Transcripts For SFGTV 20130602

graph of where we see the population and job growth and i know that we are talking about just the funding the existing need and how we are not even there yet and looking at this map and we are looking at south of market and mission bay. >> all the way down to the bay view, the natural question is what are we thinking about in terms of rethinking even the lines to be able to absorb new residents and new employees. because the way that you know, muni has traditionally worked, east, west, west, east, thinking that you are coming at some point west, headed towards downtown to go to work. of course we have more north south and in terms of thinking of how we improve the quality of the system. yeah that is a great question and it is true, and first i would say that i don't think that we have a choice between do we just fix the existing system or just expand the system to accommodate growing? we really need to do both if we are going to achieve the city's transportation environmental and quality of life goals, in terms of the developmentals there are a few different answers, the big kind of stand alone developments like the mission bay and hunter's point and treasure island. and we are really able to do the land use and the transportation planning and do it almost from scratch and incorporate from the agreement, the transportation infrainstruct stur that we will need and for those areas, really is part of how they are being developed and the transportation structure that will work closely with the planning development and the economic workforce development and the other city partners former redevelopment to do. that is where we need to fill in the gaps, we are using the three developments that are happening in your district soon. and the lawyers and slot a and pier 70 and doing the assessment of the transportation needs of the three together and doing that in a way that contemplates the existing growth in the south of market. including that which is envisioned by the transit city district plans and some of the other plans that have been done to try to take a come plea henive look at the lines and to increase the frequency lines and what we need and other changes that we might need to make and also we are doing kind of a long range exercise kind of inspired by the work that your agency that the transportation authority is doing to develop the next county wide transportation plan and one of the things that they are asking through that process and where do we need the capacity in the system. and what we are doing, in part to answer that question and even a longer range view of where is the system under strain now and where is the growth happen and what are the travel patterns are changing and it is not just a radio system and not just a east, west, system and therefore, what investments in the transit system, we need to make, and i presented a very, preliminary version of that to my board a couple of weeks ago just to start the folks of where the big investments will be needed to accommodate that growth. so at a few different levels we are trying to think about that. and sometimes it is hard to do long range planning when you are trying to get 114 drain out the door but it is something that we absolutely have to do. in just one other suggestion is living in soma now i realized that south of market holds a lot of kind of end of the line routes. and actually really interesting and they can be useful once you figure out how to understand the system because it is not as simple as it goes down the street they kind of do a lot of circular routes, but i think that that confusion makes it difficult for the people to ride the rides and i think that it is actually a line that would be more heavily used on fulsom given that there is a higher growth of residents along those corridors but the lines that are confusing but there are not a lot of people on it and i think that there should be a lot more. so part of question for me is how can we educate these folks on these lines. part of the problem is that it does not come for 27 minutes and that is the whole different set of issues. but then one of the issues why we don't put the people on the lines is that you don't know how to use them >> that makes sense, the simplicity of the lines i also find it confusing. >> so one of them here is saying that the terms that we are doing, that i didn't mention is what is in the transit effectiveness project which is under going environmental review and i think that we will have a draft eir out this summer and one of the things that we are looking at is alignment of routes and we are looking at what the transit planners called the legbility of the existing routes, which i think that you are referring to is have, i believe, the specific recommendations for the ten and the 12, and a proposal for a new line which tentatively could be eleven. and that would particularly focus on the south of market, area, where we or the transit system has not kept up with the growth of what happened already let alone what the transit center is calling for and the central corridor might call for and the eastern neighborhoods and the western and there is a lot of planning and that is what happened. and so we are trying to at least in it for the near term, trying to use the tep, to try to pull some of those gaps as the long term vision of those plans evolve. >> and that is a great thing that is barely the fastest growth and when we can't look for the long term to make those changes. >> thank you. >> so, the economic impacts of transportation and i guess ta we have kind of focused in the negative but when the transportation is not good, it impacts the quality of residents, that can impact the labor pool for the businesses which has these kind of costs, and one of the imp itus. we are going to take a brief recess, you can keep talking, he needs to get some water. for about 30 seconds. >> now we are unrecessed. i am going to ask for the controller's office to come up and speak to the numbers because one of the specific requests that came with this call for a hearing was to try to start quantifying what the impact of the muni delays are to the san francisco economy. thank you and we welcome and thank you for coming in and pitching for ted our economist who did a lot of work but was not able to be here today. go ahead. >> sure. so ted, was the analyst on this, ways not involved. but i will talk a little bit about the numbers and ask the questions to the best of my knowledge, we looked at muni data and we found that there were 86,000 customer hours lost in the peak hour delays due to maintenance and other reasons like break-downs, and we have been in use publicly available data to get commute times and we are able to use that with the muni data to back out that this was, this dead to the delays led to the increased time for the san francisco residents by about 1.5 percent and we looked at the impact of this, you know, the higher and the delays lead to higher cost or the competitiveness as it was talking about transportation, quality transportation that effects the region's desirability as a place to live and work and so we think that these delays increased labor cost and decreased the home values so we are estimating an economic loss of 4.2 million for the delays in april. and just that one month and annualized that is about $50 million. i should add this these are con sefbive because we are looking at peak hours and specific types of muni delay reasons. we also did not do the extended analysis on how this might effect the businesss that have customers that need the transportation access. and to go to the stores. and so if we wanted to do a full impact and we would probably need to do a more thorough analysis. >> okay, thank you. and i know that the controller's office is actually going to be getting some new software that will allow for deeper economic analysis? >> right, we used the macro model remi, the regional model for san francisco, and we have recently we went to the add on that is transportation related specifically. now, i just this is an interesting subject i think that a lot of people, when there is, a problem in the system and the delays and people think, this is having a... you know an economic productivity impact and so this is as far as i know the first time that we have done this analysis and i think that it is a good start. and i agree with you, that it is conservative, which i think that probably makes sense for when you are starting out to take it step by step and just to reiterate this, this is a subset of muni related delays, and it is only peak hours during the week. and it is limited to specific events, break-downs, and very discreet main nens or vehicles of kinds of failures or you know that someone has a medical or an event or something that delays the system, is that right? >> right. >> and also the maintenance reasons. >> so there are, of course, other issues and i will give you two examples from last week. but, i don't think that there is any way related to a break down or a maintenance issue. there was one day last week when i commuted from castro station and there were, because i checked that there were, and it was not apparently caused by any break-down or maintenance problem, but there was approximately 15-minute gap in service where there was no vehicles and missed runs and some other issues that should have combined, and led to no train service for approximately 15 minutes and then the next day, and we charitablely can call it a bunching and i took a photo of it and if you want to put it on the overhead and there were about ten vehicles in a row. and for me and my constituents to go to the stop from castro and to vaness and now the two, back-to-back days with the problems and to my knowledge, neither one was caused by a break down or a specific incident it was just wait that the cookies crumbled and the system that day and there really were there was no different had there been a break down and as i understand it, those kind of incidents or happenings would not have been captured in the economic analysis. >> that is correct. >> i know that it is hard tore capture because of the specific log reports of those kinds, of things and just for the benefit of the public and $50 million annual estimate is quite conservative but i think that it is a solid start. >> great. >> thank you very much, i appreciate it. >> mr. riskin? >> so i think that the conversation to begs the question that what do we take from this, i think that going from the next slide and i think that one of your main points is that reducing the transit delays will create the economic benefit for the city and over the converse of the last slide and what i would add is tra transit performance more generally can create additional benefit and eliminating the delays would have benefits that improving the performance beyond and it would have additional benefits and in other city transportation and structure and the benefits that exceed their cost. and that may be more or less true for the different types of investments and this kind of analysis can help us determine what return on the investment might be from the different kinds of investments, i guess that along those lines i wanted to look at this from a different perspective. right now, the city as a whole, let's say, conservatively is paying, $50 million for these delays, what i thought might be interesting and ininstructive to think of it differently if we could take that $50 million and invest them in the system and what we would be able to do. and hear some of the examples. and what we might be able to do. and and we took that $50 million, and goes out to the cost of delay and from delay and able and some samples that we could the buses each year and rehab 17 on buses and increase lead towards the numbers and improve the reliability and improve the on time performance. and it could improve the frequency of the buses and we would eliminate the gaps. and so i think that making the connection between the transportation system and the economy is a good way and an additional way that i suggest that we think about it is how involvements that we could improve the performance of the system that we could improve the quality of life for the people in the city and so that is all that we have for the presentation and we are happy to enter the questions >> thank you very much. >> appreciate it. >> and if there are no additional questions, or comments. we will open it up to public comment. do we have? we have no public comment cards, is there any member of the public that would like to speak? >> okay. seeing none, xom on up. >> public comment will be two minutes. >> >> mr. chair? >> madam. i am a senior. i'm... there are times when i see stuff happening on the muni transportation. and (inaudible) with seniors is a shocking. i would say that then the drivers need to be trained. so that when they have to deal with the traveling public. and especially seniors, that they will be more respect for them. now, you guys think that seniors cannot get along as they were when they were younger. and i have seen time and time again that seniors try to get to the bus stop. and the bus... and the driver is so inconsiderate. he won't even take a few extra moments to wait for that senior. so, i have the... (inaudible). i have been longing for the opportunity like this to speak on this matter. and i learned from the opportunity today. you need to retrain a lot of those drivers. and my train point that i have a moment ago, that is seniors are not able to... (inaudible). >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> is there any additional public comment? >> seeing none, public comment... yes, come on up. come on up, sir. >> hi, i just have a few points. and number one, just listening to the conversations that muni is almost genetically designed to fail on the basis of equipment or people, it is genetically deficient and number two the only consistentcy is the unreliability which you heard about in the entire hour, the consequence to muni failure is nothing, more meet ands more discussion and more excuses and four to fix it no more parking tickets you will not be able to issue $300 million in parking tickets. >> san francisco is a world class city and muni is an embarrassment and it is sad to see this kind of qualification and number six the idea of transit first is hollow and not subnative at all. and number seven, it is common sense to wait for something running for a bus to let the passengers know why there is a delay and how long the delay is anticipated. you don't need a larger bus, you just need some common sense and sensitivity to the citizens to the city, thank you. >> is there any additional comment? >> yeah. thank you. >> chair weiner for calling this hearing. and even though we hear a lot about the issues relating to muni it is always really helpful to see the numbers, to kind of pinpoint what some of the issues that we should focus on budgetarily, and actually the it reminds me of the budget that we saw as well. being that much of the public school funding as well as the public transit funding and that we can expect it to come from and so a lot of it is incredibly important system and so having a city that is also willing to supplement this. and basically that deficit that we get from the state budget, is a really important conversation that we continue to have here and representing the district where most of the growth is happening it is incredibly frustrating to have this conversation around the infrastructure, and that almost makes you not want to support the growth and it looks like the city is not ready for the current population size, but it is exciting to have these conversations and i have been impressed with how the sftma has been addressing the issues over the last two years and i think that there is important leadership that we as a board in the city have to figure out how we can support the leadership as well. and so i know that supervisor weiner and avalos and yee are involved in the transit work group and the conversations around the vlf and what the biggest bang for the buck is if it is around the capitol and the cost and the maintenance costs in terms of how we can improve the muni and i think that is what is most helpful for me to understand and because clearly we are not going to be able to fund everything that we would like to see ongoing. >> thank you. >> supervisor kim. >> i want to make a few concluding programs. your first, i want to thank the mta and the controller's office for the presentation today. and i think that it is it is mentioned that it was helpful to boil it down to the numbers. and that is really a key, really the step to knowing what direction you have to move in. and sometimes i hear from people, or we need more money, we just needs to run the system that it has and in fact muni needs to continue with the process of reform and we have seen some changes recently in the last four years which has been positive. and muni needs to continue aggressively about whether it is better, street level, line management and improving the train control system and continuing to reform work rules and just constantly moving in that direction, for sure. and i think that it is not reality to suggest that the system somehow has every penny that it needs and and if it just reformed enough it will fix the system. the numbers that we have seen today are stark in terms of the hundreds of millions of dollars, just in maintenance and data repair and capitol money that muni is not getting year after year after year, and that all adds up to the... i think that it is $2.2 billion dollars for the maintenance in the system and not having enough rail vehicles and not being able to rehab tait it and i think that as it continues to reform internally we need to make sure that the state of capitol investments are being made so that the system keeps up and that it accommodates the future growth and you know the growth is coming in san francisco, and in the bay area, and we have a choice about whether we plan for it or don't plan for it. and if we don't plan for it, we are going to be in a world of hurt. and i think that it is also important that it is very tempting to in the city we have a national pasttime here of being angry about muni and i think that we all fall into that including myself. but in the end, it can just be about you know muni management needs to do this or that or the other thing and better or the mta board needs to do this or that, yes, muni management and board of directors need to do the right thing and move the agency in the right direction but ultimately, our public transportation system is a joint responsibility of everything in the city. and the mta has to do its job, we as the board of supervisors and my personal view have to do a much better job of showing a good capitol financial commitment to the agency and i think that we have not done that, supervisor kim mentioned the vehicle licensing fee which could be a helpful funding of the transportation in staoet and it is going to... it is unclear that money is even going to go to the public transportation and there are people that wanted to go to many, many other things and it is interesting to see how that process plays out and we saw it last year with the transit impact development of the fee where the board of supervisors maintained a huge exemption and including the hospitals that you can drive a mack truck through and if that holds in tack in the future that is a huge cost to muni and so we all have a responsibility as a citizenry and a board of supervisors and the mayor and the mta to work together to get the system on track and to vest in it so that it maoeds eyer current needs and our future needs and i look forward to this continuing our conversation, and so with that, supervisor kim, if there are know additional comments, could we have a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair >> we will talk that without objection. >> madam clerk, do we have any other business before the committee. >> no other matters. >> then we are adjourned. i'm the president of friends of mclaren park. it is one of the oldest neighborhood community park groups in san francisco. i give a lot of tours through the park. during those tours, a lot of the folks in the group will think of the park as very scary. it has a lot of hills, there's a lot of dense groves. once you get towards the center of the park you really lose your orientation. you are very much in a remote area. there are a lot of trees that shield your view from the urban setting. you would simply see different groves that gives you a sense of freedom, of being outdoors, not being burdened by the worries of city life. john mclaren had said that golden gate park was too far away. he proposed that we have a park in the south end of the city. the campaign slogan was, people need this open space. one of the things that had to open is there were a lot of people who did a homestead here, about 25 different families. their property had to be bought up. so it took from 1928 to 1957 to buy up all the parcels of land that ended up in this 317 acres. the park, as a general rule, is heavily used in the mornings and the evenings. one of the favorite places is up by the upper reservoir because dogs get to go swim. it's extremely popular. many fights in the city, as you know, about dogs in parks. we have 317 acres and god knows there's plenty of room for both of us. man and his best friend. early in the morning people before they go to work will walk their dogs or go on a jog themselves with their dogs. joggers love the park, there's 7 miles of hiking trails and there's off trail paths that hikers can take. all the recreational areas are heavily used on weekends. we have the group picnic area which should accommodate 200 people, tennis courts are full. it also has 3 playground areas. the ampitheater was built in 1972. it was the home of the first blues festival. given the fact that jerry garcia used to play in this park, he was from this neighborhood, everybody knows his reputation. we thought what a great thing it would be to have an ampitheater named after jerry garcia. that is a name that has panache. it brings people from all over

Related Keywords

,