Against each of them. In quick summary, our Human Resources director, kimberly acreman, has been leading that effort, along with donte king, and virginia harmon. They have been busy creating some standards that did not exist, about treating all employees fairly. It includes written recruitment policies that make the process more transparent. Integrating diversity into all of our h. R. Initiatives. Providing better training opportunities to managers and supervisors, as well as frontline employees, in partnership with the department of Human Resources. Reviving the e. O. Process to make it more easily understandable, and improving communication and transparency throughout. We are also, as you saw last week in our budget exercise, we have a significant ask around creating a new division for race and equity within the department, as well as a significant ask of increasing staffing at the department of resources in order to meet all of these goals. I believi think were making god progress, and the pace of that progress should step up as h. R. Becomes more fully staffed. So well be continuing to update you at board meetings throwlt throughout the year. In the meantime, were also working on cultural change work, including doing a better job of tracking specific outcomes around discipline, employer pathway progress, by race and gender. I have been meeting personally with our black and africanamerican affinity group, as well as the change fmta group that was organized around womens issues and masogony in the department, from previous administrations. And engaging all of those groups in really productive conversations. As you know, were creating a new office on race, equity, and inclusion. And donte king has been leading the development and implementation of classes throughout the organization at all levels and all divisions, around understanding and addressing the ins institutional and systemic issues. If you could bring up the slides, moving on to the next topic, were very excited about this as well, which is bus acceptance. This picture on a very truly foggy, wonderful day from last week, is the last of the rubber tire fleet replacement program, enabling us to retire our least reliable vehicles, and offer new vehicles that have a huge number of benefits, including extending the miles driven between failure from 3,000 miles per failure to over 10,000 miles per failure, and this is resulting in significant reliability improvements on the bus side. That is being complemented by, as you know, increasing the number of operators who are actually available to drive the service. Were finally starting to see some significant improvements in reliability on the bus side. And these electric trolley buses are equipped with an electric battery, and they can go off wire for significant distances in order to detour around a special veep event or an incident. And they provide a better ride ergonomically. And it means we have the greenest transit fleet in all of north america. The next photos are from our Market Street. A quick build launch of a better Market Street. Our crews have been working so hard to deliver this. They have been out there at all hours, and despite the Rainy Weather that slowed things down, it has been a tremendous success. This includes so many different divisions that have been working on this both within our agency, at the police department, at p. U. C. , at public works. And were starting to get the data now on performance. We knew that there was a lot of excitement last week, and so we didnt want to count what was happening last week in our performance data. And its a little too soon, i think, to reveal some of the numbers because we want to make sure things settle out. But what were seeing is at least a 20 increase in bike ridership on some very cold late january and early february days. Were seeing measurable improvement in transit travel in speed and reliability. One thing that is am moving tamusing to me is the rider savings greater than the actual savings because of the ways in which we perceive time. But our riders persceptions drive it. So we care about the data, as well as the quanti fiablquantifiable data. Welcome to the year of the rats. One of the biggest events in franchise is the chinese new years parade, which this year is february 8th. The sfmta has been a part of these parades for a very long time. Our staff and their families will be riding a dedecorated motorized car. And this is my first time being a judge, and im very, very excited. And im going to need some help practicing my tones in cantonese. Obviously, a huge amount of effort around making the parade successful, routing our buses around it, keeping everyone safe and figuring out how the whole city works. This is a hugely important parade, both for us, as well as for the city as a whole. And finally, id like to close by recognizing two very important africanamerican san franciscans. Marial pleasant and shor Charlotte Brown sued and won the right for all californians to have equal ra righright to public transportation. As san franciscans and as americans, we should know and celebrate their names. My staff has developed a video on their story. If you go to youtube and search transportation is for all. That will come up. And were also partnering with the San FranciscoPublic Library to make sure their biographies are available for anyone interested in their remarkable stories. Thats all i have for you today. Chairman excellent report. Do we have Public Comment cards . Robert shasana and he herbert riner wish to address you. Good afternoon. Happy new year, whatever. I just want to talk briefly about vision zero. I think you are missing completely the point of vision zero. The point is to keep pedestrians separated from the street. And the problem is, you dont enforce any of your own regulations. The amount of cars im sorrsorry the amount of bicycles, skateboards, onewheel whatever they are, electric vehicles going the wrong way, up, down, on the sidewalk. I also have an objection to wheelchairs. And the only way that i can think of making both of us happy is i think all electric wheelchairs should have a noisemaker on them because they silently approach you at twice or three times the speed of pedestrians on narrow pageants, and you pavemeu have to jump out of the way. If you have this idea that electric vehicles are going to have noisemakers, i honestly believe you should have them on electric wheelchairs. [buzzer] the other thing is, all these scooters, they have laws on them about helmets, about not using the sidewalk. And you dont have anybody out there enforcing your own rules. And i would suggest hiring a couple of retired police officers, with the ability to issue fines and summons, and equip them with electric bicycles. Chairman thank you very much. Mr. Riner . Herbert riner. I have some concerns about the culture of m. T. A. Is anything being done to stop bullying at the work sites. Women, ethnic minorities are identified, but there should be protections against being bullied by supervisors, and sometimes by peers. You have to address this because this is a real problem in any city agency, including m. T. A. Secondly, on the whole question of vision zero and safe Market Street, something has to be done about bicyclists who continually go through the red lights we have to be protected against automobiles, but bicyclists have to be monitored too. People all pedestrians have to be protected. Three, about accessibility, that means accessability for everybody. That means that people shouldnt have to walk a quarter of a mile to the bus stop. And that bus stops should be convenient. When you have these muni projects and you eliminate bus stops without any increase of the buses on the run, thats basically a zero minus solution. [buzzer] so these are the things that really have to be addressed by this organization. Thank you. Mr. Chair, those are the only two people who turned in a speaker card. Chairman seeing no further Public Comment, Public Comment is closed. I know director brinkman knows about this study from the m. T. C. As well, with respect to bicycle usage in San Francisco. And what this study showed me was that it was very interesting, that most people that ride bikes are very wealthy, with respect to 100,000 or more in terms of salary. But only 14 of these bike riders are asian. indescernable . Asian. indescernable. indescernable . Are we doing more to encourage those women and latinos and asians to use bicycles more are we doing Educational Programs towards those communities . Yes, absolutely. Social equity is a key point not only for the values of the sfmta, but also in the world of providing protective facilities for people who want to ride bikes or scooters or other forms of mobility. One of the key things we learned is if we want more than just fit, young, white, wealthy men to ride bikes and scooters, the first thing that we need to do is to to provide protected facilities. Particularly the bike lanes, like in the middle stretch of valencia, those are just uber and lyft pickups and dropoffs. There are protected facilities where were seeing an increased diversity of riders. Thats one of the reasons why th they are committed to having the goal is actually for 2021, and were wanting to accelerate that. And that includes completing the protective lanes on howard and fulsom, 7th, 8th, 5th, and portions of the embarcadero, and, more importantly, implementing the communitybased transportation plans, like our remarkable bay view transportation plan, which started not with infrastructure, but started with deep Community Engagement in the bay view, asking local Community Members what are their priority transportation investments in order to meet their specific needs and priorities. So were definitely looking at more culturally appropriate and communitybased design approaches, particularly for the neighborhoods that represent San Franciscos diversity. Chairman all right. A very helpful question and answer. Directors, anything else for director tomlin . Wonderful. That woo an excellent report. Thank you. Youre merging right into your job very well. Thank you for that excellent report. Lets move on. The Citizens Advisory Councils report, i do not see any of the officers present, so no report today. Item nine, Public Comment, it is an piewntopportunity for the members to address the board. Well start with jane natoli, followed by robert chasana. Chairman all right. Welcome. Hello. Let me just pull up my comment here. Good afternoon, directors, my name is gene natoli. On my behalf and several other folks who could not make it here today, i want to start by thanking director tulman. I know youre stepping down, and i wanted to express our thank you for everything you have done for the city. [inaudible] unfortunately, i couldnt ride because i have a broken hand. I suffered this broken hand a few weeks back because i was hit by someone driving while biking in San Francisco again. This is the third time ive been hit in four years. This time it was on north point, in the paintonly bike lane, it was in the middle of the day, and it was bright and clear. It was someone looking to park his car that didnt see me. We continue to see situations like this all over our city. There are victories that we should celebrate that are worthy, our streets are still too unsafe. I implore you not to lose sight of how much work remains. These are peoples lives were talking about. That number needs to start going down for obvious reasons. Even one death is too many. Ive been lucky enough to walk away from my crashes. We still have a lot of work to do. I look forward to continuing to support the citys efforts to make the street safer for our most vulnerable users. [buzzer] but i keep coming back to the same questions who isnt here to speak up. Who will speak up for me the nec next time oom im not so lucky . We need to truly make our streets more safe. There are a lot of exciting opportunities for safe streets, and im hoping youll rise to the moment and be the leader i know you can be. Chairman thank you for your articulate comments, and good luck on that hand. Mr. Chasana, the floor is yours. Wonderful, well consider you taking yourself out of the cue. Okay. Rowan getta. Good afternoon. I would like to echo what was said earlier about director brinkman. It is very sad to hear youll be leaving us, and i thank you for your Longtime Service here at the board. Im sure ime il ill be speaking about bike lanes later. But right now i want to talk about something completely different, and that is the San Francisco oakland bay bridge, which has had bus lanes on it for about two years of its almost centurylong existence. You may have heard there is an effort going on to bring back bus lanes on the bay bridge, and there is a few organizations, the east bay, working with Assembly Member bonta, on an effort there, that has been supported by the bart board and the Alameda CountyTransportation Commission because their governance doesnt make any sense, either. As well as by the City Councils in berkeley and oakland, and maybe emeryville, if i remember correctly. A. C. Transit, obviously, operates Transit Bus Service on the bay bridge. I would like to remind you all that the muni 25 line also operates on the bay bridge, and its unreliability is very much caused by traffic on the bridge in both directions. [buzzer] it can start from the terminal, but it cant start its loop on the island at a predictable time. I would strongly e encourage this board and the m. T. A. To work with these people. Thank you. Chairman anyone else . Public comment . Seeing none, well move on to item 10. Your consent calendar. All items are considered to be routine unless a member of the board wants to have it considered separately. Mr. Chair, no member of the board or the public have indicated an interest in severing any item, chairman wow, this meeting is as efficient as Market Street these days. With that, ill entertain a motion on the consent calendar. Motion to approve. Chairman very well, item 11. It is a presentation and discussion regarding embarcadero traffic safety. Good afternoon, chair heiheinke, my name is casey hilldrith. Im mere t here to give you an update of planning along the embarcadero corridor. Working with our partners, the port of San Francisco, who are the jurisdictional owners which is why you havent seen some of the work ill show you, but weve been working since 2014 on trying to reenvision or understand the challenges along the corridor, as well as reenvision how we can design and program and manage the embarcadero for the next 100 years. I think it is important to point out that it is just the embarcadero, talking about better Market Street, it is one of our key, specific corridors. So before we sort of dive into the problems and challenges and talk about solutions, i did add a couple of slides in this deck to pay respect to the distinctive d. N. A. Of the embarcadero, as well as point out some of the wonderful work our partners, the port, are actually working on, and some of the larger challenges that theyre facing as the owner of the embarcadero. Chairman it is hard to believe that someone once thought that would be a great place for a freeway, isnt it . Youre stealing my thunder a little bit. Chairman sorry. First and foremost, this is an active maritime environment. The embarcadero did not existent. It was water and title flats a couple hundred years ago. So a fun slide that you can see at a museum up in the north end where some of the ships were just they came, they unloaded, and they just didnt go anywhere. They wanted to stay. It has always been a very dynamic waterfront and has been competition for space. But only in the turn of the 20th century did we really start to see the outline of the waterfront that we sort of recognize today. Right . So the sea wall was built over several years. Land was brought in to fill in those title flats. And we have, you know we expanded our downtown and sort of begin to have the waterfront that we can recognize today. Certainly the embarcadero itself was still wildwest, did not look like what we have. But you did see ferries, and the real key aspects of the d. N. A. Of the embarcadero and how people get around. Those only strengthened over the years. But we also saw the introduction of the automobile, so this is a slide from the late 20s, really showing the changes over the years that took place right in front of our sort of front door to the bay. Within a couple of decades, yes, we had really manifested a different set of values along the waterfront, choosing mobility and through foot over our civic identity, and certainly any sort of sustainability. But this freeway still lives in the d. N. A. Of the embarcadero, so we have to understand what it did serve and how we can pay respect or mitigate and respond in new ways to challenges. So save for all of the bad things that happened, loma paraddo parado was a godsend. We have dedicated transit lanes, we have bike lanes, and we have a shareduse promenade on the water side. That is now a sidewalk, and people can ride their bike. As long as you do not have an electronic motor, youre welcomed on the promenade. This was the state of the practice 20, 30 years ago, but we now have many new challenges and demands on our street, and with the introduction of so many more pedestrians, this design, while wonderful, does have challenges and we need to think ahead to the future. But it still remains, you know, there are just moments of beauty and serenity on the embarcadero, despite its dinoism. We throw out one comment that the port likes to mention, they see about 24 million visitors a year, tourists, commuters, residents, it really is a waterfront for everybody. And that popularity translated, fortunately for the port, into a wonderful down payment, public funding, to support making sure that this waterfront is going to be resilient for the next 100 years and beyond. So the recent bond that was passed is really a down payment on how the port can begin to plan and implement safety upgrades so it is not exposed to high risk