Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240713

SFGTV Government Access Programming July 13, 2024

Taxes. The governor ended up vetoing the bill, that allows the commission through their guideline process to move forward with the perspective that they had shown the last time around. Looking forward, there were several items that i believe will be seeing early on in the year. First, the legislature has the first of several hearings, at least two hearings on new mobility and the facing the state. Last year legislation that was moving through, particularly the bill that we had concerns to try to work with her. I think this hearing was eyeopening for the members of the Assembly Transportation committee as well as the senate and local government committee. That was a joint hearing basis. Because they started looking at the need for data and why you need the data. There was a very robust conversation particularly with input from sfmta, a representative there, as well as la county. Why they need the data to develop the responses from the challenges that arise. I believe at the next hearing they will focus on data requirements or so. I think this first hearing is more of a curtain raiser. I think you will see legislation emerged out of that conversation. The governor issued an executive order in late september it was somewhat controversial because of the way it was structured. The executive order called on the Transportation Agency under the new secretary to align transportation funding with state climate and environmental goals and the way they draft of the executive order, the reference to 5 billion, you know, it drew a lot of attention and i think there is a lot of fear or concern that they were saying take sp1 which generates about 5 million a year and dedicate that to Climate Change. It was more generically intended. I think we will see the secretary as he gets his arms around this challenge or this executive order requirement. We will see him perform a Stakeholder Group. I met with secretary kim on this last friday to cover a couple of issues. One of the issues we talked about is the fact that he intends to move forward with a broadbased Stakeholder Group to help him guide the state in its effort to meet the challenge of that executive order. Finally, i just want to highlight i believe staff discussed this item with you last month. This is the issue of a regional San Francisco bay area, funding authorization. Senator bell has been carrying sb 278, it is technically a two bill and we need to move out of the senate by the end of january they are working diligently in sacramento right now trying to blend in the sponsors idea of what needs to go on that bill versus what legislative experts in the senate, senator bells staff thinks. There will be a lot of discussion between now and the end of january when that bill needs to meet his deadline. If it looks like it needs more work there are other alternatives appropriate ways to move forward with a new bill for example. We will have to see how that transpires. Without a drama presentation to a close. Thank you mr. Watts. Are there any questions from members . Good morning. I was just going to build on his presentation. At the federal level. There has basically been to topics that have been covered at the federal level this year. The first is the discussions about reauthorization of the federal transportation bill which expires in september 2020. The Senate Environment and the public Works Community did release a draft proposal for the highway portion of the bill. The house i believe started up conversations but nothing came out before the year ended. Given the election cycle, i dont think we are likely to see actual legislation before november 2020 and we will likely see a series of continuing resolutions. As conversations continue we will be sure to engage and ensure that San Franciscos needs are addressed in the bill. The second topic is more of a bipartisan effort that may stand a chance of moving forward before the election which is regulation over autonomous vehicles. Basically what is appropriate role for the federal government in making sure that there are standards at the federal level. We have been engaging closely with the metropolitan and Transportation Commission as well as the Mayors Office and i ts america to provide input and bring San Franciscos perspective to the scene basically to try to ensure that we can maintain or look forward to safe regulations, maintained the authority to regulate vehicles at the local level. Just a quick look forward. Early next year we are going to bring the 2020 state legislative program two. We anticipate focusing on and you heard a little bit from mark about what we expect around new mobility, making sure that we can protect our bill to regulate and collect the data that we need. Vision zero, the last year really focused on the zero Fatality Task force which is wrapping up its work at the statewide level to look at ways to address safety on the roadways. As they are wrapping up we understand sfmta did have a seat on that task force and has indicated a lot of the conversations were around speed limits. We anticipate that may come out as a focus. We will keep an eye on that as well as any other bills that may help us meet our vision zero goals. With climate policy, mr. Watts talked about the governors mandates. We will continue to follow that with respect to congestion management. We are going to be looking out for legislation authorizing pricing and we will likely move forward with advocacy based on consistence consistency with our downtown pricing study that we just kicked off earlier this year. Finally, as disappointed as we were about the veto of Assembly Bill 1605. The Reservation Program on lombard street. We are meeting with the Governors Office and commissioner stephanie to see if there is a way around his concerns and potentially move forward with modified version of that bill if we feel like it can move forward. We anticipate the main focus of the next session will be housing. We dont typically recommend positions on housing bills to this committee. We will, as we did last year, continue to bring reports on bills of particular limits. So that you guys stay informed. At the regional level i think executive director, and chair peskin referenced a regional transportation measure that is moving forward. We will continue to stay engaged and bring reports to you. And then finally with the approval of Assembly Bill 1487 this year, that created the bay area Housing Finance and gave it the authorization to face several different remedy measures on the ballot for housing. Well also be reporting, i know discussions are underway about what that could look like. We will keep you informed as that effort moves forward targeting november 2020 ballot. With that. Im happy to answer any questions as is mr. Mark watts. Thank you that for that preview of the coming session. Are there any questions from members . Seeing none. Is there any Public Comments on this item . Okay. We look forward to another robust session in sacramento. Next item please. Item ten, introduction of new items. Perhaps we can use this as an opportunity for commissioners walton and haney to report out. Commissioner walton . Thank you so much, chair peskin. Colleagues i had an opportunity along with supervisor haney to attend a congestion tour trip in london and stockholm october 38. Just to give a little background , the tour was a Broad Partnership effort to bloomberg American Cities climate challenge and National Initiatives supported by bloomberg philanthropy and led by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Delivery Associates hosted delegations from San Francisco, and other Climate Change cities that include climate challenged cities that included seattle, portland, washington, d. C. , honolulu and philadelphia. The Summit Foundation was supporting the center for transportation and further strategies who did organize the tour. A brief background on the American Cities climate challenge. It is an unprecedented opportunity for 25 ambitious cities to significantly deepen and accelerate their efforts to tackle Climate Change and promote a Sustainable Future for the residence. The American Cities climate challenge as part of the American Cities initiative. A suite of investments that empowers cities to generate innovation and advanced policy that moves the nation forward. This was a very intense trip. We literally spent basically every day up until about 7 00 p. M. Learning about congestion price in both england and stockholm. Just to give some of my takeaways. If you look at london which is a city of 8. 8 million people. The purpose of instituting the congestion pricing was really about congestion and Environmental Impacts. They had a robust rail system and they really were supported by Business Community as they decided to embark on congestion pricing. They have been instituting this price since 2,003. I would say from their perspective, it was considered successful in reducing congestion in the early years and now they are working on making some changes as people have gotten used to the pricing. The congestion is increasing again in london. They are looking at evaluating their Current System trying to see what they could do different. Stockholm which is a city around the same size in terms of population of San Francisco. They instituted there in 2,007 and it needed to go through parliament which is their National Body because another municipality cannot tax another. Folks coming into stockholm there were only able to be able to do this was to get permission from the National Body. I will say that it has been successful in stockholm and it really has made a compliment or a blend of people using bikes, scooters, cars, walking, and its really encouraging the alternative sources of transportation when you walk the streets of stockholm you can see the balance. I would just say that the one thing to note whether we are talking stockholm or london. It is a process that you have to achieve from all stakeholders politically. I would just tell you the ten Lessons Learned that we compiled from all cities working together. Number one, invest in Public Transit and bike and Pedestrian Network as you plan congestion pricing. I think the two things about the cities that allowed for the pricing is the robust transportation system. Especially in london. They have an amazing rail system second to none in a lot of ways. With a number of people that they move through the city consistently in order to institute the pricing they had to have a robust transportation system. Stockholm does not have the same robust rail system. They did increase their bus system and transportation i made a large investment before instituting the pricing. Bringing everyone to the table is important. Number three, determining your data needs and start collecting your data immediately. Number four, use pilots to allow the results to speak for themselves. They did do a pilot in stockholm in 2,006 from january until july. Number five, design your own system with the number one goal to advance equity. This is something we decided, as a group, because i think a lot of us in those cities felt that there was no true equity loans with a congestion pricing in both cities. We know we are going to need to consider that as a priority here in San Francisco. Number six, fearless Political Leadership is key. Prepare for political moment with grassroots support. Number seven, build a big tent for discussion of business, environmental, political and other communities. Number eight, congestion pricing is a powerful, dexterous tool. Build your objectives into your design. Number nine, dont focus on revenue as the objective for congestive pricing policy and number ten, it works. I would just say the most important thing as we have the conversations about congestion pricing here in San Francisco. We really need to know what we want to solve for and why we want to have the pricing. Is it about congestion . Is it about Environmental Impact is it about equity . Is it about making sure there is an alternative Revenue Source . We have to be clear about that. It could be all of the above that we as we continue to have the conversation. If this is something we want to institute here. With that said, i will pass it onto my partner. You could have left me five of the points. [laughter] that was. Ellipsis that was very copper headset. It was informative trip. Not just being able to spend time in the cities and have a schemes of congestive pricing. Also as commissioner walton said , with the seven cities, and hearing about some of the unique challenges that they face. We had seattle, portland, d. C. , honolulu, boston, very diverse set of cities. Some of which have similar things that we are facing at some of which had very different realities. To be able to process this with them. He also left out run a farm was on the trip, as well, from the chamber of commerce. There was one thing i could add. The difference between the two schemes were also very interesting. In london, there is an 11pound per day charge to drive within the zone, its a onetime charge. And then they are putting an additional fee which is about that much if you have certain types of vehicles that are not low emissions. London is very explicitly focused on trying to reduce emissions and also focus on pollution. London has a long history of challenges around pollution and has an awareness around how that impacts peoples health, wellbeing, and, you know, rates of different diseases. It was a much more focused particularly with their new mayor became much more popular over time. All of the polls show they are generally popular now but in stockholm they even had an advisory referendum that failed that did get the majority support. At the time, they did it anyway. They included the surrounding areas they filled miserably in the surrounding areas. As supervisor walton said, both cities have very strong public they also have fully integrated networks for bike lanes, and pedestrians. It feels very safe to walk and bike around both of the cities. The sense that there are effective alternatives are very clear to people. Traffic also moves slowly. They really didnt have the same concept we brought this up numerous times of people with more low income driving. That was something that they didnt usually consider. Their concept is that most people that drive are either doing it for Business Purpose or are more wealthy. That wasnt taken into consideration to the way that we would obviously, business was largely supportive. Businesses and people within the zone have a certain types of discounts and things which is something i asked a lot about. As we think about congestion pricing here. A lot of it will be within district six we would assume in terms of people within the zone. A couple of things, we dont have many to the degree of writers that we have. Uber and left her there, but they are not huge issues. We were asking a lot of questions because our assumption is that a significant amount of congestion that we face in San Francisco may be connected especially more recently to the right shares. With that as you all know, our Transportation Authority is starting our study of congestion management and pricing. It actually is going to be kicking off this thursday. We are also part of an ongoing conversation with the other cities about how we can all Work Together and learn from each other. This may be a surprise to you all. They view San Francisco is the furthest ahead of the seven cities. The obvious they have a long way to go to figure out what we want to do and what the goals are and collect a lot of data and set a plan and a timeline for what we might do. Certainly this is something that is being discussed not just across the world, but now among many cities in the united states. Looking at a leader that will provide a lot of data and information and guidelines to other cities as the consider this as well. It was great to spend time with commissioner walton as well. It was pretty busy. We appreciate you all letting us know. Commissioner walton and then we have a Treasure Island Mobility Management Agency board meeting. That is the last thing i wanted to say. I want to thank them for supporting supervisor haney and i as individuals that had the opportunity to attend. Thank you to our colleagues as well. Our pleasure. Any members of the public that would like to speak about the introduction of new items or make general Public Comment . Seeing then. Oh, come on up. Dont worry about that. The floor is yours. This is general Public Comment . Yes, maam. My name is shirley johnson. I would like to speak a

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