Transcripts For SFGTV 20141127

Transbay, a major capitol projects that the voters are improving and helping us to implement those up and down the state. And those are hosted in santa clara and linking transportation through the future through technology and on the new way and innovative ways of managing the system, including the development of the managed lanes on the freeway network. We did hear from secretary, brian kelley and the members of the California Department of transportation as well as many other panelists to talk about the different ways that the counties and cities are delivering projects and engaging the public to insure the public ininvolvement early on and the major infrastructure plans such as high speed rail and it was a great country to Exchange Information on what the other counties are doing and thinking of for 2016, several other counties have expressed the likelihood that they will go forward with the revenue measures in the bay area as well as agencies such as bart and hope and working closely with stay coordinated with them as the plans take shape. And at the local level, the move to the Vision Zero Program and i will note that we do have a december, 22th maoegt of the committee schedule, and we will be of course, hearing from the agencies involved. And in addition i wanted to invite, commissioners kim and yee would not saying a few words, they joined the delegation of San Francisco planners and policy makers in new york city for a first ever, vision zero symp osium, with a member of the staff, would that be possible to go ahead and ask for the commissioner to report out just a little bit here or should we callite item. Maybe we will do it after the report. They have already approached me. We will come back to that and i heard from many people that it was very successful and it the first ever gathering of the National Level of all of the folks that are focus on this challenge that is being faced by many cities and San Francisco, has definitely shown, i think some leadership, and we had a very good meeting, in the. Excuse me, last week, organized by sfmta and our agency to update the community on progress made to look at the water front transportation issues and you will recall that this first came to the program, via the warriors potential move to the initial site and now they are at the newer site, the work has taken shape in a different manner and taking more of an area wide approach to the cumulative needs in the area, and commissioner weiner asked us to look at particularly the transit reliability issues and kim asked us to look at the district wide issues, that might also warrant attention. And all of the work that is being identified and the potential projects will flow into things that we have a core capacity project and transit core capacity project and things that will improve the liability and the capacity, in all three of the systems bart and cal train, and muni of course, and in addition, the transit service, across the bay bridge is a very strong focus of the work. And we are aus looking at safety and freeway management and ways to get more out of the system that we have already. Freeway corridor is a new initiative that will focus on the 101 and the 280 freeways and the bay bridge and looking at new ways to provide new information to travelers and to provide for a car pool lane and the car pool facility that will coordinate with the plans, and santa clara and provide for a better balance, between and the management of the travel between the freeways network and the Arterial Network that parallels the 101 and 208 facility and that work is happening right now through a visioning study and that will be bringing forward to the plans and Programs Committee as well. There are a number of plans that are in the report, beginning the 19th avenue, mline, project and we are supporting this work. The good news here is that cal transhas vetted the process and indicate that had there is no real fatal flaws that they have identified and it looks like the concepts are generally workable and it will take the time to rev through the designs and come up with a more specific list of improvements and phasing in particular, for this very large, and ambition project that is seeking to redesign, 19th avenue and the mline service to be more reliable and safer. The neighborhood, Transportation Center has been making great progress and what is nice to see that the neighbors there took a site visit to see what the improvements over there look like, and to try and learn from that experience. There are temporary traffic calming and improvements associated with that triangle area, and the park lit, that is there, now, which will turn into a permanent improvement. And with the support of prop k and other funds and, so this project provided as we say a example of what the safety and the space improvements are possible and i think that the neighbors were very excited to learn from that experience. The geneva bus rapid project has been concluding a big round of out reach and Community Workshops and i attended one and this is the corridor traversing San Francisco and daily city as well as multiple different ways that we are trying to address the safety and reliable issues and there is a need for a Rapid Transit route for the transand muni buses and also a need for bus routes and connectivity and we continue to work with the city and the city of brisbain and we want to address the issues and the concerns of the little hollywood, and the visitation valley area who are looking to see if we might be able to explore the different ways to work with the neighbors to the south and the rocology site to find the optimum bruding through the area. On the brt, the bus, ra pit transit project, we want to congratulate the board for approving legislation, for that project, and last week, the legislation dedicated the bus only lanes on van ness avenue and consolidated several bus stops and it adds to the term and reconfigures the parking to support the project and we always appreciate the great staff works that leads to a smooth out come and a smooth approval process and i want to recognize the sfmta out reach team, led by candice and her team, and the work of the two agencies to insure that there was a strong notification and understanding of the changes. And it was great to see it come. And it will reach the 65 percent, design milestone by the end of the year and it is on track to begin the construction in 2015, with revenue service, a couple of years later. On the prop k, i want to thank the board for adopting the guidelines for the planning program, and last year, just highlight that we did allocate funds to begin the western addition, Community Based Transportation Plan in 65 and sfmta will be leading that work with support from our office and we will be working with commissioner mars office for a Planning Project for district one which will focus on bike and safety and improvements and several, north and south streets, and i appreciate working with the staff and commissioner mar on that and we are working with commissioner avaloss office and kims office for the proposals and so i think that will bring us for five or six, in this year. And that will be followed by more district studies and Planning Efforts next year. Finally, the San Francisco, on the planning side of the San Francisco Transportation Plan has been kicking off and we have been coordinating with the local agencies and the regional agencies weaving together a lot of the studies that i was just mentioning and the muni rail and the planning and water front work and the freeway management study, and these will all come together, to a mini update of the San Francisco Transportation Plan that we just did last december and most of that plan will still, service very well as we move into the Regional Planning through the regional Transportation Plan and we do want to take up the new and emerging issue and priorities that are identified through the recent studies. And so finally, lets see on the project delivery side, and it is moving forward and projecting well and the ramp is demolished and this is off of i80 and coming into the city and there is a minor traffic change and so we will keep the folks posted on the website there and on the 6th street i was pleased to celebrate the addition of a new signal with commissioner kim and the mayor and prop k and all of you are city resource haves been focused on sixth street to improve the safety in that corridor and it is nice to see the process result in the important, mid crossing and signal improvements in that area, in addition, the prop aa, funds are improving in the sections across the city and we will share that on my street, sf. Com and for those interested, check that out and then the glen park plan, transportation improvements are beginning transportation this month and both again park and balboa are now seeing, i think that finally the construction happening after many years of planning and design and community involvement. And my very last, mention here will be a big thank you, to fong and her team, and we conducted an audit and that was a big achievement in the last month or so, even as the team was implementing and watching our enterprise resource project, erp system and a big Financial Accounting system that she has also been leading so thank you for that, and if you would endudge me, i want to recognize erika and she moving to another position in the finance and admin group, and she will be working on the management analyst, working on contracts and a bunch of other really great things. And steve has accepted the position of clerk and we want to thank him for serving the authority in this way. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, i know, supervisors or commissioners kim and yee are going to talk about their experience in new york with vision zero, but i wanted to say that i visited austin texas and an incredibly green city in a very red state and in austin, it was for the National League of cities, congress of cities, conference and expocysing and we were looking at bikes and at the have surpassed San Francisco in size, they are the 11th and we are the 14th and the rapid growth of the tech sector and the culture and the entertainment sectors are impressive and there is a lot of similarities with the growing divides of haves and have nots like our city and a booming economy with the cranes and all over the place, and similar to the look of San Francisco and the key parts of our city. And i wanted to say that i did a, over two hour bike infrastructure tour on bike, looking at probably about 7 miles of their nature bike plan improvements. And the bike bridges over water areas. Bike and hiking trails, but it was pretty impressive what their department of public works and department of transportation, i wanted to thank, katherine greger who i had the time to meet with who is the complete street manager and coordinated us sharing the road workshop with a lot of other City Council People from the other cities and i also wanted to add that they have a brand new Cycle Program that was good for me to compare with San Franciscos, i know that bcycle has denver, and about 26 other cities, with Bike Sharing Programs. I rode the b cycle from the soko area, and which was south of the downtown, and it was very easy to get into the Convention Center and the downtown area, but it really efficient Bike Sharing Program with about 1,000 bikes there in that one city. Also, there is 40 stations or actually there is now way more than 40 stations in the Bike Sharing Program and i know a lot of bicycling and the yellow bike project in portland and austin and others, and inspired, the San Francisco yellow bike project and i wanted to add that the city council is going through a major change with the district elections coming seen and changing from an ad large system to the districts and a major east, west, divide between more conservative voters on the west side, verses more liberal and progressive voters on the east side but it is a changing city, and i also wanted to add that their brt system that i was able to observe, and experience they have this challenges since they start thised year with a brt and it is good for me to see a system that is not a pure brt system and criticized by some purists but really a, and i think that they spent about 47 Million Dollars on it and really good bang for the buck i believe and they are trying to market it better to get more of the younger work theirs have been moving into the city to ride it more and i know that that is a marketing challenge for them. And i also just wanted to add that austin is also, the flag ship or the birth place of whole foods and i visited their Pretty Amazing flag ship store and the draft house that will be opening soon in the Mission District and the theater restaurant, and the tap beer but it is an impressive business and probably challenging with Robert Redford subdance type of chains but we will see that in San Francisco, soon. And lastly, i think that it is the rapid growth of austin and the rapid growth of San Francisco, to made me think of a lot of the challenges in austin that we face here that i really enjoyed the trip and thank the National League of cities for a conference that opened my eyes for a lot of Amazing Things that happened there and making any appreciate San Francisco as well. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner mar, and commissioner yee . Commissioner kim . We did attend it in new york city hosted by the transportation alternative last week, two weeks ago. And it was actually really great to hear what our counter parts in new york city and sweden have been doing to implement the vision zero in their country, or their city. And i also, we got a chance to learn a lot about the advocacy groups that exist in new york city as well. And i know that some of the colleagues that were already very familiar with the transportation alternatives and families for safe streets but it was my first opportunity to actually see what the advocates do on the ground to really push, new york citys policies moving forward. And also the incredible network and those who have lost the members of the family to vehicle collision and how powerful their testimony was both this vision, forward. And just want to recognize that we had a large con ent and we had commaederer from sfpd and we had several including john knox white, and megan wier, also presented and we had members of the pedestrian, safety, advisory committee, and Bike Coalition and walk sf and china town, and senior disability, action and central city, sro collaborativive. And just a couple of take aways that i had and i know that norman is going to share some of his i was impressed by their work on the city drivers in particular and both are the large vehicles, but any City Employee that drives in new york city. And it is something that i think that San Francisco should model itself after and use some of their curriculum, and they have the tracking devices on all of the vehicles and the tracking devices, which will track how hard they accelerate and whether they are wearing seat belt and a number of things and the driver, Education Course is definitely, a whole other level and with mta which is a separate agency from the city, they have now made it their policy that it does not matter whose fault it is, that the driver should always be driving defensely, and i think that those shifts will impact the ability to achieve vision zero and we got to hear from one of the chiefs in sweden and he talked about how they were able to cut the number of deaths in half by 50 percent and actually have the speed limit has been key to that and what they have been able to do to enforce the speed limit is what they, and what they dont call them speed cameras they call them safety cameras. And they have been able to implement that throughout the country and it is effective in lowering the speeds and therefore, reducing the we have a lot of work to do, but we are far behind and unfortunately the countris in asia and europe but we are doing well in the u. S. But we have a lot more work to do and we are able to learn and share the best practices. If we can go to the Public Comment on this item. Commissioner mar and yee . There were a lot of take aways for myself, and i mean, that it was nice and comforting that we had really the largest con tining ent and i felt like we were in San Francisco, even though we are in brooklyn and it is one of the boroughs that are larger than San Francisco and it was interesting to hear some of the streets and the pedestrians itself and the message that they are trying to get across is that the human beings make the mistakes and pedestrian ans will make the mistakes and they can be distracted and we should Pay Attention to that. And one of the things that was interesting, was the opening sort of keynote address, in which the professor there talked about streets in a very different way, and just prior to i guess, in the maybe, in a 1920s or so, and the streets were, quickly changed because of the auto industry. And in which they made and they basically had a campaign, the tree belongs to the car rather than the pedestrians will we get back to that notion . Probably not, but it is interesting to know that history, and that the streets were not made for the cars originally, but we have to keep in that mind, and as we talked to in particular, the drivers who have this, and the streets belong to them. And i have noticed to a lot of people, over there from San Francisco, and that is what we have already, in San Francisco. By the way. And it is a default speed limit. And i would really like the idea of the safety cameras. In swaoed sweden, what they said besides the cameras is that they really didnt have that many, but, what they did not have were movable cameras. And so, they were able to move it from one place to another, and every so often. And so if it felt to drivers like they had a lot of cameras up. And maybe that is something that if we dont have enough funding if we pursue that avenue, we may want to look at that strategy. I think that one of the things that really, we have like advocates we have walk advocates, and these organizations, and one of the things that struck me is that we didnt have families involved. And in an organized way, and the as commissioner kim was saying, the familis for safe streets, that group was really to me, the power behind the advocacy and i am hoping that people that went to the syposium will talk among themself and see if we can form a similar group. And the point about the black box and so forth, i will, and i am already pursuing seeing what we can do in staoet for that, and it is just such an inexpensive tool for us. And to, and 250 bucks a crack, and for, and, the approach will be whether we could monitor to see if we could save gas, but it also, the residual of that was that they were able to detect the bad drivers and not doing the right thing. And so, muni supposedly has a black box and others, and so i am trying to find out who else, or what other department haves that and which one dont and we will find a way to hopefully mandate that and we have that in the city cars. And so, those were some of the take aways. And i am glad that i went. And i loved their messaging. And in regards to the education piece, and pedal safety. And i took a cab, and a few times. And in the back they have the stream, and about 25, 30 percent of what they were showing they kept on saying visions zero, vision zero and so the messaging was really powerful and they had the street signs all over the place. And i understand that Clear Channel donated a bunch of signs for them to put up or to send these messages. I am hoping that we could, our education piece could be as aggressive as that. And i know that it was just starting with, and i love it to be that way. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner mar . Yeah, i just wanted to thank commissioners kim and yee, and i wanted to remind the body that there is a budget legislative Analyst Report on reducing speed limit and looking at model and other cities and so i will do my best to try to integrate what you have learned and brought back with the budget Analyst Report, which i think that we will having the hearing later in the new year. And i wanted to also say that just remembering now, in austin, unfortunately they were not able to pass a one billion dollar transportation bond. A spread out city, verses a dense city and, we were able to pass our prop a there is a lot of differences in our electorate supporting transition, i know that a lot of effort went into proposition a and i want to thank tang and others for the support and the mayor as well. And i want to give a plug for chair avalos and i will be in new york city for this gathering of city council and local leaders called local progress. And we will be in city hall, and believe that it is on thursday, of next week. With different panels participating on a Economic Justice panel, with city council folks from philadelphia, and dc and other cities as well. But, we will do our best to learn about the transportation issues as we are there with progressive and liberal Council Members from around the downtownry as well. Thank you. Thank you. So we can go into Public Comment. Any member . Seeing none come forward. We will close Public Comment and move on to the next item. Five, accept the audit report for the fiscal year, ended june 30, 2014, this is an action item. Any comments or questions . Seeing none, we will go out to Public Comment. And Public Comment will close and roll call vote. On item five, avalos . Aye. Breed. Aye. Campos. Aye. Chiu. Aye. Cohen . Absent. Farrell . Absent. Commissioner kim . Aye. Mar. Aye. Tang. Aye. Weiner. Aye. Commissioner yee. Aye. The item passes. Okay, lets go on to the plans and programs item. Item 6. Allocate 6,795,385 in prop k funds, with conditions, for eleven requests, subject to the attached fiscal year cash flow distribution schedules and amend the relevant 5year prioritization programs. This is an action item. Okay. Colleagues, comments or questions . No, we will go on to Public Comment, any member of the public that would like to comment . And seeing none, come forward we will close Public Comment and have another roll call vote. 6, avalos. Aye. Breed. Aye. Campos. Aye. Chiu. Aye. Cohen . Absent. Farrell. Absent. Kim. Aye. Mar. Aye. Tang. Aye. Weiner. Aye. Yee. Aye. Aye. The item passes. Item 7, introduction of new items this is an information item. Colleagues, any new item issues to come before the Transportation Authority . Seeing none, we will go on to Public Comment on this item. And seeing no member of the public come forward we will close Public Comment and go to the next item. 8, Public Comment . Okay. General Public Comment is now opened. And seeing no member of the public, we will close general Public Comment. And our next item . Nine, adjournment. Okay, colleagues we are adjourned d