Incorporating more technology in communicating with our riders about our services and such. We partner with slide wheel to allow our paratransit taxi riders to use their app to request a taxi. In particular, if you are a wheelchair user, you can specifically ask for a wheelchairaccessible taxi using the app. We have launched a taxi online portal, which allows for paratransit taxi riders to pay their portion of the taxi of their taxi debit card as well as view their trip history and report lost or stolen cards through this online interface. And we have two advisory committees who advise the m. T. A. Paratransit about the accessibility issues that they face throughout the city. One of them is the paratransit council. This is comprised of paratransit riders, Service Providers and communitybased represent i haves. They advise the m. T. A. On Service Quality issues with paratransit as well as help assist us in policy development. The second one is the multimode accessibility advisory committee. They advise the m. T. A. On accessibility issues regarding the munis fixed route as well as bike and pedestrian projects. And im going to turn the floor over to staff who will talk about the project and their communication with the public. Thank you. So im going to just touch on briefly state your name. My name is stefani morales, im a Public Information officer with m. T. A. And i handle communications for the van ness Improvement Project. Im just going to go over what the van ness Improvement Project bus stops are currently and sort of the consolidation process that has gone on there. So as you can see, we have 11 permanent stops that are a result of the consolidation process that really began as early as the Environmental Impact study. This was long before the construction happened. But this has been in project planning for a long time. And outreach about these changes happen throughout the process of the implementation of the bus stop consolidation. But a lot of the main outreach also happened in 2016 prior to construction to make sure that the public knew these changes were going to be coming. And so some of the reasons for bus stop consolidation really is to we essentially removed four bus stops that are going southbound and five bus stops that are going northbound. And the purpose of this is to really help maintain the traffic circulation during construction as well as Transit Service reliability and efficiency. And the selected stops were chosen on various criteria. Some of that is including walking distance. We wanted to make sure that there was stop spacing, street grades, transit connections that were being accommodated, as well as existing passenger usage. And as far as meeting the needs during construction, so as a lot of you might know, bus stops, temporary bus stops can change depending on when construction might be impacting these bus stops. So what we provide, and its the first time we are doing it with a project with m. T. A. , is temporary bus stop platforms to help provide all of our customers with accessibility as well as temporary benches. So we do move those along with the temporary bus platforms as needed. We also have office hours, which gives us the ability to have the public come to us and let us know of any issues regarding not only bus stop changes but anything else concerning the project. We also have a 24 7 project phone line and this is something that we put on our website that we distribute in a weekly newsletter that is in newsletters that we send out to members of the public, especially those that are along the van ness corridor, so that they can call this number at any time with any concerns, including concerns about bus stops or any changes. And temporary bus stops always have to be within 250 feet of the original stop. We also alert the public of these stops with signage along the corridor. So this is just some of the ways that we are addressing the bus stop, the temporary bus stops that can be moved at times because of construction impact. And thats mainly what i had to say about what we are doing in regards to construction right now. So i think i will be passing it over to my colleague, sandra who will be talking a little bit more. Excuse me. May we have questions at the end of the entire presentation, then . Will that be all right . Yes, i will be sticking around. Thank you. Good morning. Im in the Service Planning team at muni that includes stops management, and thats what i will focus on today. What i hope to focus on is share an overview of the stop changes s. O. P. , which is as we go through in thinking through whether a stop change request or something we have identified will go through. And also to highlight how we have incorporated a screening tool on which we collaborated with senior and disability action to incorporate that into our stop changes s. O. P. The s. O. P. Has been in place for one year. And we collaborated with senior and disability action on the stop changes streaming tool in 2016. So projects that were initiated before and anything that was legislated before did not go through these steps, but Going Forward any new projects will. And so here we have the list of all of the Different Reasons why we might have a stop change in muni. And one of the reasons we came up with this is we realized it was not just our team that was coming up with the stop changes that we were recommending based on feedback from the public, operators or performance data, but also other teams, for example, the livable streets team that implement bike lanes, et cetera. A lot of the projects when they were coming up with them, it was necessary to adjust some stops to make sure we were able to make room for everybody on the street. So we wanted to come up with something that made sure that everybody that was generating stop changes were thinking through all the different considerations that we consider important to implement the change. So this is way to small, but we will have a larger slide later. This is essentially what the stop change s. O. P. Goes through and prompts anybody who is trying to letting and implement a stop change has to go through and think through before doing so. So we have a planning phase, we then have which is a good idea, is this not a good idea, what are the things to think about, and then we have outreach, going to the community and saying we think this is a good idea, this is why, and getting feedback, and then based on that going through another Decision Making of should we go forward with this and try to legislate this or not, and thats another set of steps which is this change is coming to you. Considering a stop change, these are the different considerations that we take into account based on guidelines and best practices. Did i move it . Sorry. So intersection control, when we have a stop sign we try to have this stop placed at the stop sign rather than the other side of the intersection. Thats to avoid stopping twice, once for the stop sign at the intersection and again after the intersection. So sometimes when we adjust stops, its for that. Its for making, improving our performance and making sure we can go fast, but a lot of time it wont extend the distance more than crossing an intersection. We wont do it when, for example, we have a Senior Center or another trip generator that benefits from having the stop right outside their location. Sidewalk space, is there enough space for people to wait and queue up, what are the grades. We have different limitations, i think an 8 percent grade that we avoid placing stops unless its necessary. Curb space, spacing of the stops themselves, how often and frequent do they come along the line, trip generators, transit opportunities, properties, terminal stops, all of those are things, and we have very specific guidelines on how to think about these things. And so once somebody has thought through all of this, we prompt them to go through the screening tool, which ill go over. So this is again a little more detail about how we think through things. And we can cover that in the questions. These are our stop spacing guidelines that we have that were adopted by our board. So they are much more spaced apart in rail and rapid bus but local bus depends on grades, et cetera and how frequent or how close together they are spaced. We have some guidelines on how the length of our stops in order to be able to serve the stops and make sure that we get to the curb and do an accessible stops. And here are the different when working with disability action we came up with four different questions that if any of them qualify as part of the stop change we are trying to make, we need to notify them right away, sit down and discuss why it is that we are trying to do this, way before we go to legislation and go to public hearing. So the staff is within 650 feet of an entrance to hospital, public facility or center for people that are seniors or have disabilities. It will stop by 300 feet or more. The proposed stop will be on a grade of over 60 percent, the stop proposed has a shelter but alternative stops do not have shelters. So will the stop quality downgrade because of where we are trying to site it. Stop proposed for removal is accessible but alternative stops are not accessible. So all of those are red flags for getting in touch with senior and disability action right away. And this is the form we provide for them any time we are thinking about doing a stop change, providing them with very specific information that they have requested. And we also usually provide a diagram that explains this is what it will look like, this is how much people will have to walk further or closer for a stop change. So once we assess the balance of support and opposition for the stop change, mainly with s. B. A. And bringing this up with the public, we do doortodoor fliering a lot of times. When we evaluate whether its worth bringing to legislation. So Supervisors Office is another place we stop to get a sense of support. Parking removal is another factor that will determine how much support we have. And then we have best practices on noticing for when we are going to go forward with the stop, so make sure inconvenience is minimized and that we are clear, et cetera. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. It was very comprehensive. And im sure there are questions and comments. Commissioner pappas . Just a request. This was a lot of information. Would it be possible for us to get the electronic version of what was presented here . And in particular, drilling down to the paratransit presentation, how do you do outreach to the community to let them know about these services . And can you make that available to us too . So we actually require our contractor to do at least 20 outreaches each year, but they do way more. We actually have a manager here. She is responsible for organizing the outreach to not only communitybased organizations but social workers and anyone who may need services. And they keep track of it on a spreadsheet. In particular, they are trying to put a bigger emphasis on doing outreach in areas identified in the communities of concern. So we are constantly doing outreach. And we also have our advisory committees. They meet the executive Committee Meets every sixweeks, and then we have smaller subgroups that meet each month to focus on a specific aspect of the transportation modes that we provide through paratransit. Thank you. Regarding paratransit, your presentation indicated reliance on taxi cabs. But we have fewer taxi cabs in the city. How has the Paratransit Program been affected by the increase in lyft and uber and other Services Like that . So i think the one thing i didnt show on the presentation was the number of trips taken by paratransit users on taxis has actually increased over the past couple of years. I think the impact of t. N. C. S has been most impacting on the taxi programs which are the wheelchairaccessible taxis, because those vehicles cost a bit more to operate and you would have to convert a mini van into a wheelchairaccessible vehicle, so thats more cost to the companies as well as the drivers. So what we have done is we have placed several incentives in place to help support the drivers. We have a 10 incentive thats available to all taxi drivers who provide wheelchair trips and we bump it up to 15 if they provide trips in the outlying neighborhoods like bayview as well as if they provide trips during the nighttime to wheelchair users. We also have an airport short pass, so if a taxi driver does at least 30 wheelchair trips in one month, they can go to the head of the line at the airport, and thats extremely valuable for taxi drivers. And we have various incentives to encourage taxi drivers to purchase their own vehicles. We provide 650 each month to new ride taxi drivers who purchase and operate their own vehicle. So we are trying to strengthen the taxi program which we felt has been most impacted by the growth of t. N. C. S. Thank you. A couple other observations. One, i think the outreach from my experience has been very, very good, and i was very happy to hear about the summary discussion of the van ness Improvement Project, which people are working very, very hard on addressing the issues and undoubtedly encountered many things they had not expected. I live at the San Francisco towers which is a Retirement Community just off van ness between van ness and franklin on pine street, and there are many different Senior Housing developments in that neighborhood. And that has been the decision to permanently move some of the bus stops. It doesnt sound like a lot if you are ablebodied to have to walk an extra 350 or 600 feet to get to a bus stop, but it does have a huge impact on many of the seniors who live not only in my building but in many of the buildings around there. And while the outreach has been commendable, i have not noticed as many changes in response to concerns from those individuals. The emphasis seems to be on speeding up bus service, which is understandable, but it seems there is an inherent conflict. And i would like to have somebody address that clear conflict and why it seems that concerns are raised but not always addressed or even occasionally addressed. Yeah. And thats something that we have definitely heard a lot about during the outreach and when we speak to folks about those issues. As far as my understanding goes, a lot of these changes, the permanent stops, a lot of that was sort of decided really early on in the project, again, the Environmental Impact study being one of the stages in which these were decided. And i think that at this point, as far as i understand, its not really possible to change the permanent stops that are now being sort of planned for and will be under construction fairly soon. And so that is a concern that i will definitely continue to take back to my team. And any accommodations that we can make now during the construction process to make it a bit easier on the neighbors and folks using those stops, well sort of look at things to see if theres any way that we can make it sort of more amenable. But as far as i understand, there was outreach during the Environmental Impact study. And one of the main things that came out of that, or i guess the reason for the changes, the bus stop the permanent bus stops, was that the biggest concern was that efficiency and was making sure that the bus stops were ensuring Transit Service was moving quickly and efficiently through the corridor. But i definitely hear that concern. And its something that i can continue to bring back to my team. And if there are ways that we can help mitigate that, then im sure that we will continue to look at that. Thank you. And i would like to remind you that the senior population of the city is growing very rapidly. San francisco has the highest percentage of seniors of any big city in the country. And while its gratifying to read about the accommodations made for individuals who are interested in bicycling and bike paths that are being created, thats not an option for people as they get older or for many people as they get older. So, again, the outreach has been commendable, but the results have not been very satisfying. And this is not directed at you. Obviously these decision were made a long time ago, but anything that can be done to revisit those, and i speak for other people on the commission who live along the van ness corridor who probably share my concerns, and im an ablebodied individual who walks six to seven miles a day. So it is a very serious matter. And im sure you are aware of it, but i just wanted you to hear it directly. Thank you so much for that. Any other comments or questions . Martha knutzen. Hi. I should disclose i also sit on the committee that advises the van ness Improvement Project. So commissioners hear know that i got very involved in pedestrian safety, and im always talking about the van ness Improvement Project whenever i can as it relates to senior issues especially and disabled issues. So i actually have a little bit different question because i get a lot of them. And they hear me advocate for those things every month. On Paratransit Program, so its actually a different question, are all of the things that you mention, especially the Shopping Service and van gogh, i didnt know about that, are those all only people who are not available to only people who are not able to take muni . Some of these programs have different qualifications . So for the shop around and van gogh services, we just have an age requirement. You have to be 65 or older or have r. C. C. Discount i. D. , you have to qualify for that or if you are a. D. A. Eligible, you can qualify for those services. You dont have to be an a. D. A. Eligible rider. Those are two great programs. I didnt know about them. And especially in view of the other question about outreach, that would its just very, very helpful to many, many seniors to know about that, especially i live on van ness, its so difficult to shop along van ness because of the bus stops and the changes that are always being made. So im just saying that in particular it would be very helpful for people to know about that. It might be something thats available to people and help them to get around on th