through a rigorous process. Its 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 well 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. Im sorry, you are right. Ok. Madam chair, no Public Comments. Its 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. Ill 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 agencys 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 ill follow with a couple of slides that will talk about that, and after that, well welcome your comments and questions. Great, thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you very much, when i told my three and a halfyearold 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 its 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 ill 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 dont 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 regions 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 its 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 cant 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 doctors appointment. Solve for some of the existing barriers are barriers to taking transit. Affordability with meansbased 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 communityfocussed, 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 twothirds 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 longterm strategic plan, the Capital Improvements and operating budgets that would transform the regional Transportation Systems. But, it is not enough to fund everybodys 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 its not a question of just building projects its a question as i was talking about before with equity and seamlessness and integrating transit networks, its 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, its 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 its 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 dont 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 meansbased 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 regionwide 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 regionwide 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 decisionmaking 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, youll 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 twothirds 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 meansbased 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 dont 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, thats the wrapup. 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 ill 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, thats 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. Im here to speak on behalf of adina le vin for voices for public transportation, a at a meeting today. She writes its 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 thats all i have from adina. Bob allen, edward mason, peter strauss. Hi, good afternoon, bob allen, urban habitat. Im sure board member heminger is disappointed hes 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 im 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, theres 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 theres a process going on that they dont know about, and are not part of, and i dont 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 oneseat 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 50car fleet midlife with 100car 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 didnt have the infrastructure they would not be able to carry on their business. So, thats a direct connection with that. So, they always come back to the private person to say well, g the roads are bad, dont you want to improve it . Yeah, but if you didnt 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 dont 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 dont 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 its 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 im 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. Theres 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 ridercentric, thats what we are, we are transit riders and make sure the different voices they use, and the seniors, faithbased and the environmental, that they all get heard, and so we believe that our valuesbased 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 dont think will be a surprise to nick, and thats 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 dont go together, and i worry about that. Housing seems to be left at the altar every time. Thats one subject. The second one like peter, i wanted to talk about transformation. And the project ive 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 ive 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 youve got an employerled 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 ab1487 to see whether down the road it makes sense to kind of put these two things together. And certainly i think even if they dont 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 twothirds 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 dont feel that if we dont do it in to 20 its 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 cant stand up here and say we dont have a backup 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 its very true and so you know, the work thats 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