Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20171201

Next slide is to push for policy on Street Safety and i know that after may youll get a presentation from megan weir around vision zero so vision zero is one of our key policies that were pushing for, zero fatalities or serious injuries by 2024 and you also heard from kate breen today and we work with the legislative affairs on pushing for policies at the state level even, like automated speed enforcement. So were really trying to find larger and more macro policies that make San Francisco streets more welcoming for everyone. For the next slide i want to highlight our youth and family biking work and we are partners in the safe routes to School Partnership where we engage parents and teachers and students at Elementary Schools and were in 30, 35 Elementary Schools and the Public Schools throughout the city. The two photos that i have here, the one on the left is from the south sear hub where three Different School comes together and their student comes together and they gather at the playground and we have snacks, its very fun and very energetic and its a great way for kids to start the day. On the right is a i think that its a bike train which are often led by parents to gather Families Together and bike together to go to school. And i think this is my last slide on the progra program word the next is give bikes back to the community. So one of the programs that im proud of is the Bike Build Program where we are trying to reduce the barriers to biking and the biggest way to reduce that barrier is to give a bike away. So we actually are able to reclaim and to recover bikes from sfpd and from uni that are left behind for a long time and we rehab them over with the help of volunteers and Community Bike shops and we partner with different organizations so that the photo right here is one of our volunteers working with the youth that lives at Northridge Cooperative Homes in the bayview and this was from earlier this year. Which we did bike build and gave away about 20 bikes away to folks that live at north wij ridge. This is predominantly at low ridge and in the Outer Mission and its been a Great Program to give away hundreds of bikes every year. And so really the question is, why im here, and this gets back to the final question that ill ask, how we can be better partners. So when we talk about biking and when we talk about accessibility, heres a couple efforts that ill highlight that you may be familiar with, and so the image on the left is something that the city of San Francisco put out and i want to say like in 2014, and as the guidelines for accessible Building Blocks for bicycle facilities and it was to be this document that was dynamic i think, that when it came to bike infrastructure and our street design would set th guidelines whether policies or dimensions or policies to make sure that the new bike infrastructure that came in would actually be accessible for all users regardless of people including for people with disabilities. Sorry. And then on the right is something that actually just came out quite recently, just earlier this year at the city of vancouver called their triple a guidelines. All ages and abilities of cycling groups is similar to the Building Blocks but the problem i see with a lot of these is that when were talking about biking the way that we talk about accessibility doesnt often either include people with disabilities like the triple a guidelines of vancouver and i attended a conference where they presented this and like this is really great for everyone, people of all ages and abilities and i said, great, this is about accessible bike lanes and were saying are you talking about people with disabilities and they said, no, but look at all of these other things and i thought, hmm, maybe theres a problem there. And we looked at the Building Block documents, its not dynamic and it doesnt its not the reality of what we see on our streets and we see bike infrastructure go in and it doesnt work for a lot of people with disabilities. So this next slide, what is the reality what we see . The reality is what you see on the left, even though we have this Building Blocks guidelines, the photo is of two and f. Theye of f. D. A. Where the streets just arent designed and this is seventh street . Sonoma street in sonoma where the new protected bike lane went in and theres not sufficient travel space for people like jessica who is in a motorized wheelchair. And that while its great for biking as you can see for pi on the bike on the left, the infrastructure design, there still could be improvements. On the right what we see is cali bike, this is a Bicycle Coalition, and its still pushing for in 2017 the idaho stop law, what you may have heard a law in 2015 which i know was in conflict with a lot of folks, probably Council Members here and certain with folks at m. O. D. And, you know, if this is the reality i would say that is really not okay and that bike advocates need to be engaging accessibility folks and Disability Advocates early and often and not allow these things to be the reality after the fa fact. Can you explain what the idaho stop is . Sorry, idaho stop is a law in idaho, where bicyclists can treat stop signs as yield, meaning you do not need to come to a full stop. And i think that in idaho additionally that bicyclists can treat red lights as stops. This was something that in 2015 that the coalition strongly supported and we did not do our legwork in connecting with Pedestrian Safety advocates at walk San Francisco and not m. O. D. Or nonprofit advocates in that push and i know that that was very problematic in a lot of dissent ways. You know different ways. Sorry, i truly apologize for how we engaged in our advow case and our campaign work. You know, over the last year i have been working more closely with Disability Advocates in i dont want to say clean slate because you cannot erase history but working together to answer and this is my final explied my contacslideand my co how to be allies in safe streets addosadvocacy. And to that point ill end my presentation and im here to either answer questions but more than anything to take your feedback back and i know that you have been in this field of work for a long time and that im hoping that we can have conversations offline and that this really isnt just one meeting or one presentation so i can check it off my list and say, well, i talked to you all and well all good. I see this as a relationship builder in that when an issue comes up that you have a face and a name that you can talk to me and that these conversations continue on a variety of different things, because oftentimes were working with the same people around a lot of the same issues. Thank you. I appreciate willing to partner with the council and for you coming forward and, you know, acknowledging people with disabilities and to have that, you know, impact and working with the community. I appreciate that. So im going to open up quickly to questions. Council member, you have a question . Thank you. Thank you for your presentation, janice and also thank you, you come off very sincere and i think that we all appreciate that and i look forward proved working relationship. My question that slide that you had shown when you referenced the idaho stop, i have a daughter in a wheelchair and we follow pedestrian walking rules. I couldnt understand from that slide what the i mean, theres obviously your colleague in a wheelchair and in an automatic wheelchair in the road, but whats the solution there . A wider bike path . I was unclear what was so the slide was one where its like the reality, and they were not connected to pictures. One picture was just speaking to the designs are inadequate and that i dont have the solution but i know that weve been working i think that nicole has been part of these meetings with other Disability Advocates and walk s. F. In trying to find improvements to design and really make the building document more dynamic. And the second photo is a screenshot of the cali bike advocacy and theyre pushing for policies without engaging Disability Advocates early on so theyre not connected. Okay. All right. Thank you. So just to be from my own understanding and thank you for your patience i understand you know if a stop sign is allowed to just be a yield sign for a bicyclist, how that could impact detrimentally people with disabilities who are accustomed to having the crosswalk, etc. , and when the walk sign appears that we can go. What is beyond that issue, what is the biggest problem that you see in terms of what bikers want . And what the Disability Community is saying also needs to be taken into account. So ill answer with two things here. The first thing is just being very clear that the s. F. Bicycle coalition is not supporting and not pushing for the idaho stop or what was then called the bike yield law. We are quietly not supporting cali bike and we have not thrown our name and we recognize state level they might still push for that but were not pushing for that here locally an or doing ay work at the state level on that issue. To your question, you know, as to what do people who bike, what do they want . And it would be i would imagine similar to saying what would people with disability want for x, y, z, whatever it is and youll have a diversity for opinion. If youre a mother who bikes and you have two kids on the back, versus if you are a dude wearing a spandex and you just want to zip everywhere or like me who does no recreational riding and i live in the outer sunset and i just bike to work every day and thats the only biking i do or when i go shopping, and Everyone Wants different things. So its really making sure that were hearing from our members and that were working with stakeholders across the board and in figuring out what the right thing is, whether its a policy or whether its a street design or whatever it is. Thank you. Cochair blackston has a question. Good presentation. I would like to draw your attention to the blindness community. Some of my friends and colleagues who are visually impaired and blind ride bicycles and how do they do that . Well, they have partners and someone is on the front of the bike and the blind person is on the back. I know that the lighthouse has the lighthouse of the blind here in San Francisco and other organizations have outings where, you know, we can go out on bikes with partners and just have a great time. You know, and thats in all kinds of situations. Have you reached out to the blindness community . And can you tell us a little bit about that . So, first, you make a great point, terry blackston, that these are not mutually exclusive communities, that there are certainly people with disabilities who also bike and you make a great point on that. And i should have said that earlier that we are not totally different groups of people. In terms of working specifically with the Blind Community, i have not. I have been on staff for four years and i have not always been in this role and so i will honestly say that in the past two years in this role that i have not. And i will have to talk to you afterwards to see what joint programming or ways that we could engage, that would be great. Will do. Council member alex madrid has a quick question. Thank you so much for coming and talking to us. My question when you showed us the photos of the bike and with the bridges, my confusion is that. With the bike lane, is that right . Thats a great question and i dont know the exact rules whether people in wheelchairs can use the bike lane, i would defer to fsmta on that. What im trying to show in that photo is that there isnt really comfortable space in that buffer area and between where jessica is and where the bike lane is but the design is made for that. And so the design is inadequate. And it is not comfortable for someone in a wheelchair to get out of a car or to get out of what is in that photo is jessica is a transit boarding island. So youre in a wheelchair and getting off the bus and you need to get to a curb cut, that is very uncomfortable because youre so close to the bike lane. Lets talk about how, you know, there can be a better design. Again, i dont have an answer for that. But this is something that, you know, im working with nicole and others on in building better guidelines for bike infrastructure. Thank you. Council member sasoni. Yes, i i do support the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and i was a cyclist myself for a period of time and i see both the positives and the negatives in encouraging safety and design, well designed streets is really important. And its hard to know sometimes where to go when youre keeping those things in mind. I feel like i had to stop cycling for safety reasons and im no longer comfortable doing that and, you know, i think that some people are incredible cyclists but i personally dont cycle anymore just because i didnt feel like a safe option for me. And so i think that, you know, i think that the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has a way of keeping the city on their toes and the ways that you promote different types of programs and continued advocacy keeps the city focused with this aspect in mind as far as design and im, you know, a huge supporter of that so great job. That aside, as a deaf person, it was difficult to go to your workshops and there wasnt accessibility in your workshops provided and the only time that i was able to go to one is when it was held in the San Francisco Public Library and they were responsible for providing access. So its great to have a bicycle culture and so forth and it was fun and theres benefits to that, but from an accessibility standpoint i just wanted you to know that it was difficult to navigate your organization for this reason specifically, access for deaf patrons. And last thing that i wanted to mention is that the Golden Gate Park thing, i really hope that San Francisco Bike Coalition works on that j. F. K. Drive initiative. I know that they are focused in on expanding that so that theres a cycling and a pedestrian lane so im a mom and, you know, i just think about, you know, how that would be great but theres always an issue for parking there and i would prefer that that initiative is left i like the Current Situation of how that street is designed and i dont think that some of the points in the initiative are actually things that i support and i do like the sunday streets idea and its an important one for working with the community, especially focusing on the museum and other patrons that frequent the events and buildings and places inside of the park, just some things to consider. I have a question for this Council Member. Is that okay . Yes. So you mentioned that you no longer bike because you dont feel safe . Can you explain by what you mean by not feeling safe in San Francisco . Yeah, for example, some of the street lights, you know, theres not enough adequate lighting for me to ride and at a red light, you know, of course i would stop at that i dont i wouldnt blow a stop sign or a stoplight. So, you know, it makes sense and i think that theres common sense approaches to cycling that i would follow some of the rules but not everyone necessarily did. And some of the ways that the Cycling Community navigates some of the streets and so forth isnt very safe so it gets a little sticky in that and when youre adding the aspect of traffic and cars to consider and buses and, you know, pedestrians and all kinds of things it just didnt feel like a safe option to me anymore. I think that even the most densely used areas, this is in particular what im talking about and i dont think that theres supplies in some of the more quiet neighborhoods but definitely for the urban areas that are quite densely packed that was an issue. And it feels like a soup of things and pedestrians and bicyclists and people in the mix. Thank you. Thank you, Council Members and ill close the question from the council. Staff, any questions . This is nicole. There we are. Hello. Thank you, janice, for being here today and i wanted to echo on behalf of the benefit of the council that the work that janice has done with us, especially in the last year, with my coming on board and weve really had an opportunity to reengage with the Bicycle Coalition and i want to say on behalf of all of us that we appreciate that and we know that in learning how we can best Work Together that theres a lot that we can learn and we have been learning from each other and i want to echo that things in gratitude and to say that we really appreciate your being present in these conversations and i was actually invited as part of that as part of our walk through to look at different parking or protected bike lanes to see what some of the some of the analysis was and ill say that it was very educational experience for me and janice and the Bicycle Coalition were completely engaged in that process and i suspect that well continue to be as well as the other issues that as they cross our communities. So i just wanted to say thank you for that and we want to also support the Bicycle Coalition as best as we can. Thank you. Through the chair, thank you, janice, for being here and for being honest about the problematic relationship that has been between the Disability Community and the bicyclists community historically. We look forward to cleaning our slate. And i think that coming here and having this conversation is certainly a good start. Now, there are a couple of issues in the Disability Community that we certainly hear about, i personally feel strongly about, and one of them is the sort of cavalier attitude of some bicyclists who are probably not members of your organization, i guess that one of the prototypes that you described, the dude in his spandex zipping throughout the city, and when jim blackston talked about the lighthouse and folks with visual disabilities i thought that hed mention that is the whole cavalier attitude of blowing through crosswalks and blowing through stops. Kind of cutting in front of people with disabilities on the curb cuts and getting on the sidewalk. And some of the behaviors that dont help to build a good cooperative name or reputation. And so im wondering about specific efforts that you are doing around educating your members. Perhaps working with the policy initiative around registration of people who have bicycles, who ride bicycles, fulltime. Perhaps other innovative programs that you may come up with so that we can really help to educate and to sort of make it a safer space and a safe sharing of the road. The other issue that theres a lot of commotion in the Disability Community is around the parking in protected bike lanes and for a lot of folks with disabilities who drive adaptive vehicles with the lift that is on board into the sidewalk itself, is a huge loss. In terms of parking space that we are able to use. I know that theres a general push to drive less and bike more or take Public Transit more, which i certainly support but in the cold, rainy weathers of San Francisco that may not be a possibility for a lot of us. So, again, i support the idea of safety for everybody and, again, bicycling is a gentler form of exercise for many people with Chronic Health disabilities, and, certainly, others with physical conditions, members of our community, and everybody should be safe on the street. But there has to be a way to be able to not limit access for other folks. So those are just my two comments from my multiple years of hearing the gripes about the strained relationship and i wonder if you have any ideas or thoughts around the behavior part. Absolutely. So i dont want to prolong this so, please, you know, as we certainly can talk offline but to give a brief response here, yes, those folks exist. Some things that we do is that were often out on the street at some of the busiest, you know, bike routes, constantly, and i brought some of these here, unfortunately, well, theyre in english and chinese but theyre only written flyers that show all of the rules of the road that we put in whether its a biketowork day, and meetings like this and all of our educations, always, always based on rules of the road whether youre just learning how to ride a bike to the most experienced bicyclist and were always pushing out the rules of the road. Does that get to everyone . No. Im very open to different places that we can be holding more bike education and different communities, when we do streetside education im always trying to figure out different locations that we can really get to people. And were, like, our most successful education is when were able to partner with different generally communitybased organizations and bring their membership and their constituents together. Because we can then reach beyond our just our membership. Because if were just talking to our membership or the people who want to read this, youre just preaching to the choir so help me to preach to the nonchoir, i dont know what that is, but, you know, let me know what that is. Just overall though, we really think that streets dont work in a lot of different ways and that a lot of this comes down to having Better Designs that encourages the right behavior. When you dont have a crosswalk, for example, you get people who cross, you know, midblock and who run across street if the crosswalks are really far away. If you have a stop sign where you should really have a light you probably see a lot of drivers not fully stopping at the stop sign and, you know, i dont know if that is actually true, but you need to design the streets in a way that actually keeps people safe intuitivity and not just have a sign or a policy or enforcement that tells you not to do that because studies have shown that is not effective. So, you know, this is a problem for all road users, but i think that it really comes down to who are the most vulnerable on our streets and so when we do push for policies we want to make sure that were always protecting the most vulnerable and we know that people with disabilities and seniors are unequally affected when it comes to traffic violence. You know, and then next are people on bikes and so however we Work Together to protect our vulnerable road users and we are open to discussing policies to that end. I think that you guys should do a kindness outreach project at 1155 market, because we have a midblock crosswalk and a light and i personally have been hit twice over the last years. Im sorry, yes, we did once but i admit that was probably two years ago, but we should make a return to that location in front of your office. Thank you. We look forward to partnering with you. Im going to open it up to public comment. We do have a speaker card, mr. Lanholt . I would say that my Contact Information is the last page here and you can reach out to nicole and she can share that as well. Thank you. Im bob lanholt. Myself and other people with disabilities have had the pleasure to talk to miss li on various public issues and its borne fruit and the board of directors approved a project that benefits both people with disabilities and people who bicycle on 17th and church near everett middle school. There was no crosswalk and people in wheelchairs would have to take a circuitous route and go across steel rails for the f streetcar. So the m. T. A. Staff heard both of our constituencies needs and interests and came up with a solution. Theres already some actions where two groups are working together and i want to try to help to break down the stereotypes. In the late 1990 is when i was a chair of the task force we had a person with an obvious disability and people talk about that people with disabilities dont bike, she said, yes, she did and shes had a kid and since then she and her kid bicycle, so even then we got an education of our own, against our own bias. And further the east band of the bay bridge is named after a senior who is a longtime bicycle advocate and that happened after he was 75 and hes still doing it after 80. So im trying to say that there are real people from our joint constituencies who do bicycle. But to get back to the 17th Street Project its a protected bicycle lane and that is one of the problems. San francisco is atypical for its Bike Coalition advocacy and the problems start at the top. Theres a booklet on this and they show pictures that clearly theres a lack of accessibility in what they tout as model bike protected bike lanes. Cal train stuck its head in the sand on this though theres been professional comments saying, dont do this, dont follow it and cal train will say that sfwa says it and i bring it up to you because its not just those agencies, two San Francisco Assembly Members, both are Assembly Members that are oblivious and unresponsive at best, if not underresponsive to communication to advocacy to plans from disability advocacy groups. When there was pending legislation, not just about this bike law but earlier stuff, the California Council for the blind in its leadership and myself and others communicated so we got a phone call with a staff person we made specific suggestions for amending, for changes, and nothing happened. Theres no outreach from our Assembly Members to disability serving groups or advocates on legislation regarding transportation. Theyll respond to bicycle adsoicates and to the california transit association, but not california through disability rights and not c. C. B. And not independent bell ringing nothing from them in case you would try to remedy that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Anyone on the bridge line . No, we have one more one more. Okay. Sorry. Sorry about that. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, howard shapner, i agree very much with what joanna said, and i would like to relate one thing about Pedestrian Safety. I had several years ago i had emailed ed reskin of m. T. A. With some simple suggestions to address things like bicycle riding on the sidewalk, blowing through stop signs and all of that, and i got ed assigned a fairly senior traffic engineer to respond to me and pretty much every suggestion was that we cant do that, we cant put signs telling bicyclists not to be on the sidewalk. We cant even consider registration, which is something that joanna had mentioned and we cant do a number of other things that i had suggested, because that would discourage bicycling. So i think that, you know, perhaps hopefully that attitude has changed, this is a few years ago, but i see m. P. A. As part of the problem because they are very anything that they think might discourage cycling, even when its Something Like reminding cyclists, please, dont ride on the sidewalk, its, oh, we cant do that, we cant do that because it would discourage cycling. One other thing that i have observed is that a lot of the people who ride on the sidewalk are people who are renting bikes from not necessarily from the go forward bikes but bike rentals for tourists and a lot of them seem to just not really know. So one of the suggestions would be to require or at least strongly encourage bike rental companies to explain the rules to people, not just hand them a piece of paper but say that youre not supposed to ride on the sidewalk unless its a child belobelow whatever the age is bt that type of thing. So thats a suggestion that i would also have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,. Thank you. Were going to move on to information item number 9, potential measures to improve the accessibility on demand Transportation Options and id like to welcome our presenters, kate terran, with the municipal transportation agency, and the director of taxis and Accessible Services division and the senior planner for Accessibility Services program, San Francisco municipal transportation agency. Thank you both for being here. Hi, good afternoon, thank you for inviting us and im kate torren with taxis and accessibls services and my colleague, kristin and i will do tag teaming on this item and so kristin is going to go through the first part of the presentation and im going to come up for the second part. Thanks, kate. Lets see, do i advance the slides here myself . Okay, great. So. Sorry about that. Can i go back . So before we get started i wanted to make sure that were all on the same page and that we all have the same definition of ondemand transportation. So when were talking about ondemand transportation were talking about Transportation Services where the rider is able to request the vehicle for their immediate travel needs. So you want to travel right now and right away you can call a company or hail a ride and travel immediately. So the trips are not scheduled or booked in advance. And a little bit about the history of ondemand transportation in San Francisco for a people with disabilities, so even before the a. D. A. Adopted in 1990, the city of San Francisco was ahead of its time and providing ondemand transportation to persons with disabilities. In 1981, the city started using taxis to provide ondemand transportation for persons with disabilities and then in 1994, after the a. D. A. Was passed, we started providing ram taxi service when six accessible taxi vans started operating. And today we are at a point where anyone who is unable to use a bus or Rail Services because of their disability is eligible to use Paratransit Services and were very fortunate in San Francisco that we have a couple of primary options for paratransit people and they can use the van service that is a shared ride service and a a. D. A. Paratransit that you can see on the photo on the left is one of our access vans or this is kind of unique to San Francisco, people who are a. D. A. Eligible and cant use fixed Route Services can also get a subsidy where the s. M. T. A. Pays a large share of their taxi trips. Its provided a taxi debit card so a user who is a. D. A. Eligible can call up any taxi company they want or hail a ride on the street and all taxis in the city are equipped with our debit card equipment and thats how the users pay their fare. We do have ram taxis in the city of San Francisco so that people who use wheelchairs can use the disperveservice and we have 100 medallions available but only 48 medallions are issued to Taxi Companies and drivers and even fewer of those mediagonallions are medallions are on the street and we dont know at any given moment how many are on the street but anecdoteally it doesnt seem that all 478 are 4e out there 48 are out there. Question. Can you explain what is the medallion . Yes, sorry. So in order to operate a taxi in the city of San Francisco you have to a medallion issued by the sfmta and kate could probably explain more about that if you need to, but its just sort of like your license to operate a taxi in the city. So as youve probably noticed if you have been out on streets of San Francisco or read the news, over the past five years or so theres a new type of ondemand transportation option that is growing in popularity. And specifically im talking about Services Like uber and lyft and in california we call those Services Transportation Network Companies or t. N. C. S, and thats the type of service where you are using an app on your smartphone to hail a vehicle and then the vehicle is provided an and someones persol vehicle, they call this a peertopeer arrangement and one key difference between taxis and t. N. C. S is that t. N. C. S cant accept street hails. So sorry, unable. So t. N. C. S, they were first introduced in 2012 in San Francisco. And a lot of the people as you probably know really love this service. Its brought a lot of convenience to a lot of people, but as you probably also know that this convenience isnt available to everyone. And for those of us who work in accessibility, its particularly apparent that the service doesnt seem to be available to people in wheelchairs and were 100 certain of that were not 100 certain of that but anecdoteally you can push a button on an app to look for ramp equipped vehicles and i have heard very few instances of people being able to use that. The California Public Utilities Commission relates t. N. C. S in california and the city does not regulate them. Theyve collected some documents regarding the accessibility of t. N. C. S but we have not always been able to get access to these documents. I just want to talk a bit about the impacts that t. N. C. S have had on the broader ecosystem of ondemand transportation in San Francisco and, sorry, this chart is not as clear on the tv screens here but these the blue line that youre seeing on the bar, the chart here, is the number of wheelchair trips that have been provided through our paratransit taxi program from about 2011 to 2017. And you can see the red line, that was when Uberx Service was launched in San Francisco in 2012, and then a year later, and this is really hard to see but its kind of where the dropoff stops is around 2014, when San Francisco m. T. A. Introduced some incentives to try to beef up or to make our ram taxi program a little bit stronger. We cant say that we definitely cant say that t. N. C. S are responsible for this entire dropoff and there were a lot of things going on in the taxi industry during this time, but its just illustrative of the fact that our ram taxi program is not in the best health right now. So the specific ram taxi incentives that we introduced in 2014 were a 10pertrip incentive for drivers who pick up chee wheelchair users and we encourage the ram taxis to pick up riders in the outlying neighborhoods because we know that theres a lot more dead heading to get out there and its more expensive to provide that service so for the two pickups they do for wheel chair users they jump to the front of the line at s. F. O. Which is apparently a good incentive for drivers, thats something they like to do. And i wanted to note that we are trying to do a lot of things to make the ram taxi Program Better and one of the things that is aimed at improving the paratransit taxi program in general, both ramp and other, is that we now have it possibility that you possible that you can hail a taxi using the fly wheel app. And some people think that with the fly wheel app you can only hail fly wheel taxis but you can hail a taxy from any color scheme and theres a button on the app to choose ramp taxi and it will show the ramp taxis that are available to hail and we have been pushing for a lot of the ramp taxi drivers to get on the app when theyre out in their vehicles and were still working on building it up but if anybody wants to try this option we want to get both the supply and the demand sides going. So we do think that we need to provide more incentives though to our ramp driver taxis and companies to keep the ramp taxi program healthy, in particular the vehicles, the ramp vehicles that are out on the street right now are quite old and so we want to somehow incentivize people to replace those vehicles and not just go out of business when the vehicles go out of business and kate will finish up the rest of the presentation. Thanks. Thank you. Again, kate, the director with taxis and Accessible Services, lets make sure. Okay. Okay. So as kristin mentioned the California Public Utilities Commission has jurisdiction over Transportation Network companies such as uber and lyft and the cpuc has a rulemaking proceeding and parties to the proceeding can weigh in on what the rules should be and then the cpuc ultimately designs those rules and promulgates those rules and they have a rulemaking coming up on accessibility and so we wanted to make sure to note that and to let the Community Know and that there are ways to engage in the process. And they dont have a due date yet on when the comments are due but the questions that the cpuc are raising, what is the persentage of accessible vehicles that t. N. C. S make available and thats a good question because as far as i know, because the data is not available to the public, the general public wouldnt know the answer to that, but im curious as to how the t. N. C. S will answer. And then question number two, are there any opportunities for the are there any opportunities for the t. N. C. S to provide increased accessible Vehicle Services to t. N. C. Customers and so as m. T. A. Is strategizing on what we think that our approach and our response will be to these questions we have developed a twopronged approach and we believe that the t. N. C. S themselves should provide Comparable Services to persons with disabilities, including Wheelchair Accessible service, and we are planning on advocating that the cpuc require t. N. C. S to have an aggressive plan to become fully accessible, including a timeline and milestones, and the cpuc should hold the t. N. C. S accountable for implementing the plan and the plan should be publicly be available and local jurisdictions should have the ability to withhold access to local resources, i. E. , curb access, airport access and permits, if the milestones are not met. And along with that we think that the cpuc should allow the local jurisdictions to levy a surcharge on nonaccessible t. N. C. Services. So that again, because the local jurisdictions dont have authority and jurisdiction over t. N. C. S, this the ability to levy some type of fine excuse me fee or surcharge, would have to be allowed either by the state through cpuc or some other state mechanism. There are some models for this, and there are some cities that do have accessibility surcharges. Seattle, chicago, both have a surcharge that goes into an accessibility fund. And, again, point number three, i already mentioned, San Francisco doesnt have direct jurisdiction it would have to be allowed by some kind of state action. Maryland is also an interesting case study, maryland has a similar jurisdiction where the states have jurisdiction over t. N. C. S and in 2015, the state of maryland did pass or did make it possible for the local jurisdictions to levy this type of surcharge. So its a good model for our location and we have thought through if the how to improve the available Ondemand Services and if there were to be an accessibility surcharge what that accessibility surcharge would go towards and that goes toward keep items making the vehicle more affordable, because Wheelchair Accessible vehicles cost more, vehicle maintenance tends to be higher so there would be some incentives toward vehicles maintenance. The per trip incentives would continue at 10pertrip which we already have in place and then we have discussed the nighttime incentive of 25pernightshift because sometimes wheelchair users may have access during the day but its less available access in the evening hours. And so you get into a situation where you maybe are constraining your choices governing out if you think that youre choices of going out if you think that you are not able to get back so those are the key areas where we would target any additional funds. Theres a way for the community to get engaged with the cpuc rulemaking and i encourage all of those of you who are interested, you can write a letter, you can become a party to the proceeding and you can attend a meeting and you can attend a hearing and there are many ways to get involved and we can provide more information on the specifics. It is helpful for the cpuc to hear from the community and at m. T. A. We get, one, some complaints and questions on, hey, m. T. A. , how are you regulating uber and lyft and what are you doing about uber and lyft and i let people know that actually its the California Public Utilities Commission that has jurisdiction and heres the number that you can call to make a complaint or heres the staff person that you might want to reach out to with your concerns. So i think that a lot of people dont quite understand and i get that its kind of confusing that although the taxis are regulated at the local level, t. N. C. S, again, are not. So its helpful for people to understand how to engage if they so choose. This slide, this emerging Guiding Principles for emerging technology really helps to put this whole conversation into the larger context. I think that all of us have noticed over the last five years that our Transportation Network has changed dramatically. We have services, not just uber and lyft but chariot and scooter and scoot services and oneway car share and theres a whole new, you know, sort of development in both the service and generally technology that enables this new type of transportation service. And so the m. T. A. Board in july passed Guiding Principles for emerging Mobility Services and technologies to help to create a framework to understand how to engage with these new types of services and technologies. We have 10 principles under this framework and ive called out disability access, that is one of our Guiding Principles and so as we interact with and relate to emerging Mobility Services, we have a clear set of Guiding Principles where we can signal this is whats important to the sfmta and important to note the San Francisco Transportation Authority also adopted the same set of Guiding Principles so that the major transportation agencies in the city are aligned on this. And recently the m. T. A. Board approved a permit program for private transit vehicles, back in the day we used to call these jitnise and we call them private transit services, and chariot is a service that is privately operated but open to the public for a single fare and generally run along a single along a route, a set route. And weve established some program goals, safety, disability access, data availability, and minimizing impacts on transit. And one of the so the whole permit program was approved by the m. T. A. Board in october and theres one piece that were still working on and that is establishing the metrics for the last bullet point, how do we ensure that this service doesnt overly impact the service and how do we minimize the impacts so were working on a memo to establish an assurance that the services dont duplicate the service. And were going to be holding an open meeting on this later in december and i can let you know if anyone is interested in getting in the weeds and giving feedback on that conversation, on that topic, that were happy to invite you all and let you know when that is happening. I think that were done for now. And were happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Im going to open up to council and ask for your questions to be brief because we still have one more presentation. And we also have public comments. So Council Member alex madrid has a quick question. Thank you. I have two questions for you guys. Thank you for coming. And one question is for San Francisco f. D. A. , and those in charge of transit and the taxis and the question on have you guys had residencer vaigdzs instead of the day before reservations . Thats a good question in that we try to make those Sameday Services available through the taxi program. And, you know, prior back in the day we had some constraints on taxi service and who could get in immediately in the paratransit realm but we have lifted those and because the taxi Service Provides that ondemand Sameday Service we see that as filling that need. And the van service is prescheduled and so that they can develop routes. So lets say that im someone who has hired transit but the chair is not big enough for the taxi. What do you guys do with that . Going back to my question, how do you guys consider opening up the reservation specifically for transit vans for the same day reservation or oncall . Well, i think that is a question that we can bring back and as i mentioned earlier we typically consider the taxi service to provide that need, but im hearing from you in some cases, not everybody can use the taxi service. And so i think that could be looked at, again, the service, the way that the service works, it operates under different constraints and so its a little bit more challenging on the van service. But that is something that we can certainly look at again. Thank you. Next Council Member, co chair jim blackston, a question . I am blind and have a guide dog, a service animal. Have you reached out to people like me in the disabled community who have Service Animals and can you tell us about that . In terms of access to taxi service or paratransit . Yes, yes. Yeah, i would say that we have an ongoing relationship with the Blind Community and have representatives on our Paratransit Coordinating Council and have specific requirements related to Service Animals and so, yeah, thats something that has been folded into our program from the beginning. Now if youre talking about uber and lyft thats a different conversation but we dont have jurisdiction over uber and lyft. Certainly on the paratransit side, yes. Thats great because theres situations where on the taxi service we have been denied and i wont go into that, its an ongoing problem. Well, and what i would say is that i encourage everybody to if you have an issue on taxis call 311 and report it and we investigate every single complaint that comes into the office. So please do let us know. Thanks. Council member sally macdonald. I have im wondering if you can give background, if the city is responsible for taxis and private transit vehicles and buses, how did the t. N. C. S escape that . Why are the t. N. C. S under only state jurisdiction . Thats a good question and i asked myself that almost every day. No, because because they the c. P. C. Asserted jurisdiction and that Service Crosses city boundaries. And then it fell under the c. P. U. C. And so, for example, back to the p. T. V. Service, if that service were to cross over into, sane are say another county or over the bay bridge it would not be in the jurisdiction anymore and so we have jurisdiction within our city boundaries in taxis, theres an exception for that but for the type of shuttle service. Okay, thank you, i just wondered if there was a rational reason. Counselor. Im wondering about the consumers who use the paratransit, and i know someone who was using the taxi service who had a doctors appointment in San Francisco and had to get just over the border of san mateo and so it was interesting where you run into complications when you have a onetime trip or theres something over a border that doesnt service a consumer and i wonder how you resolve issues like that if it just crosses the border . Oh, yeah, good question, thank you. The Paratransit Program is required to provide service that