Transcripts For SFGTV SFMTA Board Of Directors 20240712 : vi

SFGTV SFMTA Board Of Directors July 12, 2024

Into the fare or Something Like that . And unfortunately, this is not a questionandanswer session, and i know this is being studied, so nothing has been determined yet. Okay. Well, i would like to advocate for taxis to, like, maybe, like, exempt from the congestion pricing so we can get our passengers where we need to go to from the financial, and thank you very much. Have a good afternoon. Thank you very much. Next caller, please. Operator you have one question remaining. Hi, its Hayden Miller calling in. I just wanted to support the motion in regards to surface l. R. V. Operation. I think that would be great to free up buses, as well as opening up the [inaudible] Creek Division on the weekends. Im seeing some of those buses out, which is great. Just getting the l. R. V. s out, it would be great and safer for passengers, and we can have more buses. Overall, its a great idea. Thank you. Thank you. Moderator, are there any additional callers . Operator you have zero questions remaining. So with that, we will close this item. Clerk thank you, madam clerk. Item 16. This is an opportunity for the members of the public to address the board on matters that are within the jurisdiction on the m. T. A. Board of directors but not on todays calendar. And i just want to remind the public this is things that are not on the calendar later. This is not a questionandanswer question, so we are not able to answer your questions, but we will have people follow up to you, or your answers rite be revealed through might be revealed through conversation. Moderator, are there calls this may or may not be the last opportunity. I just wanted to have that there for all of you and anyone whos listening. Thanks very much. Thank you, mr. Pillpow. Next speaker, please. Operator you have five questions remaining. Hello, this is Hayden Miller. Theres been some confusion on the slow streets webpage. It directs people, if theyve seen some direction on signage, it directs them to twitter. However, when theyve been doing that, m. T. A. Directs them to call 311, which is sending them in circles basically. It would be better just directing them to 311 if thats the point of contact. The second is in regards to bus shelters through Clear Channel. The maintenance has been going downhill. The bus shelters have been dirty. Broken glass, everything. Theyre not very durably built, so theres no reason why the city should be giving Clear Channel a discount when theyre not performing the service. Thank you. Are there any speakers on the line . Operator you have four speakers remaining. Yes. This is barry toronto again. I want to ask that you pull the calendar item 17. 4 related to taxis, so we can have a separate public presentation and separate Public Comment. Second, i know this is going to sound like a broken record, give a shoutout to philip kana, for the cutouts. Drivers are reporting getting fares from that location. I have myself. The problem is the one by walgreens is constantly occupied by private cars. Id ask you to step up enforcement for a while until cars get the message they cannot park there. The signage is up, the curb is painted, but were having a problem with enforcement. The second topic is related to the issue of the essential ride home program. We either expand it or promote it more. Later at night, it would be great if we had essential workers and also city staff, that there are programs for them to take taxis. So were not seeing enough of that business, so please promote that. The next issue is regarding, all of a sudden, the m. T. A. Taxi division decided to enforce some rules that were not enforce for a number of years, and its a problem, and its during this pandemic period. Certainly things need to be given more leeway. The driver requirement letter, we send you a letter from the San Francisco taxi workers alliance. We appreciate you reading that again, and the use of an acard, especially if they have a medical exemption. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Toronto. Next speaker, please. Operator you have three questions remaining. Good afternoon, sfmta board of directors. My name is kenyon lee. I joined in in the middle of the item 12, and i think that item 12 means that you guys have read that kamala cooley received. I say thank you, and i hope that staff can get a solution for that brought up. Thank you, everyone, for everything that youre doing. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Operator you have two questions remaining. Next speaker. Hello, board of directors. This is benjamin harris, board of taxis. I think diligent efforts helping to arrange that stand, we should put a little sign there, and it should be called the barry toronto taxi zone. Lastly, i do want to mention that comment about the essential worker ride program. A lot of these workers dont seem to know about it, and the essential rider 65 and older. I pick them up from the Grocery Stores, and i say, do you know that you can get a discounted ride frto and from the Grocery Store . They say oh, im 83. My taxi is safe. I sanitize between every rider, so its safer than trying to ride the muni bus. I know youre doing what you can, and its tough times for all of us. Have a great afternoon. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Operator you have one question remaining. Next speaker. Good evening, Board Members. My name is safana manayon. Im calling to report the black and African American employee lines letter sent on september 28. We request that the six actions in the letter be taken, and we ask that the Senior Management and director discuss how they plan to address these. Thank you. Thank you. Moderator, is there any further public speakers . Operator you have zero public speakers. Clerk for members of the public who wish to address the board on any of the public consent items, i will read all the items, and then, the chair will open the phone line for comment on any or all of the public items. Please be reminded if you are on the at t phone call, you need to press zero, one one, zero, in order to be added to the queue to address the board on any calendar consent matter. This is the jason kurt matter on july 15 for 50,000. Item 17. 2, various traffic matters. I will not read them individually. 17. 4, approve the reprogramming of the remaining balance in the taxi fund to implement a Marketing Campaign to support the taxi industry. And may i remind everyone since we are doing things a little differently, you can comment on any of the items. Were not doing the pulling thing separately, unless the Board Members indicate you want to vote on an item separately, so if you, at some point, decide you want to vote on an item separately, let us know, and well open it up to Public Comment. Operator you have one question remaining. Great. Moderator or speaker . Hello, speaker . Hello . Do we have a commenter there . Operator you have one question remaining. Okay. Commenter . Yes. This is barry toronto. Are you going to pull 17. 4 from the consent calendar so i can address it later . Sir, what were doing is commenting on all the public items right now. Okay. Ive got to talk fast. Loomis and oak dale, they want to put a traffic light there. Six hours a day, including on sunday, the traffic counts are low. Thats ridiculous to put a traffic signal there. Its right by the cab companies. We use it all the time. At least have it timed for the left turn going from bayshore to oakdale there so its timed for green or maybe during the off hours, its flashing red. Its ridiculous to have a traffic light there. Regarding the markieting plan,i am in support of the remaining money going to a marketing plan, but it needs to be held out until we see the outcome of proposition 22. Vote no on proposition 22, otherwise, we want to make sure that the town haul that they would hold has enough publicity and enough lead time so that everybody can participate and maybe even have two sessions two or three sessions to allow drivers to give their input on this important issue for our industry. But finally, better late than never on this. So i appreciate that they want to do this, but we need to make sure theres enough feedback, and the board needs to make sure that the sfmta allows us, and the tools, to be able to do that. So through the various methods. So i appreciate taking this up. The only thing is is that theres a different pieces of opinion or differences of opinion of how this would take shape. Whether it would be to recruit more drivers or to convince the community to take taxis and why we would be preferable to the competition. And in close about that, it would be great, as a friend of mine talked about it. The marketing plan should relate to different demographics. We should one direction toward younger people, and one towards the seniors skb disabled. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Toronto. Are there any other Public Commenters on any of the items on our consent calendar . Operator you have one questions remaining. Next speaker, please. Hello. This is Hayden Miller. Wanted to call in about the traffic modifications, particularly on kezar. Its funny how we get something immediately when a bus gets hit, but when a biker is killed, the m. T. A. Takes no action. I biked down there today, and even the seven drivers are not giving me enough space to get down there safely. Weve got to eliminate parking on one side where there is no housing. Just eliminate that, make it a twolane cycle track, and it would be perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any additional Public Commenters . Operator you have zero questions remaining. Okay. So before we go into questions, i know a couple of Board Members want to talk about item 17. 3. I guess the question is, do we want to sever it out from the vote for all of the items or you just want to have a conversation about them . I guess well start with director lai. Thank you. Is staff available to answer questions . Hi. So could staff explain a little bit about the considerations for learning hubs and what options or support can we provide to them in terms of residential parking . As i understand it, learning hubs are essentially functioning in place of schools and in person, basically, for the duration of the pandemic. Im a little i think its also telling in the comments that weve received or the support letters on this request are basically just from private institutions or preschools, which makes sense, because right now, sfusd is not operational, at least for inperson instruction. So although i dont have an issue with supporting providing permits additional permits for schools, it does beg the question for me as to why were not also expanding that support to the learning hubs, which are taking on a lot of the function that that schools would have otherwise during the specific pandemic emergency. Thanks. Mr. Olsen or mr. Mcguire . I dont know whos going to answer, but maybe you should introduce yourself, mr. Wilson, if youre answering. Im hank wilson, and i lead the curb Management Program at the sfmta. Thank you, director lai, for the question. Its a great question, and the answer is theres certain groups that are specifically enumerated in the transportation code that have access to residential parking permits, and education institutions are one of them, and theres a specific definition of Educational Institutions, and the learning hubs dont fit that. The Educational Institution permit is all about a physical School Building that has fronted you know, curb frontage, and thats how we measure how much permits they get, is the curb frontages. So thats why were amending the transportation code to allow for emergency sort of extra permits for teachers. The learning hubs are hopefully a very temporary situation so that when were not in shelter in place anymore and when schools can open back up, they can go away. It didnt seem right to include transportation hubs into the learning code, and adding everyone into the residential parking permits is a larger policy conversation that were certainly happy to have and happy to come back to this board at the appropriate time to discuss in more detail, but learning hubs are just one sort of very worthy group of people out there as to why they could make a residential parking permit argument, and this sticks with the other parking groups that have already been enumerated. [please stand by]. I understand the Financial Institution incorporates private and preschool which i am super glad you are in this case to support a very unusual situation. I want to highlight and thank all the learning hubs made up of mostly communitybased organizations and other city departments who have stepped up and to go outside the norms and play the role of supportive educator. That is also conventional for them, right . We want to make sure that we are responding to the communitys needs. So if you can go back to my question, sorry, my request about explaining what options they have or what we have. Thank you for clarifying. I dont want the learning hubs to go away. I want the pandemic to go away and the learning hubs to be necessary. And to your point about we need a nimble solution to something that has been put together really quickly to as a covid response. Changing the transportation code is not one of the more Nimble Solutions that we have. And so we do have an Emergency Operations center and a good place that is a group that could be thinking about what is a nimble solution to help support these learning hubs. And so that is the ccc has its own organizational and command structure. And i will definitely take your concerns and the concerns of the District Three Office and others who have talked about the need for some help for learning hubs to them. In fact, we have already forwarded that over and got them thinking about it. So thats again, i am certainly also happy to have the discussion about adding learning hubs or other sort of deserving nonprofits and into the rpp section of the transportation code. But thats that would be at least a slightly longer process and come up with the rules around that. And we have to make sure that they will consult to bring to the board for consideration which takes time in and of itself. Awe thank you. I appreciate that clarification. It sounds like from what staff is saying if i can restate it that it would not be easily doable or possible today to amend the language live and to incorporate it and it wires more thought and planning around incorporating learning hubs as part of the transportation code. There is this option of going through the emergency center, Operation Center i forgot the new name already. And i believe you also mentioned to me that it is possible for the school of institutions to transfer the permits to the learning hubs. Can you explain that a little bit and what that would be like . I think theres one example of that that i am aware of at mission high. Where mission high has permits for teachers and they also have i think an Afterschool Program that runs out of mission high. And the principal and i cant remember exactly. This came up a couple of years ago and i cant remember the details specifically, but i think it was whoever is at mission high who sort of deciding who gets those permits, decided that a few of the permits should go to folks who were part of the after School Program at mission high school. So its a slightly different situation than what we have here where the learning hubs i think in some cases are in School Buildings and in some cases are in community centers, or other place where is they wouldnt fall under a definition of an Educational Institution. Depending on where they are located they may fit into that and it wasnt designed to awarding permits to things that have been put together quickly and not necessarily designed to last more than several months. Looking at the definition now is something that i am willing to take a look at and come back with more information on. Awe thank you, chair. No more questions. Director eaken. Thank you very much. I wanted to ask a question about the extra permits that we would be authorizing the director to issue. It seems like there is a very clear sort of guidance about between three and 20 permits per school, and then sort of some very specific requirements around curb space. And then additional two or three permits. I couldnt find in the staff report any upper bound of a number of additional permits that we would be authorizing the director to approve. And because our p. T. Program is intentionally crafted to manage limited space for valuable resource, i want to fully understand the implications of what we are doing here. In theory you could go ahead and multiply by 10 based on what we are authorizing today the number of permits granted to any school. I dont see an upper limit. I wanted to hear staffs thinking on what were actually authorizing and whether thats considered in the context of the rpp program and whether this board feels comfortable giving sort of limitless direction to the director to authorize the number of permits. Thank you for answering my question. Thank you, director eaken. This is hank wilson from mta again. And you are right that theres not an upper bound. There is not a limit. I will say that weve gotten a lot of requests from schools that are planning to open, and they range between two and seven extra permits requested. And for a reminder for folks who dont know, the general limit is 15 per school, though they can schools can apply for an additional five under certain circumstances. You can get up to 20. So if that gives you perspective for how two to seven permits would compare to 15 or 20. I dont think that its going i think given that this is very clearly an emergency measure and only applies when there is an emergency declared and they go away once the emergency is over. And there is still there will still be opportunity for staff to interact with schools who are making the request to make sure that theyre requesting for only what t

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