Good morning and welcome to the San Francisco county Transportation Authority meeting for today, november 17th, 2020. Our clerk is ms. Britney milton. Ms. Millton, can you please make any announcements and then call the roll. Clerk yes. I will call the roll and then follow it up with my Public Comment announcement. Commissioner. Supervisor fewer . Supervisor fewer present. Clerk commissioner present. Absent. Commissioner mar . Mar absent. Commissioner peskin. Chair peskin present. Clerk commissioner preston. Supervisor preston present. Clerk commissioner ronen. Supervisor ronen present. Clerk commissioner safai. Supervisor safai present. Clerk commissioner stefani. Supervisor stefani present. Clerk commissioner walton . Supervisor walton present. Clerk commissioner yee. Supervisor yee present. Clerk im sorry . Ill now make an announcement oh, thank you. Commissioner haney present. I will now make an announcement about Public Comment. Public comment will be available for each item on the this agenda, via telephone by calling 415 655000 415 6550001, and d entering access code 146 423 1359. Then pound and pound again. To make Public Comment, dial star 3 to be added to the queue to speak. When it is your turn to speak, your line will be unmuted and the operator will advise youre allowed two minutes to speak. When your two minutes are up, well move on to the next caller. Best practices are to speak slowly, clearly and turn down the volumes of any television or radios around you. And that concludes my announcement. Chair peskin thank you, madam clerk. I will proceed to the chairs report. Before i do so, i would like to report that commissioner mar is having some technical difficulties. And if hes not able to get on before the consents agenda, will make a motion to excuse him, until hes able to get on. With that, colleagues and members of the public, i am very happy to report and we all know this, in addition to helping elect president elect biden and my kindergarten through 4th grade colleague, Vice President elect kamala harris, San Francisco voters look very favorably on transportation funding measures on november 3rd, two weeks ago. Locally we approved prop a the health and homelessness streets and parks bond. The general Obligation Bond included 41. 5 million to repave and reconstruct roads, rehabilitation and make seismic improvements to structures and plazas. There are funds for rebuilding parks and spaces throughout the city, including in one of the three original parks, portsmouth square, safe Pedestrian Access improvements throughout the city and county. So thank you so much to my colleagues and the mayor, who put this on the ballot. And particular thanks to the voters of San Francisco, who overwhelmingly adopted this. And regionally voters, not only in San Francisco, but in all three caltrain district counties, santa clara and san mateo and this county passed measure r. R. By over twothirds approval, pursuant to senate bill 797 by senator jerry hill, which exceeded threshold. And hats off to our colleague supervisor and joint powers board rep Shamann Walton and his colleague david pine and i rarely say things like this, who showed true leadership. The sales tax will provide not only a lifeline to this regional railroad, that connects gilroy all the way to San Francisco, through san jose and san mateo county, which has been struggling like all transit properties with extreme revenue losses, because of ridership levels during the pandemic, but the funds will offset our own obligations in the amount of some 15 million ad year to provide operating support, which will be a shot in the arm from muni. Finally the fund funds will proa way to build towards caltrains future as an electrified service. We look forward to hearing about that project later on todays agenda with mr. Fungy. And again thank you to everybody who made this happen and particularly the voters of the three counties. And finally id like to thank many of you. I was not able to attend. I got tickets to the freida exhibit at the dejung. I want to thank commissioners yee, mandelman who observed world day of remember phones for he Remembrance Day here at city hall. It was attended tragically by families from throughout the bay area and beyond, as well as other city officials from the sfmta and the Mayors Office on this sad anniversary, where we remember those who died on our streets, 187 folks, not to mention folks who have been terribly injured in their lives, altered forever, that have passed away since 2014. This year alone, i mean, even during the pandemic, weve lost 21 lives and thats 21 lives too many for what is truly a preventable tragedy. And with that i really want to thank our vision zero chair, outgoing supervisor and president of the board, supervisors noreesupervisor t recommits us to our vision zero goals. Last week as we all know, the board unanimously passed his resolutions recommitting us and urging the sfmta to develop a plan to lower speed limits, among other necessary changes to our streets. We remain a Strong Partner in this effort and will carry on after supervisor yee retires in early january. And with that, colleagues, i conclude my remarks. Thank you. Madam clerk, is there any Public Comment on the chairs report . Commissioner walton. Supervisor walton i did want to echo the happiness for the passage of measure r. R. , not only want to thank you and supervisor haney but the entire board of supervisors. As you remember, we were going through a tumultuous time to get to the point where we could get the caltrain measure on the ballot. Obviously during this pandemic we didnt get our typical resources during the month of august. We were given a week off to regroup and recharge with families. If you recall, we brought this body back to meetings during that one week where we had an opportunity to be off. Everybody came together, came together quickly, so we could get the measure on the ballot. I want to thank you for ray tending those emergency meetings, that had to take place for us to get measure r. R. On the ballot. And i do want to also extend a big thank you to director chang, because she was wonderful and brilliant throughout the entire process. So i want to make sure that she knows and understands shes appreciated. Thank you, chair peskin. Chair peskin thank you for the comments, commissioner walton. Is there any Public Comment on the chairs report . Clerk there is Public Comment. Chair peskin first speaker, please. Hello, caller. Chair peskin good morning. Clerk your two minutes will begin now. Once the two minutes begins, ill give you a 20second warning. Two minutes now. Good morning, supervisors. Roland lebrun, san jose. Id like to echo supervisor waltons comments and thank the board for coming back from recess to put the measure on the ballot. The reason im addressing you is that, as you know, even though the measure passed, it did not meet the required twothirds in Santa Clara County. And Santa Clara County at the end of the day is going to be more than 60 of the measure r. R. There are many reasons for this government. From all three counties about the governments issues and people are seeing what to do. And thank god it passed. But the real issue in Santa Clara County is that half of the county doesnt get Caltrain Service. And moving forward, i hope that San Francisco will support us with the extension and Start Building a fullblown highspeed line between San Francisco and gilroy. Because weve got massive ridership from three counties. Theyre giving us tremendous grief in terms of Traffic Congestion on highway 101 and that the extension is really going to help us relieve the situation. Thank you so much. Chair peskin thank you, mr. Lebrun. Are there any other members of the public . Clerk yes, there is one more caller. Hello, caller, your two minutes begins now. Thank you, chair aaron peskin. Alita dupree for the record. My pronouns are she and her. Good report. Lots of good things and changes. Thank you for mentioning the importance of traffic safety. Its near and dear to me because i dont have a car. I use bikes, scooters, walk. I dont have the protection of 2,000 3, thousand pounds of metal around me. So i think this vision zero work has to continue. We should be able to feel safe on our streets. Obviously with the Traffic Enforcement and being vigilant about the behavior of everybody on the roads, whether theyre in a vehicle or not. I adhere to the walk dont walk sign and like to do my part. Measure r. R. Is passed so thank you for being one of those bodies that passed it. A consistent source of funding. Its essential to keep it running and not go every year to ask for money. Now it will come through the one cent sales tax. So lets finance to go after money, especially as i look forward to the changing of the guard in washington. Thank you. Clerk thank you, caller. Chair peskin thank you. Clerk there are no more callers. Chair peskin okay. Public comment on chairs report is closed. We will go to the executive directors report. Ms. Chang. Thank you so much, chair peskin. And good morning, commissioners. I appreciate the kind words on r. R. And congratulate all of you and again thank the voters, as well as our leadership here at the t. A. On caltrain and then the r. T. A. Board as a whole. We are very delighted that there will hopefully be more funds blowing, not only to caltrain, but also to alleviate the operating support that m. T. A. Provides each year. An additional benefit to muni at a time when its very much needed, as far as our operating budgets locally. Staying with the regional theme, at m. T. C. , were pleased to report that the Commission Staff is recommending revised telecommuting strategy for the bay area. As youll recall last month, the board approved commissioner ronens resolution, opposing originally drafted strategy, that required 60 workfromhome mandate. The strategy would have had negative ramifications, of course, on our downtown and commercial businesses, Public Transit and lowincome communities. Were pleased with the new revised policy, focuses appropriately we believe on 60 sustainable trip goal and trying to reduce drivealone rates. That can be met through multiple methods, by employers. So again this is consistent with the resolution passed and we thank commissioner ronen for her leadership on this and other topics. As far as additional regional opeds. Many transit operators are struggling, as we all know. I want to acknowledge as agencies near the fiscal cliff, were seeing drastic measures being taken across the region. We really do need congress to come together with the administration, the coming administration, on additional federal relief cares act funding or other funding for local governments and transit. The golden gate Transit District made the difficult decision to lay off 200 employees. They were faced with many difficult options and did go with that this week. Were already seeing the impacts to our bay area communities. We still support and track the Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task force which is examining how the regions transit systems will be restructured, reimagined and supported as far as essential workers and the trips that are being made right now in light of all of the different Budget Constraints we face. There is some good news amidst this other challenge. The California Transportation Commission continues to collect and disperse the gas tax funds. The most recent announcement came this week, regarding the solution toes for congested corridors program. And on the congested corridors program, were pleased to announce that bart is being recommended to receive a 60 million grant for the Core Capacity Program to modernize travel in the transbay throughout the system, vehicles, storage facilities, train control and this project, of course, has won other competitive grants as well. Its a very, very beneficial project and were really delighted to see that. In addition, the local Partnership Program also saw a grant announcement for the Mission Geneva transit and safety project. So were very, very happy to report that thanks to commissioner safais leadership, who has chaired this project from the beginning, theres an 8. 7 million grant being recommended for the local Partnership Program for that project. It is metropolitan to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety, as well as transit reliability at the very busy intersections and it includes traffic signals, sidewalk extensions, bus improvement, street improvements, commercial loading zone and other curb improvements. Construction is now expected to begin in early 2022. Just 8. 7 million of state money will be matched with local funds, including our own prop k funds, as well as city funds, and sfmta funds. So congratulations to all of the project sponsors in that round. The other update i might have is on a few local studies. Our mtip studies in districts 4, 5 and 10. In district 4, this is an update on the mobility study that was recorded by commissioner mar. We continue to work on solutions and present them to the public. In fact, there will be a town hall on saturday this saturday the 21st from 10 00 until 11 30 hosted by commissioner mar with our staff to discuss the future of the great highway. And there are many different factors to consider. Of course, not only active transportation, but the concerns about traffic impacts to the local street network, as well as how we might be able to mitigate those and what are some of the options going forward, beyond the immediate period during shelterinplace. So please join us for that town hall. And for more information, visit our website at sfcta. Org mobility. In district 5, we held a town hall meeting with commissioner preston to hear from the community about their experience traveling along and through the arcadia boulevard area. We had about two dozen participants and got valuable feedback on potential solutions. We are also pleased that we could hear from and meet with the market and octavia c. A. C. Last night. And so we are gathering input from the public through Online Survey at sfcta. Org octavia. And our goals here are certainly to ensure pedestrian and bicyclist safety, for all users and as well as to try to reduce the Traffic Congestion that was heavy during precovid and really has come back, almost essentially precovid levels of traffic in that area, since it is such a complex set of movements and high demand, even during the pandemic. So thank you for that. And then on district 10, were pleased that with the 15 tthird bus route study that commissioner walton had requested. Were out in the public with a survey with sfmta to gather input on which of the different bus route options for the 15 3rd bus service that the public prefers. Theres been outreach, particularly to Visitacion Valley neighborhood. The survey is up through the next few weeks. We do plan to bring the report to you all for approval in december. Turning to the prop aa program. I just want to congratulate our team and this body on ten years of the prop aa program. This is a vehicle registration fee. Ten years ago San Francisco voters approved the 10pervehicle fee on vehicles registered in San Francisco. The Program Brings in about 5 million per year to Fund Transportation improvements, such as road resurfacing, pedestrian safety, and transit reliability. With this first generation of projects, were seeing more and more benefits in these areas were really showing the voters what the benefits of these tax dollars are in real ways. Some of the Program Highlights include transit and pedestrian connections in the hunters view, affordable housing, the revitalized 24th street bart station plaza, the bike lanes and sidewalks and the presidio. And reimagined through mcclareen park. In the end of my report in the attachments, a full list of projects that have been funded and that are ongoing with prop aa funds. Next to last, i just want to mention that we have a 1 million grant that we do hope will be approved by the m. T. C. The staff has recommended this from the prairie Conservation Area program for the bicycle and pedestrian path, connecting to the pathway atop of y. B. I. And over Hillcrest Road and down through the west side bridges to the Treasure Island area. Were very appreciative of m. T. C. For the support and look forward to partnering on the construction phase, as we also prepare for our west side bridges project. It will be a fantastic, spectacular, local and regional improvement to the active transportation network. Finally, i do have to mention it was in the news and youve heard it perhaps in the news that the central subway has extended its schedule and unfortunately there has been some delays associated with that construction effort, particularly due to pandemic and covidrelated illnesses and social distancing requirements. So we believe that the central subway now is expected to be completed in spring of 2022. And that would be for Revenue Serv